Songfacts®:

• A monkey wrench is a piece of hardware - an adjustable wrench handy for many tasks. In the song, it's a metaphor for being used and trapped in a relationship; Dave Grohl doesn't want to be the guy who hangs around and gets picked up like a tool only when this person needs him. It was the first single off the Foo's second album.
• Dave Grohl directed the video himself. At the beginning of the clip when he steps into the elevator, a lounge version of "Big Me," from the Foo Fighters' debut album, is playing. Grohl commissioned the Muzak company, which makes such "elevator music," to create the song, but their attempt sounded too earnest and sapped the comedy from the scene.
  
  Grohl turned to the duo Moog Cookbook for help; the electronic act released a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on their 1996 debut album that Grohl loved, so he had them give "Big Me" the same treatment. Brian Kehew, who was part of the duo, told us: "I went to the filming of 'Monkey Wrench' to deliver the song. They shot the exterior scenes at the old Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, and the interior/band scenes on the soundstage where Nirvana did 'Teen Spirit.' I believe it is Taylor Hawkins' first appearance on the drums with them."
• The screamy bridge of this song is almost impossible for Dave Grohl to sing live. The bridge on the CD was yelled all in one breath. During many of Foo Fighters concerts, Grohl has the crowd scream the bridge out. If he does sing the bridge, there are usually a few breaths that can be heard in between. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Bert - Pueblo, NM
• Grohl told Mojo magazine January 2010 that this song is about the disintegration of his marriage to photographer Jennifer Youngblood. "It's about living with someone and feeling like you're living in a f--king cell. And then I wound up getting a divorce," he said.
• After early sessions for The Colour and the Shape went poorly, the band regrouped without their drummer, William Goldsmith. Grohl wasn't planning to drum on the record, but he ended up doing so as he and producer Gil Norton felt the drums needed more work. "The first song we redid was 'Monkey Wrench.' Dave did a run through to get the sounds, and then did it in one take," Norton recalled to Roland.co.uk.
  
  When Goldsmith realized Grohl was overdubbing his drums, he wound up leaving the band.
• Although Grohl performed the actual drum track, the song's music video is the first Foo Fighters one to feature Taylor Hawkins on drums.
• Surely the most memorable performance of this song took place at Ullevi stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden, on June 12, 2015, when about a minute into the song, Dave Grohl missed a landing on a jump and fell off the stage, breaking his right leg. They were just two songs into the set, and Grohl was determined to finish the show. While he got medical attention, the band played some cover songs. Grohl then returned to the stage and did the rest of the show - about two-and-a-half-hours - propped up with an attendant holding his leg.
  
  Foo Fighters had to cancel the rest of their European dates while Grohl got surgery, but they went back on the road in July to finish the rest of the tour with Grohl performing from a Game Of Thrones-style throne made of guitars. The incident built a legend for the band and solidified their already strong bond with each other and with their fans. "That to me was the best thing that had ever happend to the band," Grohl said.