Shirley Manson’s last day on Earth

How would you spend your last day alive? Shirley Manson from Garbage will be sipping hot chocolate.

Where would you like to wake up?
In Edinburgh, in my house there. It’s right on the water, so it’s right beside the sea, which I love.

What would you like to achieve on your last day?
The thing I would most like to achieve would be a sense of contentment on my last day on Earth. Am I close? No. Are you kidding? I think it’s a real struggle, in some ways, to actually find some form of contentment, so that’s what I would like to achieve.

How would you spend the afternoon?
By the sea. I would like to be on the beach in Kerala, I would like to be on the beach at Yellowcraigs in Scotland, and then at a really good table, drinking really good wine, eating delicious food, and discussing things I am passionate about with people that I am passionate about.

Who would be at your final dinner?
My husband and my dog. What I love about my husband and my dog is they’re both very serene and quiet, so it would just be me talking! I would like to have different types of eating and drinking occasions, so I would definitely have my husband and my dog at one table, and then all the people I’m passionate about I would have to have with me at another.

What’s on the menu?
Champagne and oysters, because that to me is maybe the biggest, most delicious act of decadence. The perfect loaf of bread and salty butter at some point. Sushi. And my mum’s chicken risotto from the 1970s. And a cup of hot chocolate. Perhaps not appealing to most people’s palates, but definitely rocking my world.

What would be your biggest regret?
I never have had any regrets, ever. I apologise all the time – I have to, because I’m constantly offending people and constantly doing stupid things. I would regret ever having caused anybody else suffering, or any kind pain.

What is the last song you want to hear?
‘White Horses’ by Jackie Lee, which was a TV show in the 1970s about a girl and a white horse, and it has got the most amazing theme song, which was the first 7” I ever bought with my own money. It’s a song about floating off into the oblivion, so it’s the perfect soundtrack.

What would your deathbed confession be?
I wouldn’t have any confession, because as you can probably tell, I am very verbal and I usually get everything off my chest at the time. I’m a brutally honest kind of person. Maybe my confession would be that I enjoyed my life immeasurably.

What would your final words be?
‘I told you so.’ They’ll be my last words and they’ll be on my tombstone. I’m telling you, I think about death a lot. I contemplate death on a regular basis. It’s not something I don’t think about!

How are you going to die?
It’s going to be in my own bed, wrapped up in a very tasteful and really, really expensive cashmere blanket, with my little terrier dog pressed up against my neck, and my husband scratching my back, and I will go out with it like that. It’s possible that I’m gonna try and make it happen that way, but it’s likely I’ll meet some very violent and unglamorous death.

Who would you like to meet at the pearly gates of Heaven?
My granny and my mum. My granny would be like, ‘Hurry up! Let’s have a cup of tea and play a game of Scrabble!’

Describe your vision of Heaven.
I would like it to look a little like a country garden, with a soft sun, warm breeze, and I’d like there to be a record player there, with all my records that recently got destroyed in a flood. I’d like all my favourite records back and my vinyl pristine. I’d like lots of animals everywhere – very few humans if possible – and champagne on tap. I think that’s about it.

If you could be resurrected the next day then what would you come back as?
Myself, of course! I can give it another whirl. What would I do differently? What wouldn’t I do differently?! I’d certainly sleep with different types of people. Why not? Variety is the spice of life!

The new album from Garbage, ‘Not Your Kind Of People’, will be released May 14th STUNVOLUME/Co-Op.