Although the first days of recording in the studio wasn't quite good enough, the band achieved to composed a new track, "Right Between the Eyes", in 30 minutes. Other tracks written during the early sessions were "Hangin' with the Bitches" and "Never Be Free" (with John 5). In spite of that, Vig said that the quick start made the band feel optimistic and gave the impression that the album would be completed as rapidly as in six months, but the album took a slow spiral downhill". Recording for the album was halted during the summer when Manson underwent surgery to remove a cyst on her right vocal cord, forcing her to recuperate until August 2003. Then, a backhoe careened into the outer walls of Smart Studios, causing extensive damage. Both Garbage and the band Paris, Texas had been working on their albums in the studio. The sessions were permeated by passive-aggressive tensions and an overall lack of artistic focus. According to Vig, there were a lot of personal arguments and we couldn't agree on songs. Manson suffered writer's block and had trouble writing lyrics, and Vig did not like the way the songs sounded. The drummer said that the group frequently argued during production, and that the entire band almost quit. Duke Erikson said that nobody could agree about the music's direction, and the band was on the verge of breaking up.
At the beginning of 2004, the band decided to try to salvage the album, taking their management's suggestion to work with an external producer for the first time. The musicians also decided that neutral territory would be beneficial, and went to Los Angeles. Towards the end of the recording sessions, Grohl spent a day performing on drums for "Bad Boyfriend". The band said his performance was "raising the bar" for the record, and Vig said that Grohl "brought a different energy level to the song", which Erikson and Steve Marker tried to follow with their guitar playing. This influenced most of the songs that followed; the musicians wanted the songs to be "scrappy and primal sounding".
Vig said that the tensions led the band members to become "burned out on each other", and that reuniting made them feel able to play "fast and furious—as if our lives depended on it". Manson overcame her writer's block and began to inject political slants into her lyrics, matching them with some new material the band wrote immediately after the King sessions; both "Metal Heart" and "Boys Wanna Fight" referenced the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Despite a plan to record some material with producer Tony Hoffer, the band decided to complete the rest of the album themselves.
Feeling that previous album Beautiful Garbage seemed fractured, the band decided to use their live sound; Vig said that he wanted "the pumping energy that all the best raw rock records have". The band decided that their fourth album would have a straightforward rock sound, instead of a reliance upon electronica and computer interventions. The musicians composed separately at their home studios, sending each other tracks through e-mail and couriers, and the band returned to Wisconsin to finish the album. Bleed Like Me emerged from a collage of samples and loops, and this time the sound was simpler. Erikson said that rather than production, they depended on the songs.[
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, The songs about relationships follow Manson's tendency to discuss dark topics and emotions; "Bleed Like Me" discusses problems with empathy and "Bad Boyfriend" is about "a predatory female meeting a predatory man". The album closer "Happy Home" is about conflict within the band and in the wider world during production, the search of forgiveness, peace and coming to terms with one's place in a chaotic world.
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