Milk (song)

"Milk"

Single by Garbage

from the album Garbage

B-side

"Alien Sex Fiend"

Released

October 7, 1996

Format

Recorded

April 1994 – May 1995;
Smart Studios
(Madison, Wisconsin)

Genre

Trip hop

Length

3:56

Garbage

Garbage

Garbage singles chronology

"Stupid Girl"
(1996)

"Milk"
(1996)

"#1 Crush"
(1996)

Alternative cover
Australian cover

"Milk" is a song by alternative rock band Garbage from their self-titled debut studio album (1995). It was released on October 7, 1996 as the album's fifth and final single. In North America, the single coincided with Garbage's trek around the continent performing as a support act for the Smashing Pumpkins arena tour.

A reworked version of "Milk" was released in the United Kingdom, featuring backing vocals by English trip hop musician Tricky. After an acclaimed performance of "Milk" by the band at the 1996 MTV Europe Music Awards, as well as winning the Best Breakthrough Act on the night, the song debuted at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart. The reworked version, without Tricky's vocals, was also released as a single across Europe and in Australia and New Zealand.

In 2007, "Milk" was remastered and included on Garbage's greatest hits album Absolute Garbage.

"Milk" was written and recorded by the band at their own recording studio during the 1994–95 sessions for Garbage. Shirley Manson was inspired by a line in Michael Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid ("her throat is a kitchen") and alluded to it in her lyrics for the song. At its base, Manson believed the song was "a seduction, almost like a siren song".

The most electronic-based song on the album, "Milk" is also one of singer Shirley Manson's favourite tracks from it. She told Melody Maker, "It's a dichotomy, a paradox. The thing I really like about 'Milk' is the fact that it's been dismissed by people as the ballad at the end of the album. To me 'Milk' is the darkest, most hopeless of the songs. People say 'Oh, it's lovey-dovey, so therefore it's a love song'. But it's a very bleak song, it's about loss and the fear of loss; about things you can't have and things you will forever wait for."

...
Wikipedia