OK, so earlier today, I started posting FfxSG 2025 graphics, after publishing an image of Spirit and then realising that I would quite like to go back to doing sets based on bands or singers (We look at BowieXSG as a prime example.) Now I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes, my concept pieces make no sense in relation to the actual artwork, and I have no doubt that some of these future pieces will stray off of the far and narrow. Still though, I have decided that this set will be a sort of, multimedia set, shall we say. In short, expect some artwork intersperced with stories of the band and how they have affected me over the now, 26 years that I have been listening to them.
About 2 hours ago I published a piece and in the description, I said how ESP&G was a very personal album to me, so, if you’ll indulge me for a few minutes, let me pull back the curtain.
Also, I say album, but it’s more the one song. But Honestly, which is track 11. Now not all of it relates to me on a personal level, but I suppose to a degree, it does.
“Don't take what I don't need
(Give me back my piece of mind)
Don't say what I don't mean
(Give me back my precious time)”
I was, in 2003, a married man, believe it or not, this ugly ass managed to snag a woman. I met her in 1998 and she was my first real girlfriend (Yes, I waited a long ass time, that’s what my looks get for ya) Suffice to say I was besotted, I spent every conceivable moment of my life with that woman. When you were a 16 year old boy who’d only really seen sex in porn videos, it made a lot of difference. Of course I’d had crushes before, I mean, who hasn’t? None of them reciprocated it because, let’s be fair here, the women on this fair site look like they were painted by Leo DaVinci, I look more like the works of Pablo Picasso. For a very self-conscious teenager, the fact that I’d finally been able to snag a girlfriend, meant all the world.
You’re wondering where Foo Fighters and that lyric quote comes in? Well, wait a little bit fuckin’ longer, dear reader. I meander through shit before I finally get to the point, OK?
We had a, what would you call it, whirlwind romance, we explored things together, she showed me sex for the first time (For the unitiated, she took my virginity.) We experienced joy together, we experienced tragedy together (My father died n 2000 and she was by my side.) and by the time 2003 rolled along, we’d been living together in a little flat for two years. Now, I’d like to say this was the perfect story, but, it fucking ain’t. By 2001, the cracks had started to show. She started to work in the same places that I worked, almost as if the insecurity had started to rear its ugly head. She was beginning to get a little too possessive. We were a couple through and through, but I didn’t realise just how toxic our companionship had started to become. I am not to say that she is solely at fault here, because I sure as fuck ain’t perfect. We’d perhaps developed too much of a symbiotic relationship together, where neither could function without the other.
I think, because we had both spent so much time together, perhaps through our own insecurities, that nothing was joyful anymore. The sex was just sex, the movies were just movies. I think we’d steadily began to despise our time together. It slowly came to a steady boil in 2002, when I met a new woman, a woman who seemed to be into me as much as I was into her. Spoiler: No I didn’t. I think I had many chances to cheat, but I didn’t.
Still, that new brunette beauty haunted me, and we’d both sent out signs to each other that this was something we’d both like to pursue (The other woman didn’t know I was attached, why didn’t I just tell her the fucking truth?) and in 2003, I made the decision to break it off with my girlfriend (Yes, the year I got married.) My girlfriend’s grandmother died and suddenly, the whole admission of not loving her anymore went to the back of my mind, I had to be there for her. I called off the whole “new girlfriend idea” and I got married (Spoiler alert, it wasn’t a shotgun wedding, we’d been engaged for a while.)
My mind was in a jumble, but I knew, in my heart, I needed to see this day through, so we were married, I still remember the date, May 24th 2003 because it was her birthday. It was an amazing ceremony and my brother gave an amazing speech about the kind of person he knew, the brother he knew. I got to reconcile with my other brother, who I had not spoken to since 2000, and who I still speak to to this day, once again, it seemed like the perfect fairytale, albeit with a sting.
Married in 2003, divorced in 2005.
What followed in those two years was, emasculation. Her parents and her teamed up against me at every fucking turn, belittling every little accomplishment I’d made, punishing me for every little “crime” I’d committed, but once again, I’d signed up for this, this was on me.
“What you up to now your mirror's gone?
Is there someone you should be?
Did you think I was just fooling 'round with you
But honestly.”
The mirror had cracked and finally I began to realise the mistake I had made. If I’d only been honest with myself and with her in 2003, I would have survived all this misery. But color me stupid, right?
She cheated on me, in 2005. It was all to be expected too. We’d decided, to inject some spice in our realtionship, to swing. I couldn’t find anyone, but she’d found someone. The divorce was quick, mostly because I didn’t want to cause any issue, I admitted to cheating, so that we wouldn’t have to pay out too much on the proceedings, and I walked away, fed up with all the sabotage, all the bullshit from her parents. Then the rumours started. This bitch had started to spread rumours that I used to beat her. Now anyone that knows me, knows I couldn’t beat a fucking egg! I feel like a session in coffessional is needed if I step on a fucking snail!
Some fucking fairytail, huh? Also, I suppose she needed a villain for her story.
She’s still married to the schmuck as far as I know, if I could shake a man’s hand, it’d be his. If he’s happy being her cuck, then I’m fine with that. In 2025, I am a far happier man than I have ever been, I have three beautiful children and I am in a very loving relationship. Now here’s, after all the little excerpts, where Foo Fighters come in, finally. Thanks for making it this far into my TED talk.
“I don't want one thing that I gave to you
I don't want one thing that I gave to you.”
In 2007, they released that album and this was one of the songs on it. Listening to that song gave me a catharsis that I had never experienced before. Dave Grohl and his band had somehow made a psychic connection to me and it is one we shall explore later.
-Leigh
