About Times Like These

The video for a star-studded cover of Foo Fighters‘ ‘Times Like These’ has been revealed, which sees Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins joining an array of artists dubbed the ‘Live Lounge Allstars’. On what was billed as “the biggest ever Live Lounge”, the BBC Radio 1 cover sees the likes of Dua Lipa, Coldplay‘s Chris Martin, Bastille, Ellie Goulding, Sam Fender, Royal Blood and many more gathering in their homes to cover the Foos classic.

The lyrics discuss how Dave Grohl felt "like I wasn't entirely myself" during the three-month hiatus the Foo Fighters entered following the tense and unsatisfying first recording sessions for One by One, as well as his uncertaintity about the future of the band. The lyric "I'm a new day rising" is a reference to the album New Day Rising by Hüsker Dü, one of Grohl's favorite groups. "Times Like These" is in D Mixolydian mode and the section that begins at 0:13 is in 7/4 time. The chorus of the song is also grouped in bars of 3 rather than the regular bars of 4. Somewhat unusually, the song intro starts in 8/4 time for 4 bars, then switches to 7/4 for 8 bars and then 6 bars of 8/4 again before leading into the first verse, which is also in 8/4. It is set at 145 BPM. 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 but generally it enjoyed great success on rock and alternative radio just like the original electric version.