Breaking Up The Girl - Song Profile

Song Profile

"Breaking Up the Girl" was written and recorded by Garbage between April 2000 and May 2001 at Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin during the year-long writing sessions for Beautiful Garbage. At some point in this period of time, Shirley Manson had overheard the rest of the band working on the body of the song, and was inspired to write the melody and lyrics. During the development of the song, Garbage experimented with Beatles-like harmonies and ad-libs over the coda. and layered a vocal from Manson onto a matching guitar part. "We sampled her going 'aah' and Duke played guitar," Butch Vig explained,"and that made it sound like a weird little melodic quote, not necessarily a vocal part". Although it was one of the album's straightforward rock songs, Garbage couldn't agree on the bass/kickdrum pattern in the chorus, trying various transmutations of a one-bar phrase. Using his Fender Precision Bass and pick, session musician Daniel Shulman created a McCartney-esque bass movement for the verse. Vig felt that the strumming of the guitar chords gave the song a Big Star feel.

A decade earlier, when her Scottish band Angelfish were struggling, Manson had lived in South Queensferry where her friends included Andrew Greig, the poet Iain Banks, Duncan McLean and Alan Warner. At the time she felt washed up, and became reclusive with depression."It was Andrew who came by every morning and knocked on my door. He forced me out of bed and dragged me along the beach. He'd say "If you just keep going along the beach you'll get back on track", Manson later recalled. "He kept me moving. And I did get back on track. Very shortly after that, I got the call to go and join Garbage". Manson credited Greig with saving her career, a debt she tacitly acknowledged by quoting the line "I'm afraid there is much to be afraid of" from his 1994 long poem Western Swing. Lyrically Manson felt that "Breaking Up the Girl" was "a cautionary tale. It's basically saying the world we're living in is harsh and you've got to live in the moment. Focus on the now. If there's something in your life that isn't good then get rid of them." Duke Erikson expanded, "the light, poppy, melodic feel to the song belies the seriousness of the lyrics".