Foo Fighters’ new album But Here We Are deals a lot with the death of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins, but the album also dedicates itself to Dave Grohl’s late mother, Virginia Hanlon Grohl, who died last August. She used to be a teacher, and she is a part of the subject of Foo Fighters’ new song “The Teacher”, the album’s forth pre-release single after “Rescued”, “Under You”, and “Show Me How”.
The 10-minute epic begins with a guitar solo beginning with a refrain repeating “Who’s at the door now?”. The chorus repeats questions such as “where will I wake up?”. Eventually the refrain chants “Wake up” several times; a possible allusion to Virginia being in a near death state. Every “wake up” is louder than the last, almost as if Dave is begging for the revival of his late mother. Dave Grohl talks about death itself when he mentions “one flame down, another born”, and there are more lyrics like this in the bridge.
The bridge starts off by saying “you showed me how to breathe, never showed me how to say goodbye. You showed me how to be, never showed me how to say goodbye.” These lyrics delve into the teacher aspect of the song; parents are teachers, and eventually they depart from the world. No one is ready for the day that their loved one’s pass, but they will know how to live on their own.
In the hook, the song continues this theme of breathing. It mentions “Try and make good with the air that’s left Countin’ every minute, livin’ breath by breath By breath, by breath, by breath By breath, by breath”. Eventually, we will live life to the last breath; this is something our teachers taught us. They taught us that life goes on. The outro ends repeating “goodbye” as if the protagonist of the song has passed on as well.
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