“Shut Your Mouth” by Garbage

"Shut Your Mouth" throws open beautifulgarbage, Garbage's third album, from 2001, and it was one of the first songs the band finished during the year-long sessions at Smart Studios, their own place in Madison, Wisconsin. It came out of nothing much: the band set up and played for three hours, angling for a funk jam, while Shirley Manson made it up on the spot. Then she ducked into the vocal booth and unspooled a stream-of-consciousness vocal that Butch Vig likened to Patti Smith; he later called the track "Sly & The Family Stone on quaaludes."

Manson said it's about keeping your own counsel in a world crowded with opinions, misinformation and everybody's private agenda. Garbage produced it themselves, Billy Bush engineered, and Daniel Shulman is credited on bass. After opening the album, it became the fourth and final single, following "Breaking Up the Girl".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.