Songfacts®:

• Deftones' "Milk Of The Madonna" is steeped in biblical imagery; so much so that it feels like they set the Book of Revelation to a guitar pedal. There's "bloody rain," which harks back to the apocalyptic visions in the Book of Revelation; "Holy Ghost" and "tongues of fire," which take their cues from Pentecost in the Book of Acts; and "new wine," a nod to Jesus' parables. Then there are the burning foxes, which come straight from the story of Samson in the Old Testament, where he tied torches to foxes' tails and set fields ablaze.
• The title, "Milk Of The Madonna," draws on medieval iconography of the Madonna Lactans; paintings and sculptures that show the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the infant Christ. The image symbolizes divine nurturing and sacrificial love, and in the hands of Chino Moreno, it also doubles as something raw, bodily, and faintly unsettling. In short, it's sacred meets primal, apocalypse meets lullaby.
• Before anyone mistakes this song for a Sunday school lesson, it's worth pointing out that Chino Moreno isn't writing hymns. He's long said that his use of religious language has more to do with its emotional punch and imagery than with actual churchgoing. "When I write words, I do so in a very stream-of-conscious way," he told The Skinny. "I wanted to react to the music and the visuals. What exactly are we trying to say? I don't think there is a message... it's more about moods and general ideas."
  
  This approach has shown up throughout Moreno's career. "Minerva," for instance, frames spiritual searching in the language of blessing and God, while "Prayers/Triangles" juxtaposes a spiritual or ritualistic dimension with geometric symbolism. And with his side project Crosses, Moreno takes the religious iconography even further, using crosses in the band name and sprinkling supernatural themes throughout the music.
• "Milk Of The Madonna" was recorded in California and Nashville with producer Nick Raskulinecz, the same guy behind Diamond Eyes and Koi No Yokan. It followed the single "My Mind Is A Mountain" and landed without warning - classic Deftones.
• The band played the song live for the first time in Vancouver on August 22, 2025, the same day their album Private Music dropped.
• On the charts, "Milk Of The Madonna" did something Deftones had never managed before: it climbed to #1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, finally beating their previous high-water marks on any Billboard chart of #3 with "Change (In The House of Flies)" on Alternative Airplay in 2000 and "Tempest" (2013) and "Ohms" (2020) on Mainstream Rock Airplay.
  
  Deftones' first appearance on the chart came way back in May 1998 with "Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away))," which peaked at #29. That meant their wait for a #1 stretched over 27 years, three months, and one week; the longest by any act in a lead role. The record they beat? Ozzy Osbourne, who had to wait a mere 26 years between "Crazy Train" (1981) and "I Don't Wanna Stop" (2007).
  
  Jeff Beck still holds the overall title for longest wait: an epic 37 years, from his 1985 debut "People Get Ready" to his first #1, as a featured artist on Ozzy Osbourne's "Patient Number 9" in 2022.