Dave Grohl has always had a far more eclectic taste in music than any rockstar before him. Though he may love to reference the same Led Zeppelin records that he grew up loving as a kid, Grohl was just as likely to make songs that were indebted to whatever he was listening to at the time, from cranking up the sounds of Prince and dancing along to any ABBA hit. While Grohl can keep himself entertained with any music, he admitted that he never gets tired of listening to this rock and roll classic.
Looking back on Grohl’s upbringing, his taste in music was much heavier than most of his peers. While he may have loved the sounds of classic rock and pop on the radio, the punk movement turned his world inside out when he heard it for the first time. By the time he had joined the hardcore punk icons Scream, Grohl would get the call to join the Seattle band Nirvana, which would turn his world and the rest of the rock scene upside down.
Throughout his time with Nirvana and Foo Fighters, Grohl has always tried to push the heaviness whenever he played. Even though there were a lot of distorted guitars and pummelling drums throughout every one of Grohl’s songs, his primary focus on every track was crafting the perfect melody behind the instruments.
As Grohl began writing his own songs, he found himself listening to everything that he could get his hands on. When writing albums like There is Nothing Left to Lose, Grohl even admitted to being addicted to 1970s AM radio rock a la 10cc, which informed the more optimistic sounds behind tracks like ‘Next Year’ and ‘Learn to Fly’.
Besides the radio rock favourites, Grohl would always return to the sounds of The Beatles. As he first started to work out his first chords on the guitar, Grohl was given an education when he acquired a Beatles songbook for the first time, eventually claiming that it is all a kid needs to learn how to write a good song.
Although Grohl has been known to wax poetic about the harsher songs in the band’s discography, like ‘Hey Bulldog’, he did have a special place in his heart for the Fab Four’s ballads. While he may have tried playing songs like ‘Blackbird’ in a live setting, the frontman admitted that no Beatles song affects him quite like ‘Julia’.
When speaking about The Beatles’ influence on him, Grohl considered John Lennon’s ode to his mother the one Beatles song that never gets old, saying, “If I could write just one song as beautiful as ‘Julia’, I would achieve my life’s goal. This song has such a soothing and healing quality to it. I could hear it a thousand times in a row, and it would draw me in every time. The guitar and vocals are so delicate and right – they’re celestial”.
Grohl wasn’t the only one who found Lennon’s heartbreaking ballad a favourite. As Nirvana were tracking the songs that would eventually become Nevermind, producer Butch Vig remembered Kurt Cobain attempting to play ‘Julia’ in between takes of the band’s acoustic material. While Grohl has written his fair share of songs that never get old, ‘Julia’ is still the benchmark that he strives to hit whenever he writes a ballad.
