The CONTROVERSY Behind MATCHBOX TWENTY'S 'Push" & Barbie Movie Tie-In

The controversy over Matchbox Twenty's Song 'Push' & How It Ended Up in the Barbie Movie SIGN UP for 10 of the Craziest Stories in Rock N' Roll [Secret Playlist]: https://bit.ly/3vVPAEF Check out our Top 25 Favourite Albums Here https://rockandrolltruestories.com/ Have a video request or a topic you'd like to see us cover? Fill out our google form! https://bit.ly/3stnXlN ----CONNECT ON SOCIAL---- Instagram:   / rocknrolltruestories   Facebook:   / rnrtruestories   Twitter:   / rocktruestories   Blog: www.rockandrolltruestories.com #matchboxtwenty #matchbox20 #barbiemovie I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos. Matchbox 20 would be one of several bands that came from Florida during the mid to late 90’s and dominated rock radio and MTV. Their debut album was a massive success moving in excess of 12 million copies just in America. The song that put the band on the map would be the single ‘push’, but the song also drew some criticism as well. Today, let’s take a look at the history of the song. Born on a US army base in Germany to a seargant father and alcoholic mother Matchbox 20’s frontman Rob Thomas had a rough childhood. By the time he was a toddler his parents had divorced, his mom had would take his older sister to live in Columbia, South Carolina, and Thomas would be shuttled off to rural south carolina to hang out with his grandma who was also an alcoholic. His grandmother ran a general store.where she also sold pot and moonshine under the counter. Then there’s his Aunt Monkey who famously in 1975 hired serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins, to kill her ex-boyfriend. She would go to prison for 30 years and soon started a relationship with Gaskins. By the time he was 10 years old THomas would move with his sister and mother to a trailer park in Orlando. His mom kept some rough company partying and hanging out with bikers who would sometimes beat her up. Parties were a common site at Thomas home and a young Rob would sometimes play bartender. It wasn’t uncommon for him to wake up the next morning and be surroundedby 10 or more bodiest. His older sister Melissa would end up running away from home at the age of 17 and it was around this time his mother was diagnosed with cancer but continued to drink and smoke. The doctors gave Thomas mother six months to live with him telling the LA Times ‘That aged me quickly.’ But his mother beat the odds pulling through her cancer ordeal. Amongst all the chaos in his family life, Rob found music at a younge age getting his first instrument at the age of 10 which was a casio keyboard. . His early years in South Carolina would convince him that he wanted to be a song writer taking cues from the old country greats before getting into Billy Joel, Elton John, The Cure and Elvis Costello. He would recall to Rolling Stone how he was a nerd in school and soon started writing his own music in hopes of becoming one of the cool kids saying “At parties, all the foot­ball players would be drunk and passed out, and I’d be in the living room with all their girlfriends around me, playing the piano, every song like a bad version of a Li­onel Richie solo album.” By the early 90’s Thomas would eventually move back to Florida where he met several other like mindedmusicians including bassist Brian Yale and Drummer Paul Doucette who played. Enlisting a few other local musicians they would form the band Tabitha’s Secret,. Doucette, Thomas and Yale would end up leaving Tabitha’s secret and started a new band called Matchbox 20 in 1995 while recruiting guitarists Adam Gaynor and Kyle Cook.. The band soon caught the attention of producer Matt Serletic who had a deal with Atlantic Records subsidiary Lava Records. He had previously worked with another Florida Band collective soul & He would introduce the band to Atlantic Records who signed the group under Lava Records. The group’s first album Yourself or Someone Like You would be inspired by Thomas failed relationships and his terrible childhood. The album’s breakout single Push would get noticed nearly a year after the album came out. The song would be written by Thomas while he was visiting New York city recalling according to song facts "Me and Matt Serletic came to meet with Jason Flom, head of Lava records. We were staying at the Wellington. He bailed on us. He couldn't make the meeting. It was just us in the hotel room. We started playing songwriting exercises. Matt opened a book and said, 'Point to a word, and then we'll start a song building around that word.' He opened it up, and I pointed at the word 'rusty." You think about "rusty.' What if it had a bigger meaning? What if it was rusty at life, just in general? We wrote it in that night.