Push IT (Garbage Song) - Writing and Production

Writing and Production

Garbage began writing for their second album at the start of March 1997 at a vacation house in Friday Harbor, Washington. There, the group demoed and made rough outlines for new songs over a three-week period. When they that felt they had made a good start, they relocated back to their Madison, Wisconsin base at Smart Studios and began fleshing out the ideas and rough sketches that were made over the rest of the year. The group recorded all of the material for the second album through a 48-track digital system direct to hard drives utilizing a 24bit Pro Tools rig. Vocalist Shirley Manson wrote the majority of her lyrics while ensconced in a hotel near the studio. Garbage completed recording, producing and mixing of their second album in mid-February 1998, and the album was given the title Version 2.0.

During a vocal tracking session in which Manson was singing over music already written for "Push It", the band felt that one of the lines in "Push It" would benefit from having a vocal chorus answering the words back to her. Inspired by Manson's spontaneous ad-lib of the phrase "don't worry baby" over the music, guitarist Steve Marker sampled the Beach Boys song and used it as a backing vocal. The sample didn't work with what the band had already recorded so Manson re-sung the lines to fit the key and tempo of the song. Aware of the potential for incurring copyright legalities, the band debated whether or not to keep the line. Garbage and Brian Wilson coincidentally shared the same publishing company (Irving Music), and figuring that they had nothing to lose, contacted him through their company representative, sent him a copy of "Push It" and asked him for permission to use the interpolation. Wilson gave his blessing, and reportedly kept the tape. Both Wilson and Roger Christian, the deceased co-writer of "Don't Worry Baby", received a writing credit. A simpler interpolation credit was given to Herbie Azor, as the band's lawyers felt that there was an possible similarity of the line "Push it!" to his own "Push It", which had been a hit single for New York hip hop trio Salt-N-Pepa.

At the end of the middle 8, Garbage had originally recorded a drum fill to lead back into the final chorus, but decided to develop a suspenseful bridge back into the final part. The band used a number of pitch-shifting and time-stretching plugins and matched them with an orchestral swell in an ascending chromatic scale sampled from a classical music album. The new part had been influenced by The Beatles "A Day in the Life", and the group decided to keep it when Manson encouraged them to.