Music Monday: Remembering Taylor Hawkins

👋 Nate here. Our Music Monday playlist this week is a celebration of the life of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, who died of unknown causes this weekend at the age of 50.

• If you haven't already, I highly suggest you watch the gut-wrenching videos of Hawkins' final performance, including Dave Grohl introducing him to the adoring crowd, his vocal performance of "Somebody to Love" and his final bow.

🎸 Our Music Monday playlist features just a handful of my favorite Foo Fighters songs, as well Hawkins' favorite song, "Aurora."

Flashback: The Foo Fighters are not my all-time favorite band, but they were my favorite band at a very important time in my life. "The Colour and the Shape" came out before my senior year of high school and became the perfect soundtrack for that carefree, naive, happy, anxious time.

• I wasn't like a Deadhead, following the band around the world or anything, but I saw The Foo Fighters play about five times in those few years. (Perhaps some of my fellow oldies remember their Nashville River Stages set in 2004?)
• The Foo Fighters did fun, loud stadium rock music as well as anybody, and Hawkins' live performances were the main reason why. He was a whirling dervish of thrashing blonde hair and a smile you didn't need a Jumbotron to see from the back row.
• Even while playing behind one of the world's most renowned lead singers, Hawkins was the heart of the band.

The bottom line: Hawkins' death hit me particularly hard because it reminded me of a simpler time, when there was nowhere I'd rather be than in the crowd at a Foo Fighters show watching him raise hell.

• And his death was even more painful because I remember how I used to idolize rock stars and dream naively about the future, when the thought of dying young seemed utterly impossible.