Dave Grohl Speaks Out About Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love-Inspired Track

Dave Grohl hasn't tried to hide his distaste for Courtney Love over the years: In 2002, he and Krist Novoselic filed a legal motion compelling Kurt Cobain's widow to undergo a psychiatric evaluation as they all battled over the rights to unreleased Nirvana music (he also called her an "ugly fucking bitch" at a show). Now Grohl has spoken to the Guardian about "Let it Die," a new Foo Fighters song off the band's forthcoming Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace (out September 25; read our sneak peek here) that seems to address the former Nirvana drummer's feelings about Cobain's relationship with Love. The song contains the lyrics: "A simple man and his blushing bride / Intravenous, intertwined."

"[It's] a song that's written about feeling helpless to someone else's demise," he said. "I've seen people lose it all to drugs and heartbreak and death. It's happened more than once in my life, but the one that's most noted is Kurt. And there are a lot of people that I've been angry with in my life, but the one that's most noted is Courtney. So it's pretty obvious to me that those correlations are gonna pop up every now and again," he explained, laughing. "I still remain a little secretive about it all." Grohl was feeling equally secretive in 1995 when the Foo single "I'll Stick Around" included the lyrics "How could it be I'm the only one who sees your rehearsed insanity," a line many assumed was directed at Love, though Grohl denied it.

Still, Grohl says he's not haunted by the past and considers himself to be a glass-half-full kind of guy. "Those first couple of years of the Foo Fighters when I stood there singing songs and saw kids wearing Nirvana T-shirts, I looked at it as a good thing," the rocker explained. "Like it was almost support, for me. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life looking in the fucking rearview mirror and thinking about what could have happened or what should have happened, or how tragic the ending of the band was. I've always considered myself an optimist, I don't have a lot of regrets."

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Great Gatsby' Is a Crushing Disappointment
• 
  TV Why You Should Watch 'Happy Endings'
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter