Shirley Manson on how Garbage got Brian Wilson’s blessing to use a Beach Boys hook in Push It

(Image credit: Photo by Maryanne Bilham Photography/Redferns)

Garbage had the wind in their sails as they set to work on their second record. The alt-rock quartet were on the back of huge success with their self-titled debut and they took that confidence into the creation of Version 2.0, the follow-up that arrived in 1998. Is there a bigger sign that Shirley Manson & co. were feeling a little bit more assured about themselves than the fact they slid a hook from The Beach Boys classic Don’t Worry Baby into comeback single Push It and managed to get it signed off by Brian Wilson himself? (there is only one answer here: no there isn’t).

In 2022, Manson told The New Cue how it came about. “I had sung in the chorus, “don’t worry, baby” and then I realised when we were back in Smart Studios working up the track,” Manson explained. “I said, ‘Oh, you know, what would fit in here?’ I think I sang “Don’t worry, baby,” The Beach Boys hook, as a backing vocal. Then I was like, ‘you know what would be amazing is if we could sample the song’. And Butch [Vig, Garbage drummer] was like, ‘Yeah… I don’t think we can get away with that, but hey, let’s try’.”

At this point, fortune was in their favour, Manson said, as they were on the same publishing company as Wilson, who co-wrote the song. “Our publisher sent a note to Brian Wilson from Butch asking if we could use this and much to everybody’s shock, he sent back a really beautiful letter, allowing us the usage of one of his most famous and brilliant songs ever,” Manson marvelled. “To get that kind of vote of confidence from someone that we really hold in highest regard was thrilling to say the least.

It added an extra sprinkle of magic dust onto an already corking tune, a song that Manson is still proud of decades later. “To this day, and we’re now 25 years down the road,” she said, “you can play that track against any other track that’s current today and it still holds its own. It’s a contemporary sounding, esoteric, very unique sounding song. We’re still pretty proud of it. It’s very odd, it’s not your typical rock song, it’s not your typical pop song, it sits in its own little world and we still really, really care for it.”

Push It still regularly features in the band’s setlists, and will undoubtedly figure in their show when they return for live dates in the UK and Europe over the summer. Watch the video for Push It below:

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Niall Doherty is a writer and editor whose work can be found in Classic Rock, The Guardian, Music Week, FourFourTwo, Champions Journal, on Apple Music and more. Formerly the Deputy Editor of Q magazine, he co-runs the music Substack letter The New Cue with fellow former Q colleague Ted Kessler. He is also Reviews Editor at Record Collector. Over the years, he's interviewed some of the world's biggest stars, including Elton John, Coldplay, Radiohead, Liam and Noel Gallagher, Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Pearl Jam, Depeche Mode, Robert Plant and more.