Foo Fighters – My Hero

"You’re no-one in music until you have feuded with me or until you sleep with Winona." Courtney Love.


In 1997 Dave Grohl realised that, although he’d done plenty of the first, he had egregiously neglected to do the second. So it was out with Louise ‘Veruca Salt’ Post and in with 'Noni'.

Ryder’s list of rockstar boyfriends reads like a list of everyone who’s picked up, or even looked at, a guitar in the last 20 years (including, but not limited to, Ryan Adams, Evan Dando, Dave Pirner, Adam Duritz, Jay Kay, Jakob Dylan, Conor Oberst, Eric Schrody, Jack White, Paul Westerburg, Pete Yorn and a partridge in a pear tree – that’s not even starting on the actors). In fact, if you laid all Winona’s exes end to end you’d have wasted a huge amount of time on an essentially pointless exercise. There’s no doubting she’s had a lot of stick (no sniggering at the back) for her long list of beaus but it’s no mystery why arty, sensitive boys are attracted to her.

As well as his split with Post, 1997 also saw Grohl split with two of his band members: drummer William Goldsmith and guitarist Pat Smear. Replacements were found in the shape of Taylor Hawkwind (off of of The Alanis Morissette Band) and Franz Stahl (a former bandmate of Grohl’s from the pre-Nirvana Scream).

The focus of My Hero, from The Foo Fighters second album The Colour and The Shape, is the subject of much discussion. According to Grohl himself the song is, “my way of saying that when I was young, I didn't have big rock heroes, I didn't want to grow up and be some big sporting hero. My heroes were ordinary people and the people that I have a lot of respect for are just solid, everyday people - people that you can rely on." However, with lyrics like, “Don't the best of them bleed it out/While the rest of them peter out,” it was inevitable that many people would see the song as a tribute to Kurt Cobain. Grohl muddies the water further by often dedicating the song to Jim Craig (an ice hockey goalie who helped the USA win the 1980 Olympic gold).


Foo Fighters – My Hero

Buy The Colour And The Shape

Watch a rather fine acoustic version of My Hero