More Than Machines
by Bush

Album: The Art of Survival (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • Over driving guitars and finger-snaps, Gavin Rossdale tackles three big topics.

    Women's rights:

    Everything wrong should be right
    Girls, you in control
    Not the government, not the government


    The plight of Planet Earth:

    Here is the news in blood
    Everything wrong should be right
    The earth dies
    It's a money thing, it's a money thing


    And worrying advances in technology:

    We are more than machines, we are because we feel
    When everything goes down, it is how we come around
    We are more than a dream, but this heart is made of steel
    I said I need you now, you are everything to me


    Said Rossdale: "Off the bat, I don't understand how anyone has the audacity to get involved or assume responsibility for women's bodies. I wanted to reference that because it's important to discuss. As much as the song is about the destruction of women's rights, it's about the destruction of the planet and the move for A.I. and a world of robots to replace us."
  • Rossdale wrote the thunderous song with his Bush bandmates: drummer Nik Hughes, bassist Corey Britz and guitarist Chris Traynor. Erik Ron (Panic! At The Disco, Godsmack) supplied the glitchy production. Ron previously teamed up with the group for "Flowers On A Grave" and "The Kingdom."
  • "More Than Machines" serves as the lead single from The Art of Survival. The central theme of the album speaks to both the human spirit's resiliency in the face of adversity and Bush's own durable place as rock outsiders.
  • Bush debuted "More Than Machines" live on July 23, 2022 at the Atlantis Concert For Earth.
  • Gavin Rossdale didn't set out to pen a song about abortion rights. "It was just like a thorn in my side when I was writing," he told NME. "Instead of saying too much about it, I wrote it from a first person perspective and illuminated the fact that actually it's within everyone's control to vote for situations like that."

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