"Best of You" is a song by American alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band Foo Fighters, and the first single released from the band's fifth studio album, In Your Honor

In Your Honor

In Your Honor is the fifth studio album by Foo Fighters, released on June 14, 2005 on BMG. It consists of two discs. The first contains up beat rock songs and the second disc contains mellower acoustic songs.-Development:...

. Dave Grohl

Dave Grohl

David Eric "Dave" Grohl is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Foo Fighters; the former drummer for Nirvana and Scream; and the current drummer for Them Crooked Vultures...

 notes that the song was written following appearances at 2004 American presidential candidate John Kerry

John Kerry

John Forbes Kerry is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts, the 10th most senior U.S. Senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2004 presidential election, but lost to former President George W...

's campaign trail and is "about breaking away from the things that confine you." To date, it is the band's only single to reach Platinum

RIAA certification

In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...

 status in the US. The song holds the band's highest chart peaks in the US (#18), the UK (#4), and Australia (#5), and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Song

Grammy Award for Best Rock Song

The Grammy Award for Best Rock Song is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs in the rock music genre...

. The song won the Best Single award at the 2005 Kerrang! Awards. It also topped Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

's Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for four weeks and Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks. Following the band's performance at Live Earth

Live Earth

-Background:Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action...

, the song again entered the UK charts at #38.

Background

In an interview discussing the band's successful singles, Dave Grohl

Dave Grohl

David Eric "Dave" Grohl is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Foo Fighters; the former drummer for Nirvana and Scream; and the current drummer for Them Crooked Vultures...

 notes that: "Best of You is funny because we demoted so many songs for In Your Honor

In Your Honor

In Your Honor is the fifth studio album by Foo Fighters, released on June 14, 2005 on BMG. It consists of two discs. The first contains up beat rock songs and the second disc contains mellower acoustic songs.-Development:...

, I'd kind of forgotten about it. Our manager came in and said, "What happened to that Best of You song?" So we pulled it out and worked on it a little more."

Music video

The music video was directed by Mark Pellington

Mark Pellington

-Life and career:Pellington was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He directed The Mothman Prophecies, a 2002 film starring Richard Gere dealing with mysterious deaths foretold by a strange red-eyed flying creature, Mothman, as well as Arlington Road in 1999 starring Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges....

, best known for his work on the video for "Jeremy

Jeremy (song)

"Jeremy" is a song by the American grunge band Pearl Jam that features lyrics written by vocalist Eddie Vedder and music written by bassist Jeff Ament. "Jeremy" was released in 1992 as the third single from Pearl Jam's debut album, Ten . The song reached the number five spot on both the Mainstream...

" by Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...

. He was inspired by the death of his wife a few months prior to the shoot, and was drawn to the song's notion of dealing with pain in life.

The video features the band playing on top of an abandoned hospital. Along with the band's scenes are clips that show pain, depression, or anger:

• Clips with children playing alone or with each other, one scene shows one girl hugging another.
• A car crash
• A lion pouncing on its prey, which is a vulture
• A snake attacks a rodent
• A zebra kicks another zebra behind itself
• A snarling wolf
• Crash test dummies being crushed by a car crash test
• Men and women showing affection for each other.
• A nuclear explosion
• A baby crying

Track listing

Chart positions

Chart (2005)	Peak position
Australian Singles Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...	5
Dutch Singles Chart	94
Eurochart Hot 100 Singles Eurochart Hot 100 Singles The European Hot 100 Singles has been compiled by Billboard and Music & Media magazine since March, 1984. The chart is based on national singles sales charts in 15 European countries: Austria, Belgium , Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden,...	14
Irish Singles Chart Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...	20
Italian Singles Chart	36
New Zealand Singles Chart Recording Industry Association of New Zealand The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand...	38
Swedish Singles Chart	41
UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...	4
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 Billboard Hot 100 The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...	18
U.S. Pop 100 Pop 100 The Pop 100 was a songs chart that debuted in February 2005 and was released weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States until its discontinuation in 2009...	20
U.S. Hot Modern Rock Tracks	1
U.S. Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks	1
U.S. Adult Top 40	38

Chart re-entry (2005)	Peak position
UK Singles Chart	40

Chart re-entry (2007)	Peak position
UK Singles Chart	38

Chart re-entry (2008)	Peak position
UK Singles Chart	59

Covers

Prince

Prince (musician)

Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...

 covered the song during the halftime show at Super Bowl XLI

Super Bowl XLI

Super Bowl XLI was an American football game that featured the American Football Conference champion Indianapolis Colts and the National Football Conference champion Chicago Bears to decide the National Football League champion for the 2006 season...

 in Miami, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

, on February 4, 2007. Drummer Taylor Hawkins

Taylor Hawkins

Oliver Taylor Hawkins is an American musician, best known as the drummer of the rock band Foo Fighters....

 expressed surprise by the performance, due to Prince's prior criticism of the band's desire to release a cover version of his song, "Darling Nikki

Darling Nikki

"Darling Nikki" is a song produced, arranged, composed and performed by Prince and originally released on his Grammy Award-winning 1984 album, Purple Rain. Though the song was not released as a single, it gained wide notoriety for its sexual lyrics...

", in 2003.