the album, while Meldal-Johnsen played bass guitar. Most of Manson's vocals were recorded at Vig's home studio, GrungeIsDead. On October 18, the band began mixing the album. Some songs were mixed several times; "Sex Is Not the Enemy" was re-recorded three times during the mixing process, "Right Between the Eyes" was recalled from mastering twice, and the band included live strings at the last minute on "Happy Home". While the project's working title was Hands on a Hard Body, after the 1997 documentary of the same name, when Manson announced the album's release in November 2004, she confirmed that it would be titled Bleed Like Me. By December 6, 2004, the album was officially completed. It was mastered in New York City; the initial mastering was completed on December 15, 2004, and the final master was ready for January 6, 2005. Composition Bleed Like Me is a departure from the heavily electronic music of previous albums Version 2.0 and Beautiful Garbage in favor of a basic alternative rock sound. Vig said that while the band tried to figure out a new sound for the record, they "went back to getting great sounds from guitars". The band tried a more spontaneous approach; Manson did most of her singing in the first take and the drums were recorded in a way "that everything was not perfectly balanced—and not so electronic". The band members tried to translate the energy of the band's live performances onto the album; Marker said that the album showed that above all, Garbage is "a loud rock band". Vig still thought that some of the songs resembled the band's earlier material, such as "Metal Heart", with "a lot of weird electronics that Steve and Duke did, as well as some pretty gnarly guitar." The lyrics of Bleed Like Me talk about relationships and political themes; Manson said, "the last few years ... have been very worrying and you'd have to be dead to not have some kind of political view at the moment", and that after many years being insecure about articulating her feelings writing lyrics, she found herself confident that she could express her ideas and sentiment of being "very out of kilter with a lot of the common thoughts of today" in her music. "Boys Wanna Fight" criticizes world affairs and "Sex Is Not the Enemy" is about moral guardians, inspired by the outcry caused by Janet