Garbage leader Shirley Manson got all flustered and “riled up” last night (July 26) thinking about President Trump’s latest rights reversal for transgender people and had to start “Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go)” again.
Performing in Toronto at the Sony Centre — where the Wisconsin-band was co-headlining with Blondie — the Scottish singer said, “This goes out to everyone in the military who is transgender, who put their lives on the line for all us.”
Then, as she paced the stage in circles, she looked at Butch Vig behind the drum kit and confessed, “Hell, I have no idea where I am. I’m going to have to start again.
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“I felt passion overtake me and I suddenly realized that this is a song that we wrote a long, long time ago, long before gender fluidity and transgender, any of it was on all of our lips,” she explained.
“And I’m all riled up because it breaks my heart that in this day and age, things have gotten so mad that people who want to put their lives on the line for the American public are being treated with such disrespect.”
Her comments were greeted with loud cheers and she bowed. “So please forgive the f–k-up. That was all me. My band were perfect as always.” She laughed. “We shall begin again. Every day is a new day.”
And with that she sang the song from 2001’s Beautiful Garbage, whose lyrics begin “She gave you everything she had” and include the lines: “You’re such a delicate boy /In the hysterical realm/ Of an emotional landslide/In physical terms.”
The song was originally inspired in part by the book Sarah, by author Laura Albert, who wrote under the nom de plume JT LeRoy. The story focused on a gender-fluid teen prostitute named Cherry Vanilla, who used the name Sarah.