"Blood for Poppies" is the 2012

lead single A lead single (also known as a debut single) is the first single to be released from a studio album by an artist or a band, usually before the album itself is released and also occasionally on the same day of the album's release date. Release s ...

from

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial ...

band

Garbage Garbage, trash, rubbish, or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or gaseous wastes, or toxic waste produ ...

's fifth studio album '' Not Your Kind of People'', released to radio worldwide and as the band's

Record Store Day Record Store Day is an annual event inaugurated in 2007 and held on one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November to "celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store". The day brings together fa ...

single in the United States. Garbage picked "Blood for Poppies" as the introduction to their return to releasing music: "We wanted it to be the first single because it encapsulates so much about Garbage. It's got the fuzzy guitars, and Shirley's vocals are so great. We felt that if this was the first thing that people heard from us in seven years, then this was the perfect track. It's uneasy, like you're in a constant state of paranoia."

Background

The nucleus of "Blood for Poppies" came from sessions

Shirley Manson Shirley Ann Manson (born 26 August 1966) is a Scottish musician and actress. She is best known as the lead singer of the American alternative rock band Garbage. Manson gained media attention for her forthright style, rebellious attitude, and dis ...

held to write her abandoned solo album project. The track began as a dub-style jam. The song kept being refined to its component groove and

bassline Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, Dub music, dub and electronic music, electronic, traditional music, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched Part ( ...

as Manson refined her own vocal approach to the track. It was her idea to incorporate " strobing vocals" and "weird, glitchy vocal production elements" on the song.

Duke Erikson Douglas Elwin "Duke" Erikson (born January 15, 1951) is an American musician, songwriter, screenwriter, film producer and record producer, best known as a co-founder and guitarist of the alternative rock band Garbage. Garbage has sold more than 17 ...

added clean,

vibrato Vibrato ( Italian, from past participle of " vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms ...

melodic lead guitar parts to the verses.

Steve Marker Steve Marker (born March 16, 1959) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as a cofounder and guitarist of the alternative rock band Garbage. Early life Steven W. Marker was born in Mamaroneck, New York on March ...

wrote the "monster

riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or acc ...

" and added it late in the song's development.

Synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

effects were created by running keyboards through wah wahs and mixing the results with similarly recorded electric guitar parts, while the recurring distorted

guitar lick The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

was recorded through an amp mod into his laptop. Drum tracks were largely created by layering live drum takes over a drum machine; "Blood for Poppies" opens with heavily distorted fill followed up with a funky drum

groove Groove or Grooves may refer to: Music * Groove (music) * Groove (drumming) * The Groove (band), an Australian rock/pop band of the 1960s * The Groove (Sirius XM), a US radio station * Groove 101.7FM, a former Perth, Australia, radio station ...

, the verse then featuring open

hi-hat A hi-hat (hihat, high-hat, etc.) is a combination of two cymbals and a pedal, all mounted on a metal stand. It is a part of the standard drum kit used by drummers in many styles of music including rock, pop, jazz, and blues. Hi-hats consist o ...

notes leading into each

backbeat In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse (regularly repeating event), of the ''mensural level'' (or ''beat level''). The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a p ...

. During the

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...

, the pattern changes to a

sixteenth-note Figure 1. A 16th note with stem facing up, a 16th note with stem facing down, and a 16th rest. Figure 2. Four 16th notes beamed together. In music, a 1/16, sixteenth note ( American) or semiquaver (British) is a note played for half the dur ...

hi-hat pattern. Inspired by a suggestion by Manson, the band worked the beat of the middle eight section around a

sample Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of ...

of the sound of a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

's blades. Manson wanted the vocal in that section to sound like it was a garbled

radio transmission Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

, so the band treated her vocal with various plug-ins. Bass guitar parts were recorded by Justin Meldal-Johnsen. "Blood for Poppies" was one of the first songs finished during the ''Not Your Kind of People'' sessions. "The song is meant to feel sort of like an abstract dream," Garbage singer

recalled. "The inspiration came from a story I had read in ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' about the

opium trade Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

and also from watching the documentary '' Restrepo''. It's not literal in any sense whatsoever but it's a song about disorientation and delusion and the human struggle to stay sane in the face of insanity." Manson later explained: "Actually it's from a few stories... I use that as a backdrop for a story about maintaining sanity in an out-of-control place." The band added that the song was also a

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

for being in a band: "...feeling isolated and lonely. There's the line 'I miss my dog, I miss my freedom,' and that's anson'sdog she's singing about".

