Bush‘s song “The Land of Milk and Honey” has been climbing up the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, reaching the top 10. That a Bush single would be successful on rock radio isn’t all that surprising, but the success of this particular track might be, since it prominently uses profanity in consecutive lines.
Speaking with ABC Audio, frontman Gavin Rossdale shares that he opted to simply bleep the bad words to make “The Land of Milk and Honey” clean for radio, as opposed to other methods.
“I didn’t wanna do anything slick,” Rossdale says. “I wanted to make sure that the people realized that the ‘flip’ word was loud and proud.”
On “The Land of Milk and Honey” Rossdale sings, “I see stars when I f*** the system, I see stars when I f***.” He decided not to make any lyric changes for the radio version, though alternate words were suggested to him.
“Somebody goes, ‘You could always put, “When you play the system,”‘” Rossdale recalls. “I was like, ‘Play the system? So the very line about The Man, and about how we can’t give into The Man, we wanna change for The Man? No."”
Not only was “The Land of Milk and Honey” released as a single despite two f-bombs, it was released as the first official single off Bush’s latest album, I Beat Loneliness. That decision does make more sense when you consider Rossdale’s general approach to picking singles.
“I never know which songs are gonna be the singles,” Rossdale says. “So I’m always trying to make every single song the single, in case one gets chosen, that they’re all ready.”
I Beat Loneliness is out now. Bush is currently on tour with Shinedown.
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