Warning: This article contains spoilers for Barbie
Chances are, even if you haven’t gotten around to watching Barbie yet, you’ve heard about Ryan Gosling‘s cover of Matchbox Twenty’s Push. Gosling’s rendition of the song (which you can hear below), occurs at an important point in the movie, as Gosling’s broken down Ken decides a change is needed in Barbie Land. Sitting around a campfire, Ken strums his guitar and serenades Margot Robbie’s Barbie.
While the film has given the 1996 song plenty of recent buzz, Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas assumed he’d be the “butt of the joke” when approached about the song being featured in the film. He recently told USA Today:
“I want to preface this by saying that I thought it was hilarious. But in ‘Bring It On,’ (Kirsten Dunst’s character) has this douchey boyfriend. And there’s a scene where he was in his dorm room with a Matchbox Twenty poster in the background. There was a whole period during the ‘90s where the more successful we got, the bigger target we were. We were an easy takedown. When I got the call for ‘Barbie,’ they told me, ‘Ken’s by the fireside, he’s playing the song and it’s his favorite band.’ So I did this thinking I’d be the butt of the joke, and I was fine with that. I’m pretty thick-skinned. But Julie Greenwald (from Atlantic Records) came to the Hollywood Bowl a month or two ago. She had just seen the movie and was like, ‘You come out of it loving Ken and loving Push.’ And I was like, ‘Aww. Alright, really good!'”
Rob Thomas is a Greta Gerwig Fan
It also didn’t hurt Barbie director Greta Gerwig’s chances of featuring Push in the film that Thomas is a fan of hers:
“…Greta Gerwig has been one of my crushes forever, to the point where I was on a plane one time and I called my wife, like, ‘Baby, Greta Gerwig just came on the plane, oh my God.’ So just the fact that it didn’t diminish my crush of Greta, that’s even better,” he said.
Push was released while Thomas, who is now 51, was in his early 20s. When the song was released, it was met with protests from feminist groups who thought the lyrics alluded to physical abuse against women. While there’s been plenty of speculation about the actual meaning behind the song, Thomas shared that it was about emotional manipulation at the hands of an ex. Despite the controversy, the song topped music charts throughout the US. One of the song’s fans just happened to be Gerwig.
“Growing up, I loved that song,” Gerwig told USA TODAY. “I was like, ‘’This is my rock ‘n’ roll, Dad. Enjoy The Who, but these are my guys.’ And it wasn’t until college that I actually thought, ‘What is that song about?’ Just thinking about 13-year-old me singing along and really meaning it, I was like, ‘That is so interesting.’ I looked it up and, in a way, (Thomas) was playing a character. It’s almost like a story song.”
In spreading even more love, Thomas recently dedicated Push to Gosling while on tour with Matchbox Twenty for their album Where The Light Goes.
