Everlong
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Everlong" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Single by Foo Fighters | ||
| from the album The Colour And The Shape | ||
| Released | 1997 | |
| Format | CD | |
| Recorded | ? | |
| Genre | Alternative rock | |
| Label | Roswell/Capitol | |
| Producer(s) | Gil Norton | |
| Foo Fighters singles chronology | ||
| "Monkey Wrench" (1997) |
"Everlong" (1997) |
"My Hero" (1998) |
| Alternative cover | ||
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| (CD2) | ||
"Everlong" was the second release single from the Foo Fighters' second album The Colour and the Shape. It was released on 2 main discs in 1997. It is regarded by many fans as one of the band's best songs.
- Ranked #45 in Kerrang! magazine's "100 Greatest Rock Tracks Ever" (1999)
- Ranked #39 in Kerrang! magazine's "100 Greatest Singles of All Time" (2002) (Although it must be noted that the magazine's editor complained about the song's position, claiming it to be "The best track ever to be imprinted onto plastic")
David Letterman has named "Everlong" to be his favorite song. It was performed by the Foo Fighters on the 21 February 2000 episode of The Late Show with David Letterman, his first since returning from heart surgery. Letterman introduced them as "my favorite band, playing my favorite song."
In sitcom Friends, an acoustic version of "Everlong" is played as exit music for Chandler and Monica's wedding.
Dave Grohl has stated in Kerrang! that Louise Post of Veruca Salt was his muse for the song. Both dated for an undisclosed amount of time.
In 2005, Bronson Arroyo included a cover of "Everlong" on his album, Covering the Bases. It featured Stephen King reading a passage (presumably written for the song itself) during the song's breakdown.
Contents |
[edit] Video
The video is directed by visionary director Michel Gondry and parodies the likes of great horror b-movies such as The Evil Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
[edit] The first scene
It starts with a shot with two burglars (played by Pat Smear and Nate Mendel) heading for a house and with a view of the inside of the house with pictures of a happy couple all over the walls (respectively played by Dave Grohl as the husband and Taylor Hawkins, impersonating the wife) and ends up in the bedroom with the couple sleeping in bed. From then on, we enter the dreams of the husband and the wife.
[edit] The first dream
This dream takes place in a party in which the husband saves his wife from two ill-intentioned characters, beating them up with his right hand which swells as he gets angry. The two "bad guys" disappear. The couple proceeds to a room with a giant phone with an obviously deafening ringing. The husband tries to pull up the giant receiver and then wakes up with a start, realizing that what he hears is in fact his phone (in the bedroom). He answers and we realize that his wife is on the phone as he turns to her with a worried look on his face.
The viewer understands, by the outdated outfits of both the husband and wife and the extras, that the husband is actually reenacting one if his recollection through this dream, probably the first time they met (thus playing with the cliché of the rescued woman falling in love with her saviour).
[edit] The second dream
The wife is sitting in an old house lost in a dark forest when she is threatened by the same two evil characters seen in the first dream, while her husband is gathering wood logs outside the house. The scared wife gives a phone call to someone who proves to be her husband in reality. It ends up with the previous scene of the husband answering the phone call.
[edit] The interlude dream
The husband then intentionally falls asleep again to rescue his wife once again. But he finds himself laying in bed with several women who have their legs spread over him. The legs prove to be the logs he was picking up in the second dream. He has managed to enter his wife's dream.
[edit] Continuation of the second dream
The husband runs to the house and saves his wife once again from the two evil characters whom they throw unconscious into a small pond.
[edit] The final scene
In this scene we see the two evil characters (who prove to be the two burglars of the first scene) standing by the side of the couple's bed in reality. Then the group members come out from there guises with their instruments and finally we see the whole band playing in the bedroom.
[edit] The narrative technique
The way the dreams are told is somewhat original because these dreams are seen one after the other while they are actually dreamt simultaneously (a technique which Jean Genet possibly used in his play The Balcony.) The scene with the husband answering the phone is used as a fulcrum between the two dreams.
[edit] The nature of the different characters
The girl in the first dream can only be a production of the husband's mind because she's part of a recollection and also because she hears the giant phone like her husband while it's the actual wife who is calling. But if we take the hypothesis that the two dreams are simultaneous for granted, it means that the husband is acting in both dreams at the same time (being in the party and collecting wood logs). It only makes sense if he too is produced by another mind (his wife's) and then joining her in a single dream (hers).
[edit] Possible interpretations
The whole video can be related to the one verse of the song which says : "And I wonder/(...)/If everything could ever feel this real forever/If anything could ever be this good again" as the couple's happiness seems to be endangered by the two evil characters. The two evil characters can thus be regarded as a metaphor of the trouble the couple has to face as they appear unchanged in the different dreams and seem impossible to do away with.
The song can also be interpreted as a couple meeting while on LSD. The girl is having a bad trip so the guy tries to calm her down, and as he does they seduce each other into something that feels like love, and they want it to last forever. The mood is sad because they both know at the end of the trip it won't be the same.
The line "Breathe out, so I can breathe you in... hold you in..." may be interpreted as a reference to smoking marijuana, as one commonly holds the inhaled smoke in their lungs.
[edit] Track listing
CD1:
- "Everlong"
- "Drive Me Wild"
- "See You (Live Manchester Apollo 25th May 1997)"
CD2:
- "Everlong"
- "Requiem" (Killing Joke cover)
- "I'll Stick Around (Live Manchester Apollo 25th May 1997)"
[edit] Chart positions
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Official UK Singles Chart | No. 18 |
| 1997 | Modern Rock Tracks (US) | No. 3 |
| 1997 | Mainstream Rock Tracks (US) | No. 4 |
| 1998 | Official New Zealand Singles Chart | No. 34 |
| 1998 | Official Euro Hot 100 Singles Chart | No. 36 |
| Foo Fighters |
| Dave Grohl | Taylor Hawkins | Nate Mendel | Chris Shiflett |
| William Goldsmith | Pat Smear | Franz Stahl |
| Discography |
|---|
| EPs Five Songs and a Cover |
| Albums Foo Fighters | The Colour and the Shape | There Is Nothing Left to Lose | One by One | In Your Honor | Skin and Bones |
| Related Bands |
| Nirvana | Sunny Day Real Estate | The Germs | Scream |
