10 Perfect Rock Songs Written At The Last Second

During the touring cycle for In Your Honor, Dave Grohl had talked about feeling like the Foo Fighters had two distinct personalities, with half of their fans loving the rock show that they put on in stadiums and than having another life as a theater act that played some of their more downtempo material. You can do them both together though, and Echoes Silence Patience and Grace was the first attempt the band made to bring the heavy and the gentle sides of their sound together. When it came time to choose singles though, the band came up with a song simply out of boredom.

Written while their producer was out on vacation, Dave had put together a song that had a little bit of a strange time signature, never falling squarely in 4/4 and always dipping in and out of time. When he brought it into the rest of the band though, the Pretender became the real face behind the entire record, having all of the textures that the band had been working towards, with the soft mellow opening of the song giving way to a heavy guitar lick.

Dave may have been concerned about alienating his fanbase by going soft on a few songs, but this wasn't about the Foos branching out into monster ballad territory by any stretch. This was still the same band that made songs like Everlong, and it's the marriage of both the light and dark that helped them go from the clubs of Seattle to arenas around the world.