Chords + Lyrics | All My Life
Intro
||: G5 :||
Verse 1
||: G5 | G5 :||
All my life, I’ve been searching for something,
something never comes, never leads to nothing.
Nothing satisfies but I’m getting close.
closer to the prize at the end of the rope.
All night long I dream of the day,
when it comes around and it’s taken away.
Leaves me with the feeling that I feel the most,
| G5 | G5 (harmonic) |
feel it come to life when I see your ghost.
Instrumental 1
||: Gm | Gm Amadd4 | Gm | Gm Bb(#9) :||
Verse 2
||: Gm | Gm Amadd4 | Gm | Gm Bb(#9) :||
Calm down, don’t you resist. You’ve such a delicate wrist.
And if I give it a twist. Something to hold when I lose my grip.
Will I find something in there, to give me just what I need?
| Gm | Gm Amadd4 | Gm | Gm |
Another reason to bleed. One by one hidden up my sleeve.
| G5 | G5 |
One by one hidden up my sleeve.
Chorus 1
| Eb | Eb | G5 | G5 |
Hey, don’t let it go to waste, I love it but I hate the taste,
| Am7/E | Fsus2 | Bb5 Eb5 |
weight keeping me down.
| Eb | Eb | G5 | G5 |
Hey, don’t let it go to waste, I love it but I hate the taste,
| Am7/E | Fsus2 | Bb5 D5 C5 |
weight keeping me down.
Instrumental 2
| Gm | Gm Amadd4 | Gm | Gm Bb(#9) |
Verse 3
Will I find a believer? Another one who believes.
Another one to deceive. Over and over, down on my knees.
If I get any closer, and if you open up wide.
And if you let me inside. On and on, I got nothing to hide.
| G5 | G5 (harm) |
On and on, I got nothing to hide.
Chorus 2
Hey, don’t let it go to waste, I love it but I hate the taste,
weight keeping me down.
Hey, don’t let it go to waste, I love it but I hate the taste,
weight keeping me down.
Instrumental 3
| Gm | Gm Amadd4 | Gm | Gm Bb(#9) |
||: G5 :|| x8
Verse 4 (Breakdown)
||: G5 (w harmonic) :|| x8
All my life, I’ve been searching for something,
something never comes, never leads to nothing.
Nothing satisfies but I’m getting close,
closer to the prize at the end of the rope.
||: G5 (bends) :|| x8
All night long, I dream of the day,
when it comes around and it’s taken away.
Leaves me with the feeling that I feel the most,
feel it come to life when I see your ghost.
||: G5 (snare in) :|| x16
Then I’m done, done, on to the next one.
||: Done, done and I’m on to the next one :|| x6
Done, I’m done and I’m on to the next.
||: G5 (band in) :|| x8
||: G5 (w band) :|| x8
Done, done, on to the next one, done, I’m done and I’m on to the next one.
Done, done, on to the next one, done, I’m done and I’m on to the next.
Chorus 3
Hey, don’t let it go to waste, I love it but I hate the taste,
weight keeping me down.
Hey, don’t let it go to waste, I love it but I hate the taste,
weight keeping me down.
Outro
||: G5 :|| x4
||: G5 :|| x5
Done, done, on to the next one.
Done, I’m done and I’m on to the next.
All My Life Backing Track | Chord Analysis
Above, you’ll find backing tracks to use when learning All My Life. I’ve used stem separation to extract the guitar while keeping the drums, bass, keys, horns, and vocals intact.
After studying the chords and TAB, use my backing tracks to prepare for playing this tune with a band.
Chords Progression – What’s Going On?
This massive tune comes from Foo Fighters’ fourth album, One by One. In March 2005, it was voted #94 in the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks – not bad for a drummer!
Dave Grohl’s technique is about as close as you can get to playing drums on the guitar. Listen closely to the verses for two perfect examples. The result is a super-tight rhythm section that drives the melody forward, and, as usual, Dave absolutely nails it.
Verse + Instrumental
During the intro and verse 1, we play an aggressive rhythm using only a G5. Then something truly unique appears.
All My Life is the only tune I know that uses a Gm chord as an open-position shape. This happens during the second verse and instrumental sections, where the Gm shape moves up to Am, back to Gm, and then to Bb, giving us the same shape but different extensions.
With the open D string ringing throughout, All My Life’s chords for the second verse become:
| Gm | Gm Amadd4 | Gm | Gm Bb(#9) |
You’ll need TAB to fully understand this and the other sections, find it firther down this guitar lesson.