Single release

From March 15, 2012, "Blood for Poppies" was given away free as a digital download by Garbage via their own band website. In a statement issued to mark the free release, the band wrote: "We've always had the most amazingly loyal fans, and we wanted to show them just how much they mean to us by setting it free to them first". "Blood for Poppies" had leaked online earlier in the week. "Blood for Poppies" was sent for "adds" at

alternative radio Modern rock is an umbrella term used to describe rock music that is found on college rock radio stations. Some radio stations use this term to distinguish themselves from classic rock, which is based in 1960s–1980s rock music. Radio format Mod ...

in the United States on March 20, where it was playlisted by nine stations. A week later, the song was playlisted by a further nineteen stations, including eight on the Triple-A format. Four alternative stations in Canada also added the song. The same day, "Blood for Poppies" was released as a downloadable single across North America, and was made available as a free track to download straight-away when pre-ordering the downloadable version of ''Not Your Kind of People''. After a week at alternative, "Blood for Poppies" debuted on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

'' Rock Songs chart at No. 45. On April 20, a limited edition

7-inch single In music, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. One can be released for sale to the public in a variety of formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separat ...

marking

2012 was released to participating

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

record stores A record shop or record store is a retail outlet that sells recorded music. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, record shops only sold gramophone records, but over the 20th century, record shops sold the new formats that were ...

. The white-vinyl single press run for "Blood for Poppies" totalled 2,500 units, of which 1,900 copies were distributed throughout the United States, and was backed with an exclusive

Butch Vig Bryan David "Butch" Vig (born August 2, 1955) is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the drummer and co-producer of the alternative rock band Garbage and the producer of the diamond-selling Nirvana album '' Nev ...

remix A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

of the song. In Europe, "Blood for Poppies" was released as a digital single across the continent on March 28. An Australasian release followed the subsequent day. In the United Kingdom, " Battle in Me" was released as the album's lead single instead, however "Blood for Poppies" was A-listed by

Kerrang! radio Kerrang! Radio is a specialist digital rock music radio station owned and operated by Bauer and forms part of the Kiss Network. As of September 2022, the station has a weekly audience of 341,000 listeners according to RAJAR. Stations Hist ...

and a digital single was released to some music stores on May 7. The single was also released digitally in Japan as an album-cut on April 18. A month later, "Blood for Poppies" debuted at No. 97 on the

Japan Hot 100 The ''Billboard Japan'' Hot 100 is a record chart in Japan for songs. It has been compiled by ''Billboard Japan'' and '' Hanshin Contents Link'' since February 2008. The chart is updated every Wednesday at Billboard-japan.com ( JST) and every Thur ...

, peaking at No. 47 in its second week.

Critical reception

"Blood for Poppies" has been described by ''

'' as "a mix of crunchy and funky guitars during the verse" and an "infectious, sing-along chorus"; while KROQ's Nadia Noir claimed it was "a song which conjures up some of the shimmering

distortion In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal. In communications and electronics it means the alteration of the waveform of an information-bearing signal, such as an audio signa ...

, guitar

tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo. The first is a rapid reiteration: * Of a single note, particularly used on bowed string instruments, by rapidly moving the bow back and f ...

, and the sensual

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with "dream pop") is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming vol ...

" of My Bloody Valentine's "

Only Shallow "Only Shallow" is a song by the alternative rock band My Bloody Valentine. It is the opening track and second single from the band's second studio album, '' Loveless'' (1991), released on Creation Records. Written by Kevin Shields and Bilinda Bu ...

