When Foo Fighters got together to record their fourth album One By One in 2002 they were going through a rocky patch. The album sessions were turbulent and troubled, and what they came up with was considered unsatisfying. The situation caused tensions between the band members. Ultimately, the recordings felt unsatisfying, and frontman Dave Grohl eventually called time and stopped them.
What went wrong?
The early 2000s had been busy for the band, promoting their previous album There Is Nothing Left To Lose throughout 2000 and 2001. After a stint of European festivals which culminated in the V Festival in England in August 2001, drummer Taylor Hawkins suffered a heroin overdose that left him in a coma for two weeks. After taking time off to recover, Dave Grohl accepted an offer to play drums for the Queens of the Stone Age album Songs For the Deaf. This move would later turn out to have created uncertainty and friction between Grohl and the other band members.
The Foo’s got back together in October 2001 to get what material they had for their next album together. Initially working at Grohl’s Studio 606, at the time located in Virginia, the sessions became stale after six weeks. With six tracks finished, they moved to Los Angeles’ Conway Studios in January 2002 for a change of scenery. 29 further songs were recorded, and they got as far as choosing ten finished tracks for the upcoming album.
There was a nagging feeling though. The recordings missed the spark that they should have. The band wasn’t gelling. There had been moods and tensions throughout. Hawkins said that nobody had their studio chops together, and Grohl felt that the band lacked enthusiasm and were too focused on production, lacking the energy and power that the playing should have. He later commented that he felt the rough mixes “sucked a lot of the life out of the songs” and “sounded like another band playing our songs.” Arguments would break out in the studio, and Hawkins said he “didn’t feel we were much of a band” as there was so much animosity among the bandmembers. Bassist Nate Mendel said that he was in a bad attitude during the sessions due to disagreements with Grohl, and guitarist Chris Schiflett added that he felt he would at times spend whole days in the studio without playing anything. The final songs were felt to sound like million dollar demos rather than a finished product, and Grohl was very hesitant to put out something he lacked confidence in.
In April 2002, the band discarded the recordings and took a break. This was an unofficial hiatus which lasted for three months. Things were uncertain during that time. Although a bit of a break was needed, nobody knew how long the break would be for. Grohl was wondering whether he wanted to bring the band back at all.
During this time, Grohl came up with the basic idea for Times Like These. The song reflects how he felt at the time, which was ‘scared but hopeful’ and ‘like I wasn’t entirely myself’. The idea came in a hurry, and he initially wrote it down on a napkin.
The band hadn’t parted ways under the best of circumstances, but Grohl had started to realize that he missed his bandmates. As can be seen by the lyrics, he had reached a point where he also started to appreciate them and subsequently, by being true to his heart, had experienced his own newfound appreciation for life and interpersonal relationships.
Grohl described the song as being about “hope and love and compassion”. And it was ‘times like those’, i.e. being away from his friends, that made him personally re-manifest those emotions to a higher degree.
I, I’m a one way motorway
I’m the one that drives away, follows you back home
I, I’m a street light shining
I’m a white light blinding bright, burning off and on
It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again
The song finds Dave Grohl at a crossroads, but confident he will find the right path. The initial One by One sessions had been a slog, and made him question the band’s future:
I am a little divided
Do I stay or run away
And leave it all behind?
Eventually he assures himself that these trials are for the best, as he will emerge stronger:
It’s times like these you learn to live again
“The lyrics are about hope and love and compassion,” Grohl stated. “They discuss how I felt like I wasn’t entirely myself.”
A young Nick Raskulinecz produced the song. He had been the engineer for the initial album sessions, and his enthusiasm had at times smoothed things over and been a contributing factor to things moving on. The fact that he ended up producing the final sessions was a bit random, though.
Grohl explained during an episode of Essentials Radio that he recruited the wrong Nick. He had intended to call former Queens of the Stone Age bassist Nick Oliveri to produce the song, but dialled the wrong number in his list of contacts and accidentally contacted Raskulinecz instead. “I knew him from Sound City, he’s a great engineer” said Grohl of Raskulinecz. “He had worked at that studio for years.” Rather than admit he’d been looking for a different Nick, Grohl went ahead and asked him to helm Times Like These. Raskulinecz eventually co-produced the One By One album and has since worked with the likes of Rush, Alice in Chains, Evanescence, Korn, and Halestorm.
Dave Grohl was immensely proud of Times Like These. At the time, he called it “The best song I’ve ever written.” The rousing track became a live favourite for the band, and one of five songs in their set when they performed at the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium in London, to a crowd of about 80,000.
The break and eventual reconnect the band went through did the final results a world of good. The One By One album was released on 22 October 2002, debuting at #3 on the US Billboard chart. It would become Foo Fighters’ first #1 album in UK and Ireland, being a high charter in a number of countries worldwide. It was also awarded with a Grammy for Best Rock Album.
Times Like These was released as the second single from the album on 14 January 2003. It did not perform as highly in the charts as the first single All My Life, but over time it has eclipsed most Foo Fighters songs as more and more people picked up on it as an anthem for healing and growing. It also got a new life in the era of the pandemic and social isolation – more on that in a short bit.
After the single ended its run on the charts, a solo acoustic version of the song performed by Grohl was released. This had some success on pop and adult contemporary radio, but generally it enjoyed great success on rock and alternative radio just like the original electric version. It seemed to take on a much more poignant meaning when performed in this manner, whereas the original is much more high energy and a different type of rock anthem.
There are three official music videos to this song. The first one to be put out was the so-called “UK version” directed by Liam Lynch. The second “US version” was helmed by Marc Klasfeld and filmed in California at the Mojave River Bridge. This is the usual go-to clip for the song. The third video was filmed several years later, and is an acoustic performance featuring Grohl by himself. Grohl directed that particular visual alongside Bill Yukich.
Fast forward to 2020. Covid-19 has changed the way everybody live their lives. In order to give people encouragement and help them through difficult times, BBC Radio 1 organised an online event called Live Lounge. They chose Times Like These as the song to rally around, recording a new version of it in the process. A long list of artists contributed parts from their homes, including the Foo Fighters, and it was released as a charity single. Released on 23 April 2020, that version of the song went to UK #1.
The song was a perfect choice for the occasion. The words seemed to have been written for the Covid times:
It’s times like these you learn to live again
It’s times like these you give and give again
It’s times like these you learn to love again
It’s times like these time and time again
Following this, the band laid out a thesis statement for Times Like These, writing: “Undaunted, we did what so many others have done throughout the collective pause and made the most of silence, sitting down together and using this time for contemplation, growth, and an honest assessment of who we are as seen through the lens of who we’ve been; the bad fashion decisions, questionable facial hair, and, to be fair, a pretty respectable collection of guitars.”
Even more recently, Foo Fighters performed the song during a Celebrating America concert special in honour of Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th President of the United States. After being introduced by Mackenzie Adams, a Washington elementary school teacher, Dave Grohl cited the lessons he learned from his teacher mom and from Dr. Jill Biden, before dedicating the song to America’s educators. “This year our teachers were faced with unprecedented challenges, but through dedication and creativity, they faced those challenges head on. So this next song is for Mackenzie and all of our unshakable teachers that enlighten our nation’s kids every day.”
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