Glycerine Comedown Swallowed Bush

Glycerine Album: Sixteen Stone (1994)
Comedown Album: Sixteen Stone (1994)
Swallowed Album: Razorblade Suitcase (1996)
by Bush

Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale wrote "Glycerine" about his relationship with his girlfriend at the time, a model named Jasmine Lewis, who is credited as a backup vocalist on the Sixteen Stone album. Rossdale dated her for about five years before their breakup, which was exacerbated by busy schedules that kept them apart. Gavin's next relationship was with Gwen Stefani, whom he met when her band No Doubt was opening for Bush on the Sixteen Stone tour. They got married in 2002.

Glycerine is a chemical used in perfumes and medicines and also to preserve food. The title comes from the explosive applications of glycerine to stabilize nitro. Rossdale said the song was about how love was like a bomb.

This song came together very quickly for Rossdale, who wrote it in his London flat. When he played it for the band, he felt there was something "ancient and mystical" about it. "I was like a conduit," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2017. "Something about it was bigger than anything we were doing."

The video, directed by Kevin Kerslake, won the Viewer's Choice Award at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards. Kerslake directed four Nirvana videos, and also worked with Soundgarden, R.E.M. and Stone Temple Pilots.

When a popular producer named Desmond Child heard this song, he thought Rossdale was singing "Kiss The Rain." When he found out that wasn't the title, he started writing a song called "Kiss The Rain" for Billie Myers. It became her first single and hit #15 in the US.

The Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever" is referenced in the line, "We live in a wheel where everyone steals, but when we rise it's like strawberry fields." Bush loved The Beatles and it was John Lennon and Paul McCartney who inspired them to form a band.

Gavin Rossdale talked about his Beatles reference and the meaning of the song in an interview with Fuse: "In 'Glycerine,' it's a cynical world. 'Strawberry Fields' is a Beatles reference because when people think of that song it makes them happy: it elevates you and it lifts you up. For me, it's like a soft pillow. Most of my lyrics and most of the songs that I've written are about rising up against struggle and what you do within problems like the human condition. How we can screw up and how we can make up for it and what we can escape from and what we can win."

Lead singer Gavin Rossdale wrote Comedown about his ex-girlfriend, Suze DiMarchi. She was lead singer of a band called Baby Animals.

Rossdale had written songs with other people, but Comedown was the first one he wrote on his own. It gave him a lot of confidence and inspired him to keep writing.

Rossdale said of Comedown: "It was written in the context of half regret, half celebration and just being objective about the situation of coming down from that high and dealing with those intense emotions."

Reflecting on Comedown in 2017, Rossdale told Entertainment Weekly: "I liked the idea of euphoria. But having that euphoria has a comedown. It's inside your brain and just says, 'I'm having the greatest time, and I don't want to stop.' But most of the time, people lose that zone and it changes and you're like, 'No, I didn't want this.' And that's such a common feeling. I watched it being sung every night - it's one of the songs where I can step back and let the people sing. It's the best feeling in the world as a songwriter."

The video was directed by Jake Scott, who used perspective and other camera tricks to create some odd optics, as the viewer sees the band performing as if looking through a peephole.

Swallowed was written in response to the success of Bush's multi-million-selling debut album Sixteen Stone after years of failure. Frontman Gavin Rossdale told NME:

"When you first climb that ladder if you're lucky enough, and I was lucky enough to have that insane success with it, it's a bit overwhelming in some ways. I didn't go to school where you learn how to prepare for any kind of success, I was English, I'd failed for many years, I was not used to being successful – and there's something about being swept up in that success that's daunting and really overwhelming... it wasn't a complaint, it was just an observation."

Rossdale added that "Swallowed" was a bit like his version of "Help!," although he was quick to say he's not "as good as The Beatles."

The video of Swallowed, directed by Jamie Morgan, shows the band performing at a house party with some odd characters. The neon crucifix later appeared on the cover of the band's 1997 album Deconstructed.

Swallowed was nominated for a 1996 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance, but lost to the Smashing Pumpkins' "The End Is the Beginning Is the End."

Asked about his favorite lyric from Swallowed, Rossdale replied: "There was a girlfriend I had at the time, and the line 'heavy about everything but my love' – it's that thing where you have a girlfriend who's talking to everyone else about things but you think 'where am I?' It was just that line. It always tickled me a bit."

Rossdale explained in a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly: "I didn't even know it was possible to get as successful as we got. 'Swallowed' was a sense of getting lost in that tidal wave. I mean, it's the greatest tidal wave you'll ever be in. But at the same time, there's something... when you're doing it constantly and you tour for three years and you're strung out and disconnected from everyone you know and your relationship is suffering because you're away, I just felt like this sense of being swallowed up and eaten up by the life and lost to it. I mean, it's such a high-class problem that now you talk about it and go, 'Really?'"