Dave Grohl appeared on the latest episode of Song Exploder to discuss Foo Fighters’ track “The Teacher”. The song appears on the band’s most recent album, But Here We Are, and Grohl revealed it was written as a tribute to his mother Virginia.

“I was with her for all of the time leading up to her passing,” Grohl told Song Exploder host Hrishikesh Hirway. “Every day during that period, I would write something on the guitar, because I felt that if I didn’t have that release, I would explode. I would spend the day at the hospital and then try to translate it musically — with no clear intention of what I was trying to achieve. I was finding these chords and progressions that mirrored the way that I felt.”

“She was the most important person in my entire life,” Grohl continued. “So I thought this had to be the most important music I ever made.”

Listen to the podcast below.