One By One (Foo Fighters Album) - Composition

Composition

Upon its release, One by One was considered the band's heaviest album, as Grohl described the sound as a darker and more aggressive approach as opposed to the band's usual work. Grohl said that the album mainly focused on the energy of live performances, which he attributed to both the extensive touring preceding the compositions, and the short period during which the re-recordings were done. The frontman added that although the previous albums had songs which were never played live, the track listing on One by One was compared to a set list where he would play all songs every night. As the results of the early recording sessions had manager John Silva complimenting the songs that did not sound like the band's previous work, and suggesting Grohl to "stop trying to write hit singles and go back to being weird", the band decided to be more experimental in addition to writing music meant to be played in full arenas. The variety included moody songs such as "Have It All" and "Tired of You", the seven-minute "epic opus" album closer "Come Back", and the alternating dynamics of "Halo", which drew inspiration from Tom Petty, Cheap Trick and Guided by Voices. Grohl added that the sonority tried to blend dissonance and melody: "We figured we're gonna get mean, we're gonna get ugly. And then I end up putting this four-part harmony on it, and all of sudden it's beautiful. Like 'wait a second, it was supposed to be gross, and now it's gorgeous'."

While in previous records Grohl tried to not get introspective in his lyrics, for One by One he found himself writing lyrics that matched the "emotional level we were hinting with the music", such as "Come Back", with words "revealing all these dark, shitty sides of myself". The lyrics to a song were usually done after finishing the vocal track for another. Grohl described the tracklisting as "11 tortured love songs", with a major theme of "surrendering to yourself", and a sequencing that described the difficult beginnings of falling in love, and then the relief of feeling comfortable in love. A major inspiration was Grohl's new girlfriend Jordyn Blum, as well as the troubled times with the band, demonstrated in "Times Like These", which laments the absence of the Foo Fighters and ponders about their future.