Monday Music "Learn to Fly" by the Foo Fighters

This song was one of the first songs I ever did with my "Monday Music" back in early 2012 and back then I did no background on the band or the video.  I always liked the music of the Foo Fighters, and this song came out and the video was hilarious!  I was surprised when I was doing my research on Nirvana a couple of weeks ago that Dave Grohl was part of Nirvana and I though it was funny in a ironic way that Dave felt totally intimidated by Kurt and his musical abilities.  Imagine if Dave and Kurt had written music together how awesome it would have been, or on the flipside with Kurt passing on it gave Dave a chance to shine, funny how life rolls.   I took a mini-break during the Thanksgiving Holiday to digitally detox as they say. 

Foo Fighters is an American rock band, formed in Seattle, Washington in 1994. It was founded by Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a one-man project following the death of Kurt Cobain and the resulting dissolution of his previous band. The group got its name from the UFOs and various aerial phenomena that were reported by Allied aircraft pilots in World War II, which were known collectively as foo fighters

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl joined the grunge group Nirvana as its drummer in 1990. During tours, he took a guitar with him and wrote songs. Grohl held back these songs from the rest of the band; he said in 1997, "I was in awe of [frontman Kurt Cobain's songs], and [I was] intimidated. I thought it was best that I kept my songs to myself."

Foo Fighters has been described as alternative rock, post-grunge and hard rock. When Grohl first started the band, its music was often compared to that of his previous group, Nirvana. Grohl acknowledged that Nirvana singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain was a major influence on his songwriting. Grohl said, "Through Kurt, I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that's stripped down". Foo Fighters also utilized the technique of shifting between quiet verses and loud choruses, which Grohl said was influenced by the members of Nirvana "liking The Knack, Bay City Rollers, Beatles, and ABBA as much as we liked Flipper and Black Flag, I suppose". Writing and recording songs for the first Foo Fighters album by himself, Grohl wrote the guitar riffs to be as rhythmic as possible. He approached the guitar in a similar manner to his playing a drumkit, assigning different drum parts to different strings on the instrument. This allowed him to piece together songs easily; he said, "I could hear the song in my head before it was finished."

There Is Nothing Left to Lose is the third studio album by American rock band Foo Fighters, released November 2, 1999. The album marks the first appearance of drummer Taylor Hawkins, and is often seen as a departure from the band's previous work, showcasing a softer, more experimental sound. In a 2006 interview, Dave Grohl states that the album is "totally based on melody" and that it "might be his favorite album that they've ever done."

There Is Nothing Left to Lose won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 2001, marking the group's first ever Grammy Award. The band would go on to win the Grammy for Best Rock Album for three of their next four studio releases (One by One, Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace, and Wasting Light).

The music video for the song was directed by Jesse Peretz and won the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.
The music video for the song takes place on an commercial airliner, parodying the movie Airplane!, and by extension, the films Airport 1975 and its sequel Airport '77. Two airline mechanics (played by Jack Black and Kyle Gass from Tenacious D) smuggle and hide their narcotic known as "World Domination brand 'Erotic' Sleeping Powder" in the coffee-maker. This ends up incapacitating everyone who drinks the coffee. The take-off sequence, in addition to the crew members hiding ulterior criminal motives, are a near shot-by-shot homage to the film Airport '77. The band, having avoided the coffee (choosing liquor instead), mirroring Karen Black's role in Airport 1975, find themselves forced to land the plane. For the video, each band member (Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, and Taylor Hawkins) portrays himself as well as several other roles, including an FBI agent who arrests the two mechanics.