Best of You

Featured tunes in this post: "Best of You" by Foo Fighters and "Between the Wheels" by Rush.

Best of You - "Has someone taken your faith/It's real, the pain you feel/Your trust/You must confess/Is someone getting the best of you?"

I've always admired people who can excel at more than one thing. My fantasy dinner party guests would be Leonardo daVinci (inventor, juggler, artist), Isaac Newton (physicist, inventor of calculus), Thomas Jefferson (farmer, politician, university founder), and Alan Turing (mathematician, definer of the modern computer, cryptographer - led the British team who cracked the German Enigma code in WWII).

I guess that explains my man-crush on Dave Grohl. He first became known as the drummer for Nirvana. In that role, he proved to be one of the best hard rock drummers ever, laying the foundation for the band's sound. Further proof of his drumming ability: he played drums for Queens of the Stone Age on their best CD, Songs For the Deaf, and he recently played drums for Paul McCartney on the Grammy's.

After his run with Nirvana, he formed Foo Fighters. On the "band's" excellent debut CD, he wrote every song, sang every track, and played every instrument. That's truly a solo tour de force. He put together the band, after the CD was released, in order to play live. Since that time, Dave has been the front-man of the band, playing guitar and singing lead on all but one song (drummer Taylor Hawkins sings "Cold Day In the Sun"), and Foo Fighters have put out 5 more studio CDs, and a live acoustic CD. They've won a Grammy, and had one of their songs, "Best of You", played by Prince during his Super Bowl halftime performance.

I can't think of any other musician who has done something quite like that - moving from drummer to guitarist/lead singer. Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page both started with the Yardbirds and moved onto bigger bands (Cream and Led Zeppelin), and, of course, Clapton has had a long and distinguished solo career. But neither of them changed instruments mid-career. Sting was the front-man and bassist of The Police. He went on to a very successful solo career, playing a lot of guitar, along with the bass. But that's not as big a change as going from drums to guitar.

Between the Wheels - "We can go from boom to bust/From dreams to a bowl of dust/We can fall from rockets' red glare/Down to 'Brother can you spare...'/Another war, another waste land and another lost generation"

As I remember them, and maybe I just wasn't as aware as I could have been, the 1980's were a darn good decade. The economy was in pretty good shape for the most part. We weren't involved in any wars - you can't really count Grenada as a war. That makes it strange that Rush's "Grace Under Pressure", released in 1984, took such a dim view of the world. Maybe 1984 wasn't as removed from Vietnam as it seems now that it must have been. Or maybe it was the ever-present threat of the Cold War. However, the CD seems more apropos to our current time. In particular, the lyrics quoted above seem ominously descriptive of the current situation in America - facing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression and fighting wars in two far-flung foreign countries.

• Because - The Beatles
• Because of Me - Seether
• Because of You - Nickelback
• Been a Son - Nirvana
• Before Tomorrow Comes - Alter Bridge
• Begin - Ben Lee
• Begin - Toad the Wet Sprocket
• Begin the Begin - R.E.M. : "Birdie in the hand for life's rich demand/The insurgency began and we missed it."
• Beginnings - Chicago
• Behind My Camel - The Police
• Behind the Wall of Sleep - The Smithereens : "Well she held a bass guitar and she was playing in a band/And she stood just like Bill Wyman/Now I am her biggest fan"
• Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! - The Beatles : What a weird song.
  
• Belief - Gavin DeGraw
• Belief - John Mayer
• Believe - The Bravery
• Believe It or Not - Nickelback
• Belle - Jack Johnson
• Belong - R.E.M.
• Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning) - Vertical Horizon
• Best of You - Foo Fighters
• Better Life - 3 Doors Down
• Better Man - Pearl Jam
• A Better Place - Army of Anyone
• Better Than It Was - Fastball
• Better That We Break - Maroon 5
• Better Together - Jack Johnson
• Better When You're Not There - Vertical Horizon
• Between Sun and Moon - Rush
• Between the Wheels - Rush

Back to back songs by the same artist, and, for the first time, it's not The Beatles.

• Beverly Hills - Weezer : Delicious irony and sarcasm in this tune, with a bunch of rich musicians poking fun at the rich, spoiled people in Beverly Hills.
  
• Beware! Criminal - Incubus
• Beyond the Gray Sky - 311
• Beyond the Sea - Duncan Sheik
• Bi-Polar Bear - Stone Temple Pilots
  
• Bicycle Race - Queen
• Big Dog - Lyle Lovett
• Big Easy - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
• Big Empty - Stone Temple Pilots : "Time to take her home/Her dizzy head is conscience-laden". Those are some of my favorite lyrics ever.
  
• A Big Hunk O' Love - Elvis Presley
• Big Me - Foo Fighters
• The Big Money - Rush
  
• Big Time - Peter Gabriel
• The Big Wheel - Rush
• Bigger Than My Body - John Mayer
• Bigot Sunshine - Tonic
• Binky the Doormat - R.E.M.
• Bird On a Wire - Johnny Cash
• Birthday - Taproot
• Bits and Pieces - The Dave Clark Five
• Bitter - 12 Stones
• Bitter Tears - INXS
• Bittersweet - Fuel
• Bittersweet Me - R.E.M.
  

Summary:
Listened to 53 songs
Skipped 2 (Live acoustic versions of "Best of You" and "Big Me")
1 instrumental ("Behind My Camel")
3 start with Because, 4 with Begin, 7 Betters, but only 2 Bests, 10 Bigs (if you count Bigot), 4 Bitter

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Now playing: Foo Fighters - Best of You
via FoxyTunes