Chorus
The chorus begins on chord IV (Eb) before returning to VI (Gm, now played as G5). Am7/E functions as VII/5, Fsus2 is V, and Bb is chord I.
The final bar changes before the repeat. The first time we move from Bb5 to Eb5; the second time it shifts to Bb5 – D5 – C5.
| Eb | Eb | G5 | G5 |
| 1. Am7/E | Fsus2 | Bb5 Eb5 :||
| 2. Am7/E | Fsus2 | Bb5 D5 C5 |
Verse 4 (breakdown)
The final verse acts as a breakdown section, relying mainly on the driving rhythm introduced in the intro. Over this, additional guitars are layered with harmonic stabs and long bends.
To fully understand how these parts fit together, you need to study the TAB. Once that’s absorbed, this simple chord chart will be enough to guide you.
All My Life Chord Chart | PDF + iReal Pro Download
You can download my chord chaart as a static PDF, or in the iReal Pro format which allows you to change the layout and key.
All My Life | TAB
There’s plenty to memorise here before you start deciding which part to play and when. Let’s begin with the intro.
Intro + Verse 1
The intro and verse 1 feature that signature displaced chugging rhythm. At first, I thought it followed a 1/16th – 1/8th – 1/16th rhythmic cluster, just like chromatic exercise 13. But that’s not the case. The tempo is very fast and the pattern is actually made up entirely of 8th notes, like this:
Before the first instrumental section, we play a couple of harmonics on the 5th fret, strings 3 and 4. This trick returns later in the breakdown section, then on every other beat.
Verses 2 and 3 introduce a new riff. It’s very fast, so practise it slowly at first.
The drum pattern that inspired this part is a double kick drum figure, adapted here for guitar. Rather than writing the harmonic twice, I simply marked it as V3 harm to indicate that the harmonic from the end of verse 1 appears here as well.
Instrumental
The instrumental sections follow the same basic idea: a variation on the second verse riff. They differ mainly in length and small details.
Here’s the first one:
The second instrumental uses the same idea as the first line of instrumental 1.
The third instrumental is similar, but not identical to verse 2, and it finishes with the intro-style chugging.
Chorus
The chorus introduces new chords, beginning on IV. The harmony opens up with bigger chords and more extensions.
Before moving into instrumental 3, the final chords change slightly.
Breakdown (verse 4)
The breakdown presents a challenge: which part should you play as the sole guitarist? Here are guitar 1 and guitar 2 from the original recording.
If you remove the notes on the 5th string, you can combine the parts like this:
Later in the breakdown, there are big, sustained bends layered on top of the parts discussed above.
The real challenge is deciding how to combine these parts. The best approach is to learn all three, try the combined version, and experiment with what works best when playing with your band.
End
Nailing the ending of a song is what makes a band sound properly rehearsed. Here’s how it happens on the record.
Once you can play all this TAB, return to the chord chart, and play along with the backing tracks to put the whole arrangement together.
The success and hidden meaning behind All My Life
Released in 2002 as the lead single from the album One by One, All My Life became one of Foo Fighters’ biggest rock radio hits. It spent 10 consecutive weeks at No.1 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart and reached No.3 on the Mainstream Rock chart.
In the U.K. it also performed strongly, peaking at No.5 on the UK Singles Chart, and the single has since been certified Platinum for over 600,000 units.
The tune also won the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance, further cementing its status as one of the band’s signature songs.
At the time, the band had become known for more melodic hits like Learn to Fly and Next Year. Dave Grohl deliberately wrote All My Life to be heavier and more aggressive, signalling a return to the harder edge of their earlier sound.
Because of that, the song helped redefine the band’s direction going into the 2000s and set the tone for the harder rock style of One by One, an album that would later win a Grammy for Best Rock Album.
Interestingly, the song started out purely as an instrumental. The band recorded the music first, and Grohl initially had no idea how he would sing over it.
After mulling it over for some time, Grohl admitted the lyrics have a cheeky double meaning. While they sound dark and intense, he explained the song is actually inspired by his enthusiasm for pleasuring a woman.
Over time, All My Life has become one of the most celebrated songs in the band’s catalogue. Publications like Kerrang! have ranked it among the very best Foo Fighters tunes, and it remains a regular feature of their live shows.
What sounds like a dark, aggressive rock anthem was actually a pivotal single for the band — and lyrically, one of Dave Grohl’s most mischievous jokes hidden in plain sight.
All My Life Chords: Continue Learning
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