Foo Fighters bring ‘Window’ to Kimmel and revisit Taylor Hawkins

By Grace Kim

Foo Fighters played “Window” on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, the first of four performances the band scheduled that week.

The quintet played the Your Favorite Toy rocker in an easy, almost southern rock-inspired groove for several verses. The number broke down to silence in the middle. Grohl sang, “I saw your face, there in the window/You were a window cleaner,” and ended the short performance with an understated guitar solo.

Grohl then sat down with Jimmy Kimmel for an extended interview about the song and the band’s history. He explained how his daughter Harper inspired “Window,” then recalled meeting the late drummer Taylor Hawkins at a KROQ event in 1995.

Why did Grohl write “Window” for Harper?

Grohl identified his daughter Harper as 17 and said she was learning bass. He wanted to write something she could play upstairs with a simple bass part, so the two could jam together.

Grohl connected that plan to his daughter’s musical development:

“This song in particular, I remember my daughter Harper, who’s 17, she was just learning the bass, so I thought, ‘I’m gonna write a song … that she can come upstairs and put a bass line on, like really simple, and then we can jam together,’”

Grohl also named the Breeders as Harper’s favorite band. He described two reference points for the song:

“Her favorite band is the Breeders. So I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll do this thing that’s kind of like the Breeders.’” …

“The inspiration behind the song is, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a hotel room where you’re lying there in your skivvies, and the curtains are open, and all of a sudden, here comes the window cleaner guy.”

Grohl said he realized that window cleaners witness people’s most intimate moments. That observation supplied the song’s subject, joining an observer’s accidental access to private life with a family collaboration the daughter could enter.

How did Grohl meet Taylor Hawkins?

At the 1995 KROQ event Almost Acoustic Christmas, Jimmy Kimmel worked for the Los Angeles radio station. Taylor Hawkins sat on the drum throne (the raised seat behind a drum kit) for Alanis Morissette when Grohl met him backstage.

Grohl tied the encounter to the two groups’ release schedules. He said, “Our first record came out around the time Alanis’ first record came out.”

Grohl described Hawkins’s approach and immediate judgment: “Here comes this blond, surfer dude, like, ‘Yo, dude, I love your band. You guys are so awesome. Yadda-yadda-yadda.’ I knew, right then, I was like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be best friends for the rest of our lives.’”

Grohl said the Foo Fighters and Morissette’s band shared festivals and radio shows, and the two men met again at other gigs. He felt the “You Oughta Know” singer could sense a close friendship forming between them.

What happened before Hawkins joined the band?

Hawkins later told Grohl that both groups had played a gig in France. Morissette’s band then boarded a flight, and Morissette asked Hawkins:

“What are you going to do when Dave asks you to be the drummer?”

Grohl recalled he answered: “No, baby, I love you.” His account leaves that reply without further explanation, but states a precise outcome: Hawkins was the Foo Fighters’ drummer within half a year.

What does the interview change for the Kimmel run?

The band’s four-night run is a residency of sorts, with a different song each night. Grohl has connected “Window” to Harper and his own history with Hawkins.

For viewers, the practical change is access to the reasoning behind the choices. The interview does not replace the music, but it gives the week’s sets a documented personal context.

The remaining three nights will test whether a different song each day can sustain four distinct sets. The interview supplies the connective story, but each performance still has to make its own case.