Gwen Stefani pulled up to the Genius office to break down “Bouquet,” the title track from her latest album, Bouquet. Produced by Scott Hendricks, the song is a powerful reflection on love, renewal, and embracing new beginnings. On today’s episode of Verified, the No Doubt frontwoman gets real about chasing new dreams, finding love in the unlikeliest places, and the deeper symbolism woven throughout the track.
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MusicTranscript
00:00God put this guy, my bestie, in my life right when I thought everything was over.
00:06I think this song is really just summing up what it feels like to have a broken dream
00:11and then pick up the pieces and say, you know what, it doesn't just have to be that baby
00:16girl dream, it can be this new dream that you create together, this new life and this
00:20new hope.
00:20The song basically came out of the idea that you have these big dreams of what love's going
00:34to look like.
00:35I had these incredible parents that were so in love since they were 15 and they still
00:39are and that was what I thought I was going to get and it just kept not getting there.
00:45I think when you have your big life dream, which is to have a family and be married and
00:52all the things and that gets broken, how do you move on from that?
00:56This bouquet is gathering all these new hopeful memories and dreams and making this new life
01:03together along the road of healing.
01:07You create your own new bouquet, a new dream and that's possible.
01:15Everything happens in God's timing and that was just how it started.
01:24We were both over, our lives were over and then all of a sudden it was like, okay, no
01:27it's not over, this is just the beginning.
01:29I saw him in his moment of his life falling apart and I remember writing him and saying,
01:36can you believe we're both going through this right now?
01:37I didn't even know him enough to even write that because it was like, I didn't know he
01:41even existed as a human being because he's from Oklahoma, he's from a completely different
01:46culture, genre of music that I never listened to growing up, nothing, like didn't know one
01:51of his songs, nothing.
01:52I'm not going to sit here and try to convince somebody it was a miracle, but I just truly
01:55know it was and so does he.
02:07You know when you don't even really know somebody, but somehow you feel like you know them, like
02:10you're like, how can I be this comfortable?
02:13I've not felt this comfortable in 20 years.
02:16As soon as we started talking, let alone we hadn't even touched yet, I felt like I could
02:20just crawl up in your arms and just, I need this hug, you know?
02:23I just felt like I finally came home after being away for a long time.
02:28You bring the diamond, I'll bring the promise.
02:31You bring the dogs and I'll bring the boys.
02:33You gave me everything that I wanted.
02:35I even got your last name.
02:37Thinking about just what we brought to each other's lives, my husband, when I met him,
02:42I remember thinking, when you really see what my life is, I have this whole, it's not just
02:47me, I have this whole thing.
02:48There's a bunch of us and you're going to run.
02:52I remember he said to me, this is so crazy because I know exactly where it was, we were
02:57texting and he said, I was built for this and I didn't know it till now.
03:02And he said that because in his own family, his dad had adopted his older brother that
03:07wasn't his child.
03:09His dad went on to raise a whole other family.
03:11It was normal for him to have an amazing dad that just took people in and loved them.
03:17And so that was just like one of those things that made me understand what an amazing person
03:21he was.
03:22So yeah, that's probably why I put that line in it because it's like we both brought things
03:26to each other's lives that we didn't know we were going to have.
03:29I got the faith and you got the patience.
03:31I drive you crazy and you drive the truck.
03:34I know that we'll be okay.
03:36We're making our own bouquet.
03:37Well, I don't think I actually drive him crazy, but I think we both, especially in the beginning,
03:43drove each other crazy in love and that's for sure.
03:46Blake doesn't care about cars or any of that stuff.
03:49He just has this truck.
03:50He's always had the same truck and it's like this truck that's just disgusting.
03:53I feel like going into his world and being in his world was something that I didn't know
03:58I needed.
03:59I just wasn't like a truck kind of girl from Orange County.
04:02It's just such a comforting thing now to be in Blake's truck.
04:06And anyone that knows Blake feels the same way.
04:10Sunflowers and roses tied up in a bow.
04:13Now look at the life we made.
04:15We're making our own bouquet.
04:17For me, the sunflowers really represent Oklahoma because when I first met Blake, he has this
04:24ranch and he's always on the tractor and he's doing this large scale gardening.
04:30It's really not gardening, but he'll do these plots of like, it's basically food for the
04:34animals and he'll do things from alfalfa or wheat or all these things and I'm like,
04:39that's so boring.
04:40Or corn, you know?
04:42One time he did sunflowers and it's because the animals love to eat that and I was like,
04:45oh my God, this is incredible.
04:47Roses just always symbolize love and then just the idea of tying it in a bow is just
04:51like tying it all together and like saying this is forever.
05:04It's one thing to get married to somebody and say, okay, that's it, I love you.
05:10As we all know, you don't just marry each other.
05:13Our family's coming together and it's like he signed up for a lot more than just, you
05:18know, I think that that happens a lot.
05:19It can be so challenging, but it also can be just so beautiful and something that's
05:24unexpectedly beautiful.
05:27I know that there's like a flower seed growing petal theme on this record.
05:34It wasn't really intentional, but I feel like through my faith journey, I've learned a lot
05:38about just that seed of hope that you can have.
05:42If you look at nature, you can see so much of God's work and reflect it so much in like
05:47our lives and learn a lot from that.
05:48So I just think I was using that because it was just so real.
05:52Flowers are a really huge like hobby for us and we will sit around and watch YouTube and
05:57just figure out like, oh my gosh, does this grow good in Oklahoma or what's the history
06:01of this one?
06:02And it's incredible.
06:03And I know that I'm not the only nerd that likes it.
06:06They say that people that garden have longer lives.
06:09It's definitely a spiritual thing that I think that people that get into it are obsessed with.