My Favourite Song of 2023.

Led Zeppelin called it quits, two months after the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980. As a long time fan, I wondered if Dave Grohl would dismantle his beloved Foo Fighters after drummer and best friend Taylor Hawkins sudden death in 2022. Then, a few months later Grohl’s mother, Virginia, died. It put Grohl and the future of Foo Fighters at a cross road. Sometimes grief can consume you and other times it can make you do things you can’t explain, which makes Grohl’s decison to come back to music even more extraordinary. Yes, it’s true Grohl has found himself in this position once before. 1993. Nirvana. Kurt Cobain. Need I say more? But this seemed different. He dug deeper in his emotional reservoir to pull through, especially finding solace in writing a bunch of new songs. To cut a long story short, not only did the Foo Fighters come back, they came back with a vengeance in 2023. 

Their eleventh studio album But Here We Are is the best thing they have done in recent years. No seriously! It’s a f#%king return to form which I’m almost lost to explain. Some say 2011’s Wasting Light was arguably the Foos last great album. It was talked about as a reset of sorts. More recently Medicine At Midnight (which I really liked) was an admirable and to some degree an ambitious record which saw them shake it up a little. But there no doubt in my mind that But Here We Are is a late career statement, which will sit easily right next to Echoes, Silence, Patience a & Grace (2007) and The Colour and the Shape (1997) as one of the Foos very best albums. 

We can all relate to the anguish and or heartache musicians occasionally go through. Which is why But Here We Are has found an audience. Of course, it helps if the music is rousing, hook-laden and anthemic too, something we expect (but not always) from Foo Fighters. Grohl’s search for catharsis on this new album is a balancing act. He wants us to feel his pain, but he also wants us to know things will get better on the other side of grief. How does he do that? By honouring those he loved.   

A great deal of the album aches with loss. It conjures up some serious emotions. It’s also a work haunted by thoughts of mortality, particularly Grohl’s. But as I said earlier it’s a cathartic journey (track-by-track) which leads us through roller coast of ups and downs, grief and healing. To ask me to choose one song which captures the raw emotions (and energy) of But Here We Are is like asking a parent who is their favourite child. It isn’t cool. We’ll lie through our teeth and deny it. But I thought about it a little and concluded that not only is the emotionally-charged The Teacher, one of the most memorable songs on But We We Are, but it stands as my favourite song of 2023.

The Teacher is the penultimate track on the album, a ten-minute tribute to Grohl’s mother, who inspired her son, dare I say it, to greatness. Indeed the track is a testament of the raw brilliance of Grohl. It’s epic! It’s not the first time he has attempted something like this. His huge 23-minutes instrumental Play showed us that Grohl isn’t frightened of creating a chaotic sonic journey that challenges our understanding of traditional song structures. The Teacher is similar in execution. But I read somewhere it described as episodic. Whatever the case may be, The Teacher never writhers beneath the weight of expectation or its subject matter.

There really is something special about this song. It opens with what some may call an understated guitar intro. But it only goes on to serve Grohl’s reflective mood as he sings: 

“Who’s at the door now? / Sun goes down, windows wide / One step closer to the other side / I can feel what others do / Can’t stop this if I wanted to.”

Then without warning after slowly building for almost a minute and a half, it explodes into a feverish tempo of shedding guitar and drums, in which Grohl sits behind the kit for the first time since 2005. Interestingly, here the mood changes lyrically as if it’s finally time to keep moving forward.

“Hurry now boy, time won’t wait / The here and the now will separate / There are some things you cannot choose / Soul and spirit moving through.”

But like all anthemic epics, The Teacher ebbs and flows, eventually returning to a pensive Grohl seemingly addressing his mum with:

“You showed me how to breathe, but never showed me how to say goodbye / You showed me how to be, but never showed me how to say goodbye / Every page turns, it’s a lesson learned in time / You showed me how to need, but never showed me how to say goodbye.”

A few bars pass by, before the same verse is repeated, replacing the words ‘breathe’ with ‘need’ and ‘be’ with ‘grieve’. It feels very heart felt and is repeated in a cycle. Moreover it reflects the cathartic nature of the song.

I can only imagine how losing a loved one can make you feel. Some say it’s likened to having the rug swept from underneath you. This is what The Teacher feels like with its heart-wrenching and impassioned lyrics. Then when the final crescendo comes around Grohl is ready to “let go”. He repeatedly screams GOODBYE seeking release from his anguish before cutting to silence. 

The Teacher without a doubt is one of Grohl’s most personal and introspective tracks. Just the simple refrain of Grohl screaming goodbye reminds me of the power of music to connect us to our deepest emotions. That is why The Teacher is my favourite song of 2023.