", "albeit with the funkier, harder edge and Manson's sultry

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typica ...

vocals that make Garbage wholly unique". Rick Martin, of '' NME'', described the song as "some righteous noise and a proper poptastic chorus to boot," and remarked; "If only all seven-year itches came with as much squalling feedback and eardrum-bursting goodness".

Commercial track listings

*Downloadable single # "Blood for Poppies" – 3:38 *US 7-inch single (Record Store Day edition) # "Blood for Poppies" – 3:38 # "Blood for Poppies" (Heads Down Here We Come Remix) – 4:12

Music video

The promotional video for "Blood for Poppies" was helmed by fashion photographer Matt Irwin and filmed over four days between February 23–26, 2012 in Los Angeles. Irwin co-directed the clip with Aaron Brown of Focus Creeps, following a concept theme of "old surrealist films and photos". Visuals created for the black and white clip were inspired by surrealist artists, film makers and photographers such as

René Magritte René François Ghislain Magritte (; 21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian surrealist artist known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar, unexpected contexts, which often provoked questions about the nature and bound ...

, Maya Deren,

Luis Buñuel Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...

and Francesca Woodman, while certain shots referenced ''

Le Voyage Dans La Lune ''A Trip to the Moon'' (french: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French adventure film, adventure short film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's 1865 novel ''From the Earth to the Moon' ...

'' and ''

Un Chien Andalou ''Un Chien Andalou'' (, ''An Andalusian Dog'') is a 1929 French silent short film directed by Luis Buñuel, and written by Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. Buñuel's first film, it was initially released in a limited capacity at Studio des Ursuline ...

''. The video incorporates noir imagery,

haute couture ''Haute couture'' (; ; French for 'high sewing', 'high dressmaking') is the creation of exclusive custom-fitted high-end fashion design that is constructed by hand from start-to-finish. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Paris became th ...

, 1950s glamour and

stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames ...

astronomy shots

filtered Filtration is a physical separation process that separates solid matter and fluid from a mixture using a ''filter medium'' that has a complex structure through which only the fluid can pass. Solid particles that cannot pass through the filter m ...

to achieve a gritty, vintage effect. The retro look is the result of the video's

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. Th ...

, special effects and editing; the "black and white" is sometimes grainy and burnt and the images often overlap. Employing

non-linear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

montage sequencing, Manson is seen singing while blindfolded, playing Cat's Cradle, eating an egg, cavorting on a Malibu beach and hiding behind a tree. The male band members are featured in a surrealist dream situations. "We piled into a transit van with the ridiculously talented team of Matt Irwin and Aaron Brown and hopped around little pockets of Los Angeles creating a gorgeous surrealist dream. We ate ice cream sandwiches in the sunshine and laughed a lot. I didn't want the shoot to end," recalled Manson. The "Blood for Poppies" video debuted on

AOL Music AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. ...

on April 3, following a live chat with the group on their

Ustream IBM Watson Media (formerly Ustream and IBM Cloud Video) is an American virtual events platform company which is a division of IBM. Prior to IBM acquisition, it had more than 180 employees across San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Budapest offices. ...

channel. The video was published through YouTube and other music channels in United States on the same date, and debuted on Australian music channels on April 10. In the United States, the music video for "Blood for Poppies" was made available to purchase on

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mu ...

on April 3. An edited version, with the eye-cutting scene removed, was later included as a bonus feature on the 2013 release '' One Mile High... Live''.

Use in other media

* Season 5 episode 3 of True Blood.

Release history

Comprehensive charts

References

External links

Garbage official website"Blood for Poppies" music video
at

Vevo Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, ...

.
"Blood for Poppies" Mini-Film
at YouTube.
"Blood for Poppies" live rehearsal
at YouTube.
"Blood for Poppies" Discography
{{authority control 2012 singles 2012 songs Black-and-white music videos Garbage (band) songs Song recordings produced by Butch Vig Songs written by Shirley Manson Songs written by Duke Erikson Songs written by Steve Marker Songs written by Butch Vig