Times Like These

_{I—I’m a one-way motorway. I’m the one that drives away. Then follows you back home.} 

_{I—I’m a street light shining. I’m a wild light blinding bright. Burning off alone.}

_{I—I’m a new day rising. I’m a brand new sky. To hang the stars upon tonight.}

_{But I—I’m a little divided. Do I stay or run away. And leave it all behind?}

_{It’s times like these you learn to live again. It’s times like these you give and give again. It’s times like these you learn to love again. It’s times like these time and time again.}  

 When Dave Grohl wrote the lyrics to “Times Like These” way back in 2002, following a terrible first recording session for the group’s album One By One.  Grohl stated he felt ‘like I wasn’t entirely myself.’ He had no direction, purpose or idea of what the future held for him and his beloved bandmates. The anthem that was created out of this sense of angst was a massive hit, both artistically and commercially. The album was scrapped and retooled around the strong direction of the single and the rest is history. The lyrics above are literally the entirety of the track. Simple, genuine and beautiful they seem to run more parallel and have become even more so metaphorically applicable to the current state of our country. So, what could be more appropriately ironic, fantastic and desperately needed than the Foo Fighters as the soundtrack to the celebration of hope, unity and truth. Oh, and add Dave Chappelle to that party too.                                                     

   Four years ago, after the election of an obese oompa-loompa we need not mention by name, Dave Chappelle hosted “Saturday Night Live” following that fateful fall Tuesday. There has not been a worst Tuesday since 9/11. Chappelle comforted us all with the notion that no matter what, we could always find commonality in humor, and this connected us as Americans more than any politician ever could in dividing us. Great artists do that. In the worst moments of our collective lives, it’s a song, a movie, a joke, that pull us through and ultimately out of those times. Enter Dave and Dave. Chappelle and Grohl will combine forces in a celebration that would make Rick James blush. Exactly four years following that disastrous day, we get to see the flip side of the coin. Yes, the divide is deep as are the wounds of racial segregation, a biblical pandemic and overall depression of a place we all used to be proud to call our home. The only thing we seemed to agree on is that there is something very wrong with our country.

     Red, Blue. Black, White. Rich, Poor. We have all bled the same blood these past years, no matter where you fall in the American spectrum. Unless you have sociopathic narcissistic racist tendencies, all the shit we have endured over these last years has affected us all as a people. The healing process begins Saturday night for America, in the city that this beautiful melting pot was created in, with two things we can all absolutely support unequivocally without a doubt.  That Dave Chappelle is fucking funny, and Dave Grohl fucking rocks. The rest is all downhill from there.

“Now this is not the end.

It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps,

the end of the beginning”— Winston Churchill.