Vig recalled that the title “Not Your Kind of People” came to him when he was stuck in a traffic jam in Los Angeles; he texted Manson the idea for a title and she loved it. Manson wrote all the lyrics that night, and the next day the four of them gathered with acoustic guitars and wrote the music to the song in about half an hour.[33]
Manson explained that the album title Not Your Kind of People was “a call to arms in a way to anyone who feels like we do about the world”, saying that “it can be great to be an outsider.” She felt that this applied to them as the band “never fit into a music scene” and that “in my life I’ve never been an insider.”[31]
Manson also described the title as “a two-fingered salute to people who reject or criticize us”
We are not your kind of people
Speak a different language
We see through your lies
We are not your kind of people
Won’t be cast as demons
Creatures you despise
We are extraordinary people
Not your kind of people
Shirley Ann Manson (born 26 August 1966) is a Scottish singer, songwriter and musician. She is the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. For much of her international career, Manson commuted between her home city of Edinburgh and the United States to record with Garbage; she now lives and works in Los Angeles. Manson gained media attention for her forthright style, rebellious attitude, and distinctive voice
Bleed like me
While she enjoyed primary school, Manson was bullied while in her first year at secondary school, causing her to suffer from depression and body dysmorphic disorder[14] and engage in self-injury: she carried sharp objects in the laces of her boots and would cut herself when she felt low self-esteem, stress, or anxiety.[15]
The bullying stopped when Manson associated herself with a rebel crowd, which resulted in her rebelling herself. She was absent for most of her final year at school[11] and began smoking cannabis, sniffing glue, drinking alcohol, shoplifting, and on one occasion breaking into Edinburgh Zoo.[16] Manson had teenage ambitions to become an actress, but was rejected by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD).[17][18] Her first job was volunteer work in a local hospital’s cafeteria, then as a breakfast waitress at a local hotel, before spending five years as a shop assistant for Miss Selfridge.[16] She started on the shop’s makeup counters, but was eventually moved into stockrooms because of her attitude toward customers. She became well known throughout Edinburgh’s clubbing scene; making use of free samples from Miss Selfridge, she styled hair for a number of local bands.[19]
Manson’s lyrics deal with darker themes, often in a mocking manner. She credits that to her Scottish psyche that leads to a preference for depressing themes, and the fact she always felt like an outsider, even within Garbage – “I’m the odd one out by default. I’m the only girl, I’m younger than they are, they’ve all known each other for 40 years, or something crazy like that. So I always felt, like, off the centre of things.”[26][74]
