SONG OF THE DAY
“Times Like These” by Foo Fighters (One By One, Roswell/ RCA Records, 2003).
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “Times Like These” is the second single released from the Foo Fighters’ fourth album One by One. It was released on two main discs in 2003.
– The song is sometimes listed by its full original title, “Times Like These (One-Way Motorway)”.
– The lyric “I’m a new day rising” is a reference to the album New Day Rising by Hüsker Dü, one of Dave Grohl’s favorite groups.
– After the album version ended its run on the charts, a solo acoustic version of the song performed by Grohl was released and had some success on pop and adult contemporary radio.
– The entire band performed a version of the song with jazz pianist Chick Corea during the Grammy Awards in 2004.
– Glen Campbell recorded the song for his Meet Glen Campbell album in 2008.
– The song was used by George W. Bush for his 2004 re-election campaign without the band’s knowledge. When Grohl found out about it, it prompted him and the rest of the band to get more politically active, and they helped John Kerry’s campaign as a result.
– There are three music videos for the song, all of which were made available via the DVD release “Low/Times Like These”(2003):
(Version 1) Directed by Liam Lynch. The band is shown performing the song against changing backgrounds, consisting mainly of brightly colored kaleidoscopic forms similar to those found in music visualization, giving the video a psychedelic, hopeful, joyful mood. In the end, the backgrounds blink out to reveal that the band are performing against a greenscreen in a studio.
(Version 2) Directed by Marc Klasfeld. A girl wanders onto the bridge and eventually tosses her Game Boy Advance at them. Gradually, more and more people arrive at the bridge and start throwing other inanimate objects (including appliances, instruments, and furniture) behind and around the oblivious band members. The items never hit any of them, though they come close, and the motivations and intentions of the people are never made clear. Two cars are then simultaneously dropped off the bridge and behind the band, resulting in clouds of smoke and fire. This is followed by an entire house (only with walls and roof) being dropped onto the band by a crane, and the walls falling onto the ground without anyone getting hurt. Some of the extras featured in the video were fans selected through the band’s official web site.
(Version 3) A music video was produced for the acoustic version. It consists solely of clips of Grohl recording the song’s vocal, guitar, and piano tracks in the studio. It was co-directed by Grohl and Bill Yukich. It has only been made officially available through this release.
VIDEO OF THE DAY
And here’s the studio version: