Episode 83: The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Siamese Dream” (1993)

Summary

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Accelerated Culture Podcast — Episode 83

The Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream (1993)

Release Date: June 26, 2026
Hosts: Lori & Scott Free
Episode Theme:
An in-depth exploration of Siamese Dream, the breakthrough 1993 album from Chicago’s Smashing Pumpkins, analyzing the band’s roots, creative process, individual tracks, and the album’s legacy as a cornerstone of 1990s alternative rock.

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Main Discussion Overview

• Focus: How Siamese Dream marked a watershed moment for the Smashing Pumpkins and for Chicago’s alternative scene in the wake of the early 90s "Seattle sound."
• Approach: Historical context of the band’s rise, the recording process and intra-band tension, in-depth track-by-track analysis, and observations about the album’s cultural impact.
• Tone: Conversational, well-researched, personal anecdotes from both hosts (long-time Chicagoans), with a dynamic mix of humor and sincerity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Smashing Pumpkins: Chicago’s Answer to Grunge

• Regional Context:
  • The early 90s alternative scene was dominated by Seattle bands (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, etc.), but Chicago was on the verge of its own breakthrough.
  • Siamese Dream’s release in July 1993 positioned the city's music as nationally significant for the first time in years. (08:16 – 09:43)
• Quote:
  • Scott: “There’s this moment where as a Chicago music fan, you’re like, oh boy, this is it. We’re the next Seattle. And, you know, it didn’t quite play out that way, but it did get Chicago national and global respect as a music scene.” (09:36)

2. The Band’s Origin Story

• Early Years:

  • Billy Corgan: Born in Chicago, difficult family life, musically influenced by his musician father (who was abusive and absent) and a mix of classic rock, power pop, and darker proto-alternative bands like Bauhaus and The Cure. (11:17 – 13:38)
  • The classic lineup: Billy (vocals, guitar), James Iha (guitar), Darcy Wretzky (bass), Jimmy Chamberlain (drums).
  • Notable anecdotes about band formation, including their infamous first meeting with Darcy, and the crucial addition of Chamberlain for their first gig at Cabaret Metro. (15:49 – 20:45)

• Quote:

  • Lori: “Darcy’s amazing. Darcy was also a huge Duran Duran fan. ...I wanted to be them. John Taylor had the best bass lines.” (17:16)

3. Billy Corgan: Genius, Control Freak, and the Band’s Driving Force

• Creative Tensions:

  • Corgan’s perfectionism surfaced with the first album (Gish), leading to him overdubbing most parts; dynamic created creative and personal tension, especially with Iha and Wretzky.
  • Both hosts compare Corgan’s approach to that of Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless: both were notorious control freaks who essentially made their “bands’” greatest albums as near solo works. (34:28 – 35:07)

• Band Struggles:

  • Post-Gish touring years were marked by internal relationship fallout (Iha & Wretzky’s breakup), substance abuse (Chamberlain’s heroin/drugs), and Corgan’s crippling depression.
  • Much of Siamese Dream was written during this turbulent time, with Corgan sleeping on friends’ floors or in his car. (28:00 – 29:49)

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Track-by-Track Deep Dive

(Episode contains detailed analysis, history, and notable production quirks for every track. Below are highlights per song.)

1. Cherub Rock (35:28 – 44:20)

• Opening riff origin: Corgan had title before music; the riff came to him during a car ride, inspired by Rush’s “By-Tor and the Snow Dog.” (38:34)
• Themes: Disillusionment with the indie/alternative “scene” and its cliques.
• Signature Pumpkins style: Layered, psychedelic guitars; octave chords become a calling card for the band.
• Memorable quote:
  • Lori: “I really idealized alternative music as the place where, if you’re the weird kid, you could go there. Well, once I actually got into that world, I realized the politics were just the same… It’s basically high school all over again.” (41:42)
• Video: Super-8 film, grungy/distorted look; Corgan hated the result.
• Chart Performance: First single, Grammy-nominated, reached #7 on Alternative Airplay.
• Notable moment: Corgan’s voice described as “love-it-or-hate-it,” central to Pumpkin’s identity.

2. Quiet (44:46 – 51:20)

• Heavy, relentless rock — a swipe at Corgan’s parents. Guitar intro inspired by race car LPs from Corgan’s childhood.
• Lyric deep-dive: Generational trauma, references to childhood abuse, religious disillusionment (Corgan raised Catholic; “Jesus, are you listening…” lyric).
• Quote:
  • Billy (via Lori): “I absolutely believe in the concept of generational trauma… Even down to the concept of ‘Yeah, I’m hitting you, but I’m hitting you less than I was hit. So this is better.’” (49:07)

3. Today (51:21 – 60:00)

• Major hit, iconic guitar riff & video.
• Lyrics: Paradoxically upbeat melody about depression and suicidal ideation.
• Quote:
  • Billy: “A chirpy song about my near suicide that all the kids can sing along to.” (53:36)
• Video: Corgan as ice cream man; inspired by a Chicago neighborhood memory, with a hyper-saturated palette.
• Chart Performance: Top 5 alternative hit, lifted by MTV.

4. Hummer (60:01 – 67:43)

• Psychedelic textures, electric sitar intro, two guitar solos, rich studio effects.
• Production: Corgan’s technique (bending the nut) and wild guitar textures.
• Lyrics: Atmospheric, collage-like (fashioned by Corgan’s cut-up lyric method), not as direct as other tracks.
• Quote:
  • Billy: “To be yourself, you must live your life. To live your life, you must be free.” (66:22)

5. Rocket (67:44 – 72:54)

• High-energy, psychedelic, rich guitar processing (reverse reverb, slide).
• Themes: Transformation, aspiration for freedom — “spirit taking off like a rocket.”
• Video: Kids building a rocket to reach the band, find them old — a nod to relativity/coming-of-age.
• Chart Performance: Top 30 on various charts, a fan favorite.

6. Disarm (72:55 – 80:19)

• String arrangements, glockenspiel, emotionally devastating.
• Themes: Corgan’s childhood abuse, confronting his parents (“I didn’t have the guts to kill my parents, so I thought I’d get back at them through song…”).
• Quote:
  • Billy: “That’s when I started writing stuff like ‘Disarm’ and ‘Today’—which for me were, like, literally ripping my guts out.” (75:57)
• BBC banned it for “dark” lyrics.
• **Vocal delivery described by Scott: “That whine works so well in this track. …The killer in me is the killer in you—as the big hook—like that is, you know, it’s a little emo, but damn if he doesn’t sell it.” (78:27)

7. Soma (80:20 – 85:15)

• Ballad co-written by James Iha. Known for lush production (40+ tracks), includes Mike Mills (R.E.M.) on piano.
• Lyrics: About a lover’s betrayal and emotional solitude.
• Quote:
  • Corgan: “A lover betrays his other… Love is a fraud but solitude is a friend you can rely on.” (84:12)

8. Geek U.S.A. (85:16 – 89:44)

• All-out psychedelic hard rock, celebrated guitar solo.
• Lyrics: Quick, surrealist—assembled Burroughs-style via index cards.
• **Corgan called it a “dumb song,” but it became a live staple.
• Guitar World: Ranked #54 of its 100 greatest guitar solos.

9. Mayonnaise (89:45 – 94:46)

• Fan favorite, dreamy, built on unusual guitar tunings and accidental feedback.
• Collaborative Iha/Corgan composition, lyric collage.
• Chart Performance: Ranked as #1 favorite Pumpkins song by Rolling Stone readers.

10. Spaceboy (94:47 – 99:23)

• Ballad about Corgan’s disabled brother Jesse.
• Notable Instrument: Mellotron suggested by Butch Vig — early integration before it became a Pumpkin’s staple.
• Emotional resonance: Corgan’s deep respect and love for his brother runs through the lyrics and delivery.
• Quote:
  • Billy (on Jesse): “He’s accomplished more in his life from where he began than I did.” (98:57)

11. Silverfuck (99:24 – 103:21)

• Longest, most epic track (8:43), brutal dynamic shifts (LOUD/quiet/LOUD).
• **Frequent live encore; inspired by Thee Hypnotics’ marathon performances.
• Studio Outtake: On tape, Corgan ends with “All right, this take, don’t give a fuck.”

12. Sweet Sweet (103:22 – 105:48)

• Shortest track, gentle ballad with striking vocal harmonies.
• Lyrical theme: Resignation and joy amidst life’s journey — about a “hobo that hops the tracks.”

13. Luna (105:49 – 109:43)

• Album’s wind-down, a love song possibly about Courtney Love.
• Features: Strings & electric sitar.
• Quote:
  • Corgan: “Yes, I am in love with someone that doesn’t love me. My songs are better than hers… I sing a love song in an empty room.” (107:20)

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Album Legacy & Conclusion

• Siamese Dream solidified the Smashing Pumpkins as a creative force beyond “grunge” and put Chicago on the alternative map.
• Band Aftermath:
  • Went on to even greater commercial success with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
  • Persistent creative tension led to lineup changes, side projects, breakups, and reunions.
  • Billy Corgan remains a visible figure, mixing music, entrepreneurship, and podcasting. (111:06 – 112:25)

Favorite Tracks

• Scott: Silverfuck — “Jimmy Chamberlain just going full Bonzo on it. But also the reverse reverb, the loud, quiet, loud. It gives you all the things that this album gives you in one condensed, but not that condensed, 8 minute and 42 second long package.” (110:13)
• Lori: Rocket — “Maybe it’s just that chorus—I shall be free… I find it uplifting.” (110:36)

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Standout Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Billy Corgan’s control:
  “When you are hearing Siamese Dream, you are hearing Billy and Jimmy. When they toured, James and Darcy very accomplished at their instruments… but in the studio, their influence is lesser.” (33:46)

• On the Pumpkins’ signature sound:
  “Studying this album has made me realize how distinctive his guitar sound is and how copied it is. There are many imitators after this album came out.” (41:23)

• On the heart of Siamese Dream:
  “It's a beautiful song that in its totality lends a message that is hard to convey, but bigger than its original intention.” (66:08, on “Hummer”)

• On alternative rock status:
  “Smashing Pumpkins are still a thing. And Billy Corgan now owns a tea shop in Highland Park, Illinois. He hosts his own podcast that seems to be doing pretty well. And I don't know, Smashing Pumpkins, they're still huge.” (112:08)

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Notable Timestamps

• Chicago Scene / Context: 08:16 – 09:43
• Origins / Formation / Early years: 11:17 – 17:37
• Butch Vig Influence / Gish – Nevermind contrast: 21:52 – 26:20
• Band Tensions into Recording: 28:00 – 35:07
• Track-by-Track Deep Dives:
  • “Cherub Rock” — 35:28
  • “Quiet” — 44:46
  • “Today” — 51:21
  • “Hummer” — 60:01
  • “Rocket” — 67:44
  • “Disarm” — 72:55
  • “Soma” — 80:20
  • “Geek U.S.A.” — 85:16
  • “Mayonnaise” — 89:45
  • “Spaceboy” — 94:47
  • “Silverfuck” — 99:24
  • “Sweet Sweet” — 103:22
  • “Luna” — 105:49

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Next Episode Tease

• Artist: The The (Matt Johnson, w/ Johnny Marr)
• Album: Dusk (1993)
• Release Date: July 24th

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Summary

In this episode, Lori and Scott Free provide a rich and nuanced account of Siamese Dream — from the band’s deeply Chicago beginnings and emotional turmoil, through perfectionist studio battles, to the artistic legacy of an album that blended alternative rock’s aggression with layers of psychedelic beauty. The hosts interweave deep musical knowledge, childhood memories, and sharp critique, making this episode a must for Pumpkin devotees and newcomers alike.

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For more, visit: AcceleratedCulturePodcast.com

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Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Lori]

Welcome to the Accelerated Culture Podcast, a sonic journey through the vibrant and revolutionary sounds of the 1980s and 1990s and now 2024. Webby honoree for best Indie Podcast I'm Lori, along with my co host Scott Free, and in this podcast we explore how new waves stormed the airwaves in the early 80s and gave way for the rise of alternative music in the 90s. Find us on the [e-mail]. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the accelerated culture podcast. Episode 833 I'm Laurie and I am Scott Free. Scott, how's it going? What have you seen? What have you done since our last episode?

[Scott Free]

Oh, you know, it's been an interesting month. Not so heavy on going out to see concerts, although I did go out and play a concert. I have mentioned over the years at this point that I am frontman in at least two bands and one of those, a classic rock cover band, had its first big headlining show and when I say big, it was at a neighborhood dive bar, but that frequently has live music and we were the headliners. Playing three hours of music, three 50 minute sets and you know, good crowd, very enthusiastic, really well received. I mostly nailed it and only botched a couple songs and came away feeling like our big debut was somewhat of a success.

[Lori]

Oh wow, that's great. What's the name of your band again? Scott?

[Scott Free]

That is a matter of some controversy and I'm not telling. Okay, yeah, yeah, the band almost broke up due to creative differences month and a half before the show and those creative differences were centered around the name of the band and some of the band wanting to change the name of the band. So lest I kick that hornet's nest further, I am just going to abstain and say it was a great success. Maybe I'll tell you the name of the band the next show we have.

[Lori]

All right, well, you better invite me to the next show.

[Scott Free]

I will, I will. Due to the internal strife, it wasn't the most heavily promoted to the band, but still had a solid crowd. Probably 60 people. People. And then also did go and see the commencement for Northwestern University at the United center here in Chicago. Big old graduation to see daughter of. Well, who I've mentioned frequently here on Accelerated Culture. Rabba, lifelong friend. His eldest daughter, Annabel is her name. She graduated with a master's in computer science. Another woman in STEM like yourself. Okay, she. Right. She's a brilliant, very funny, really cool young woman. So, Annabelle, congrats once again on your master's degree. And I know that you're sleeping right now. She sleeps to podcasts, including ours. And I'm trying my damnedest not to take offense at this, but as long as I've got you while you're sleeping, Annabelle, I'll plant this thought in your subconscious. When you awaken, you'll be energized and motivated and ready to get down to business creating that head to head fighting game we talked about and that you kind of laughed off. And remember, it is a 5050 split of the proceeds from that. So you and me, let's get down to business.

[Lori]

Accelerated culture. Come for the music, stay for the subliminal messages.

[Scott Free]

And you what? What do you know? What have you seen? What have you read?

[Lori]

Well, I have read and this is a book that just came out in March of 2026. So just a few months ago, I am one the Smashing Pumpkin Story, 1988-1994 by Greg Prato, P R A T O and I'm going to be leaning on him pretty heavily as a source for this episode. I do have a couple other sources which I will mention as we are going along, but that is my primary source for this episode.

[Scott Free]

Right on some light reading, but that comes in handy to inform you. The Accelerated culture warriors.

[Lori]

All right, so I guess that brings us to the topic of today's episode. Scott. We are finally in 1993 and we are starting this banner year off with the epic album Siamese Dream by the Chicago band the Smashing Pumpkins. Now, before we talk about that, I want to say that I have finally managed to clarify something that I have wondered ever since 1993 when I first heard the band. Is it Smashing Pumpkins or is it the Smashing Pumpkins? According to Billy Corgan, the lead vocalist, the founder of the band, the primary songwriter, smashing is not a verb. It's an adjective. It's not like we like to smash pumpkins or anything. So it's the Smashing Pumpkins, as in, oh, darling, that's very smashing. Right?

[Scott Free]

I mean, yes. And he's saying that. I will also say, though quite famously, in I want to say 1996, Billy Corgan and the Smashing Pumpkins appeared on the Simpsons when Homer goes on tour with Hullabalooza, the Lollapalooza, like, music festival. And at one point, backstage, Billy Corgan introduces himself as Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins. To which Homer Simpson replies. Homer Simpson, smiling politely. So, like Billy Corgan himself, and granted it was in the service of a gag, introduced the band as Smashing Pumpkins. The kids these days, they don't understand the references anymore. The Simpsons are getting dated. But I will never give up. I will be saying them on my deathbed. Best death ever. What a nerd. Lucite heartening. Must end life in classic Lorne Green pose from Battlestar Galactica. Best death ever.

[Lori]

Right.

[Scott Free]

Okay. So it's kind of worth noting where we in Chicago, and both you and I were living in Chicago when Siamese Dream came out. Where we were and how we felt about Chicago as part of the larger alternative music scene. Right?

[Lori]

Absolutely.

[Scott Free]

It's 1993. We are already a couple years into the grunge era. If you're watching 120 Minutes, you're listening to your local alternative station. You are hearing a lot of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and even as we have covered on this show, Stone Temple Pilots who were not technically Seattle, they were lumped in as part of the grunge scene. Seattle sound. And any one of those bands might object to being labeled as the grunge band. Make no mistake, as music consumers, that's how we were receiving it, right? The Seattle sound reigned supreme. Now we're in Chicago, and we are seeing Chicago throw some blips onto the radar here and there. Of course, as we've covered on this show, Jim Ellison's band Material Issue, putting Chicago power pop, in the tradition of Cheap Trick, back on the radar. Liz Fair is making a big splash.

[Lori]

Local H was another one that I think was coming up around that time.

[Scott Free]

Urge Overkill. Like, you got some Chicago bands who are showing up, but with Gish and then the hype around Siamese Dream, like, it's a pretty good time to be a Chicago rock fan, right?

[Lori]

Oh, absolutely.

[Scott Free]

Right. So when Siamese Dream comes out and breaks big with quite a bit of music industry hype, right. And this is July of 93, In Utero hasn't even come out yet. That won't come out till September. So there's this moment where as a Chicago music fan, you're like, oh boy, this is it. We're the next Seattle. And, you know, it didn't quite play out that way, but it did get Chicago national and global respect as a music scene. For Billy Corgan to be the king of that Chicago music scene with, you know, his full personality in its sometimes difficult nature, hadn't fully manifested yet, but you had that voice and, you know, I'll talk about it in greater length when we get into the track by track. It's a distinctive voice, sometimes can pierce or grape, but, you know, it's just part of the band's unique charm.

[Lori]

Scott, did you ever catch Smashing Pumpkins or any of the other local bands that we've talked about live when they were still coming up, or.

[Scott Free]

I did not ever catch Smashing Pumpkins or Liz Fair live.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

There's some debate as to whether I saw a material issue, but if I can't remember it, then I guess it doesn't count. The oft mentioned Rabba, close friend who went to Northwestern University, believes we went to that show together. But college was a crazy time, man.

[Lori]

Don't do drugs, kids stay in school.

[Scott Free]

So if you're talking the story of the Smashing Pumpkins, when you get down to it, you're talking about the story of Billy Corgan. Billy Corgan was born William Patrick Corgan Jr. And he was born in Lincoln park, the Lincoln park neighborhood in Chicago.

[Lori]

Yeah. As a matter of fact, Scott, when I was researching this, and you might remember because I texted you in the middle of the night because I was so surprised, I discovered that Billy Corrigan and I were actually born at the same hospital about six years apart.

[Scott Free]

He's got a few years on you.

[Lori]

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, Columbus Hospital in Chicago here on the north side. Of course, now it's condominiums, of course, but yeah, that was a pleasant surprise. And actually there's a few things in the pumpkin story that, well, being from Chicago, overlap in my life and I imagine probably yours too, for sure.

[Scott Free]

He then grew up in the western suburb of Glendale Heights, and his father, William Patrick Corgan senior, was also a working musician, an accomplished musician, according to Billy, despite also being a, quote, drug dealing, gun toting musician and madman who Corgan alleges abused him physically and emotionally. And who abandoned him and his brother into the care of his great grandparents. Later grandparents, and then later to Corgan's stepmother. But you know, he also, William Corgan senior, bought Billy his first guitar, a used Les Paul knockoff, and told him about which guitar grates he should study. And according to Corgan, I love this. My father once said, don't listen to Clapton, he sucks. Listen to Jeff Beck. And of course, he also recommended Jimi Hendrix, because any guitar player in the late 70s is going to need to study Hendrix. So Corgan took up guitar in high school and was influenced by John Cale, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Queen, Boston elo, Rush and Cheap Trick, as well as darker, proto alternative bands and favorites of this show, Bauhaus and the Cure.

[Lori]

I've got a couple more to add to that, please. Two of his other big inspirations, Scott, were REM and U2.

[Scott Free]

Sure.

[Lori]

Going back to that book by Greg Prato, I am one the Smashing Pumpkin Story. Billy Corgan is quoted as saying, I felt that U2 moved towards their audience, whereas REM continued to lead theirs and see who followed. There was also another comment that he made that's quoted in the same book since, you know, he. Again, he's a little bit older than me, so when he was growing up, alternative music wasn't really a thing. So you mentioned Cheap Trick, which is another local band, and he actually said he thought that Cheap Trick was alternative, that, you know, that was the most alternative band that he had been exposed to up until that point.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, it's power pop and eventually stadium power pop. So, like, if your other influences are Sabbath and ELO and Rush, I guess Chief Tricks, an alternative, if not capital A alternative.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Right.

[Scott Free]

Anyway, after high school, not digging the Chicago music scene and having formed a band called the Marked, Corrigan moved himself and the band to St. Petersburg, Florida. Weird choice. And after two years, the band broke up and he moved back to Chicago with his next band already in mind and already had the name the Smashing Pumpkins.

[Lori]

You know, there was a little interlude there between Marked and Smashing Pumpkins. He was briefly, very, very briefly, like probably a matter of weeks, in a band called Deep Blue Dream that was fronted by Wayne Static, who then became the lead singer of Static X, the new metal band.

[Scott Free]

Right, right. Fascinating. It all comes together. So let's see here. Upon his return to Chicago, Billy started working at a record store on the far northwest side of the city called Record Hunt.

[Lori]

Yes. And while he was working there, he was introduced by his friend Len to a gentleman of Japanese American descent named James iha, who was a guitarist, and they hit it off. So Billy said, we started writing these scary little doomy goth pop songs together.

[Scott Free]

And it was the two of them with a drum machine. And then after a show that the two of them went to see, they ran into and got to know one Darcy Retsky, who played the bass and recruited her into the band.

[Lori]

Do you know the story about how they met Darcy and Billy?

[Scott Free]

No. What do you got?

[Lori]

Okay, so they got into an argument on the street about a band called the Dan Reed Network. I guess they had both gone to see this band live, and Billy was making fun of one of the band members for jumping around on stage like a maniac. And so Billy was saying that this isn't a real band, that this is, like, contrived by the record label because, quote, regular people in bands don't jump around on stage like that. To which Darcy replied, well, I play guitar and I kind of move around on stage a little bit. And Billy's response was, oh, yeah, well, I'm looking for a bass player. Here's my number.

[Scott Free]

Nice.

[Lori]

Also worth noting about Darcy. Darcy's amazing. Darcy was also a huge Duran Duran fan. So I loved her before this. I love her even more now. She explained, I wasn't a groupie or anything. I wanted to be them. John Taylor had the best bass lines.

[Scott Free]

Now, that is objective truth. Anyway, so the trio with a drum machine did their first show at a Chicago polish bar called Chicago 21. They were trying to save the doors. The carved, ornate wooden doors to Chicago 21.

[Lori]

Yeah, it's got that really gorgeous, ornate carved wooden facade. And the sign that says Chicago 21 club is still out there because I pass it just about every day. It's in my neighborhood down the street on Belmont.

[Scott Free]

Well, I would say somebody should lead a push to preserve those doors and that sign as a piece of Chicago history and move it into their Highland park tea House. Which is to say, Billy Corgan, who actually already did this with a very famous neon sign for a Chinese restaurant. It is now hanging in Madame Zuzu's Tea House in Highland Park. We may be getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. And before long, they were also playing at the Avalon. I'm tipping a little bit of my drink out to the Avalon, long since gone. They play out, and they caught the eye of Joe Shanahan, who is the owner of legendary Chicago music venue Cabaret Metro. He agreed to book them to play at the Metro on the condition that they ditch the drum machine and get a real drummer. A Friend of the band recommended Jimmy Chamberlain, who was more of a jazz drummer.

[Lori]

Yeah, Jimmy Chamberlain was originally from Joliet, Illinois, and he's from a family of musicians. His father's a musician, his brother's a musician. He worked primarily as a carpenter while occasionally playing drums for a few different show bands and a band called Eddie Carrosa's Polka Party.

[Scott Free]

Awesome.

[Lori]

And apparently there is YouTube video of Jimmy playing with Eddie Carrosa's Polka Party. So, yeah, look it up. When they finally connected, this is according to Jimmy. So I called Billy and he told me about the situation, that he had all these original songs and was gonna get signed. And I said, yeah, right, figuring I'd do the one gig and we'd talk more later. The one gig being the Metro show that you just referred to.

[Scott Free]

At first, they were having him play in the style of Bauhaus or the Cure sad rock, as Corgan described it. But after just a few practices, Corgan realized that if Chamberlain was allowed to let loose and really bash it, the whole band could level up and create a new, more powerful sound with some serious rock. And I'm making the rock horns here behind it. And that is precisely what they did. The complete band. Billy, James, Darcy, and the addition of drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. Their first show was on October 5, 1988, at the Cabaret Metro, which is kind of an astounding debut show.

[Lori]

Oh, yeah.

[Scott Free]

And this is from a guy who played at a dive Irish bar this weekend for his debut show. It's not as good.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

We're no Smashing Pumpkins, though, so a couple tracks on compilation records followed. And then the band's first single, I Am One. Hey, what's the name of that book you're reading, Laurie?

[Lori]

I Am One.

[Scott Free]

There you are. That was the band's first single, was released in 1990 on Sub Pop Records. And then they recorded their first LP, Gish, with producer Butch Vig, in 1991. Not the first time we have heard the name Butch Vig here on this show. You will, of course, recall Butch Vig as the drummer and one of the masterminds behind the band Garbage. You will also recall him as the producer for Nirvana's Nevermind. And this becomes important and controversial in its own right.

[Lori]

Love me some Butch, though. He's fantastic.

[Scott Free]

So, yeah, they recorded Gish Caroline Records. Yes, that is true. Yes.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yeah.

[Lori]

The strength of that single that you mentioned, Scott. I Am One. And then there was another song that they released on Sub Pop called Tristessa.

[Narrator]

Okay.

[Lori]

And on the strength of those two singles, they were Able to secure a deal with Caroline Records, which was a very important indie label at the time.

[Scott Free]

Noice. They recorded this debut album with Butch Big at Smart Studios, Butch Big's studio in Madison, Wisconsin. By this point, we know all about Billy Corgan and what a force he is and what an ego he is and how he plays his way. And he had a lot of the ideas for Gish and for Gish's production pretty fully formed. There was a collaboration, certainly. But part of what made Gish really interesting was that it was this hard alternative rock. Yes, but also infused with psychedelia, the guitar effects. Billy Corgan was a fan of all of the aforementioned influences, but also of My Bloody Valentine and that insane guitar effect and layering thing that Kevin Shields does. And he was doing some of that himself. And there were times where the same guitar part would be played four, five times, each time with different guitar effects, similar phasers, but slightly different, and panned over into the left versus the right and bigger fuzz or whatever. So you just got this really big, beautiful guitar sound. Butch Vig embraced this and ran with it. And that sound incredibly distinctive. On Gish. There are a lot of alternative bands with a rock edge, but none that sound like that album. Until that album, Butch Big then gets the job to record and produce Nirvana's Nevermind. If you have studied the history of Nirvana at all, and if you haven't, you should listen to accelerated culture, episode 46, Nirvana's Nevermind. Where we get into it, you listen to their debut album, Bleach. It's a punk album, more or less. It's a hard rocking album that is definitely coming from a band that is punk at its roots. And the sound is raw and stripped down and heavy and fast and furious and amazing, right? Nirvana's Nevermind is a different sound entirely. It still has that spirit, but it is much more produced and sometimes in ways that Kurt Cobain ended up not loving. That happened in no small part because of the collaboration with Butch Vigilant, coming fresh off his collaboration with Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins, he decided he had to trick Kurt Cobain into recording and re recording and re recording guitar tracks. Kurt, left to his own devices, would be one and done. Record it once, let's move on to the next track. And Butch Fig would be like, well, hey, it didn't record right. The tape wasn't going, whatever, we should do that again. So he could get multiples of the same guitar track, so he could layer it and put it together in post. Kurt didn't Always love that. But, well, the success kind of speaks for itself. That said, when Billy Corgan first heard singles from Nevermind on the radio, he's like, oh, hey, this sounds pretty cool. Oh hey, that's my guitar sound. And knew that Butch Vigilant had taken his studio techniques, or the studio techniques that they collaborated on, and ported it over to Nirvana. And to this day, Billy Corgan will say, yeah, Nirvana kind of ripped off my guitar sound, which is fricking audacious for anybody to say. But Budgvig, in an interview with Rick Beato that I watched, corroborates it. He basically says, yeah, I did that.

[Lori]

Yeah. Their debut album, Gish, was released in May 1991, so it actually predated Nirvana's Nevermind by a few months. Gish blended heavy guitar riffs very heavily. Black Sabbath influenced the psychedelic textures that you mentioned. Dreamlike atmospheric elements, much like My Bloody Valentine, as you had mentioned. Although it only charted modestly, it became a critical success and one of the best selling independent rock albums of its time. Now, around then, Billy Corgan's perfectionism was already starting to show. He often overdubbed many guitar and bass parts himself to get a very precise sound. After the release of Gish, the band toured extensively and they started gaining attention as part of the emerging alternative rock movement. They were even being positioned as, quote, the next Nirvana. However, pressures were already building. One reason is the aforementioned drive for perfection that Billy had. It caused some creative strain. There were some personal tensions within the band during the late 80s and early 90s. James and Darcy, the other guitarist and the bassist, had a very short lived relationship while the band was first establishing itself. They had since broken up, but they were still bandmates, they were still playing together and that led to some tension.

[Scott Free]

It was a messy breakup.

[Lori]

Was it?

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

See, I don't. I don't know the details. And drummer Jimmy Chamberlain began struggling with

[Scott Free]

drug abuse, alcohol and narcotics. Don't do drugs, kids stay in school.

[Lori]

I knew you were going to say that.

[Scott Free]

And Billy himself goes into a deep depression.

[Lori]

Oh yeah.

[Scott Free]

To eight months of just crushing depression at a time when he is supposed to be working on the tracks for the next album.

[Lori]

Right, right. He had said in numerous interviews that he'd been suicidal and actually we're going to talk about that when we get to some of the album tracks. At one point I know he was sleeping on Darcy's floor because this was when he was kind of in a transitional phase between. You mentioned the great grandparents. The grandparents. The stepmother. Yeah, it was by all accounts, a really, really rough time for him.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I saw one line that referred to him writing a lot of the songs for what will become Siamese Dream while in his car in the parking garage in which he lived. And I cannot even picture how that works.

[Lori]

But, yeah, it's really hard to picture somebody as successful as he is, somebody that, you know, has had such an impact on alternative music, on the Chicago music scene, thinking that at some point he was sleeping on floors, sleeping in cars, and didn't think that this was going to go anywhere.

[Scott Free]

After the release of the critically beloved first album, too. Like, this isn't while the band was still struggling. They were signed at this point, and theoretically, if not on the top of the world, climbing, but, yeah, struggling nonetheless.

[Lori]

So as they were getting ready to record their second album, they then signed with Virgin Records, which is Caroline's parent label.

[Scott Free]

Moving on up.

[Lori]

Yes, yes, yes. So the stakes were really high. There was pressure to follow the success of Gish, the expectations being on a major label now, Virgin Records, and incidentally, something that else is going to come up. During the track by track, Billy said, quote, before Siamese Dream, I was reading a lot of William Burroughs. So there was a definite connection between that and the album. Now, our listeners know Scott, you know, I'm always bringing up William S. Burroughs because he's been so influential on so many of the musicians and bands that we love. And here's another example that we're gonna see in the track by track, for sure.

[Scott Free]

And you know, Billy Corgan, himself, a very literary individual, before he took up the guitar, he had aspirations of becoming an author.

[Lori]

Yeah, well, he definitely could do it. I mean, many sources that I've read have referred to Billy Corgan as a poet. And that comes out in many of his lyrics.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

So.

[Lori]

Yeah, I could see that.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Funny bit, and this is earlier in the history, but at one point, you know, his father and his father will come up in the track by track because Billy's relationship with him looms large in some of the songs. But while Billy was in high school and was just in his bedroom playing, practicing the guitar, his father came in and told him, what are you wasting your time on this for? You're never gonna make it, kid. And that was the point at which Billy was like, you old man, I'm gonna become a rock star. Okay, A lot of kids say stuff like that, but, well, damned if Billy Corrigan doesn't have follow through, right? So the sophomore album, Butch Vig was enlisted to co produce it. And he Felt a lot of pressure, as you said. The expectations for this album were huge. And they had recorded Gish at Smart Studios. They didn't want to do it there again. They didn't want to record it in Chicago again. Needed to get away from all of the pressures and temptations that the band had been enmeshed in up to this point.

[Lori]

Right. Jimmy Chamberlain's addiction was actually getting a lot worse, and one of the things that they wanted to do is get him as far away from his drug dealer as possible. Things were still strained between James and Darcy after their breakup. Billy Corgan was still dealing with severe depression and writer's block. Despite that turmoil, or maybe because of the turmoil, the band refined a denser, layered, more ambitious sound, setting the stage for this album, which would become their major label breakthrough.

[Scott Free]

Oh, yeah. So they looked. Butch Vig, in particular, looked at a variety of other locations to take the recording session to LA and New York. Both rejected for being, well, maybe not the same urban den of temptations that Chicago was, and maybe not the same drug dealer, but just too easy for Jimmy in particular, to slip into his old ways. Chicago was out. They didn't want to do Smart Studios in Madison again. So they kept looking around, and eventually

[Lori]

they settled on Triclops Studios in Marietta, Georgia, for the album sessions. They recorded mainly between December of 1992 and March of 1993.

[Scott Free]

And apparently the attempt to get away from temptations did not work. Jimmy just had his drug dealers fly in to supply him with everything he didn't need.

[Lori]

Oh, boy.

[Scott Free]

But because of that, because of James and Darcy's messy problems and the infighting in the band, Billy Corgan assumed control, and by Butch Big's telling, played like 90%, 95% of the guitar and bass on this album. So in no small part, when you are hearing Siamese Dream, you are hearing Billy and Jimmy. When they toured, James and Darcy very accomplished at their instruments and they were up to the task, but in the studio, their influence is lesser.

[Lori]

And this is, in my mind, very similar to what we talked about in episode 47, when we talked about My Bloody Valentine's album Loveless, in that Kevin Shields was very much a control freak as well, and he did pretty much the same thing and played just about all of the instruments on the album, did just about all the vocals, and kind of crowded out the other members of the band. And so it's understandable why that would cause some tension in Smashing Pumpkins. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. And that tension followed that band through the 90s. It ain't easy working for a control freak and still feeling like you are contributing and are valued as a member of the band.

[Lori]

So Siamese Dream was released on July 27, 1993 in the US on Virgin Records. The album was co produced by Butch Vig and Billy Korga and Scott, I think then this is a good time for us to start the track by track. What do you think?

[Scott Free]

Okay, let's get into it and do that deep dive.

[Lori]

All right, well, we're going to start with the first track as one does appropriate. This is called Cherub Rock.

[Scott Free]

Drum roll, please. Might as well make it,

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Sam. Doesn't matter what you are Stay cool and be somebody's home this year.

[Scott Free]

All right, that guitar line that builds and crescendos with the addition of the drums. And then, well, I have in my notes Darcy's bass, but presumably Billy's bass. And then the big guitars come in and you can see what you're in for here on this album.

[Lori]

Billy Corgan actually had the idea for the title Cherub Rock before he'd ever conceived of the song itself.

[Scott Free]

I gotta say, I was wondering where the hell that title came from.

[Lori]

Well, and he would be asked in interviews, he'd be asked by people on the street, hey, what are you working on now? And he'd be like, hey, I'm working on a great song called Cherub Rock. But that's all he knew. One day he was riding in a car with a friend of Jimmy's. And again, this is a quote from that Greg Prado book. We were just driving down the road and I'm staring out the window on a gray Chicago day, and I said, don't talk to me. He goes, what do you mean? I go, I got this riff in my head. Don't say anything. Don't put on the radio. It took another 20 minutes in complete silence before Billy arrived home, grabbed his guitar, and then started playing that riff that would become the backbone of Cherub Rock.

[Scott Free]

Oh, right on.

[Lori]

And I totally get that because I tend to forget things too. And it's like, no, I got to hold onto this. I got to hold on to this. And, you know, it's not like now where it's like you can pick up your cell phone and do a voice recording and sing the riff.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, the odds of you carrying around a Dictaphone back then were pretty low.

[Lori]

And now, speaking of that guitar riff, this is something I think you'll appreciate, Scott. Billy Corrigan later admitted the riff was, quote, a sneaky twist on a Rush riff.

[Scott Free]

I Can absolutely believe that. Which one?

[Lori]

By Tor and the Snow Dog.

[Scott Free]

Fuck, yeah, it is. That makes perfect sense. Yeah.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

Off of Fly By Night.

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

No, I know exactly the part of the song where it slows down or in the second half. And. Yeah, no, that is not even that sneaky a bite, now that you mention it. I can't believe I didn't see it before.

[Lori]

Yeah. And he openly admitted it. And then the other thing that's notable on this song and then on many of the other tracks that we're going to hear is this octave chord where you're playing two notes an octave apart.

[Scott Free]

For sure.

[Lori]

That would later become the Pumpkin's speaker signature sound. As a matter of fact, Billy Corgan would later say, I like the idea of having exclusive claim to one chord.

[Scott Free]

Fair enough. Yeah. Like this song as an opener, it fully rocks, for sure. But also it has that psychedelic guitar effect thing going for it and also vocal effects. I think there's some flange or at least phase on the vocals that takes some of the just straight off rock assault edge off and gives it that psychedelic feel that, you know, is what Gish was so well known for. It's not just a hard rock album because there was still plenty of hard rock out there. This was something else. And this kind is what lets you know you're dealing with an alternative hard rock album. But, yeah, make no mistake, it fully fucking rocks.

[Lori]

Oh, yeah. This is actually, Scott, the first song that I consciously remember hearing by the Smashing Pumpkins. I'm sure I probably heard some of their other stuff before this, but this is the first time that I can actually remember hearing it and being like, oh, this is good.

[Scott Free]

Oh, yeah. Really good stuff on this one. It's very much a Smashing Pumpkin song. And with that, one of the defining characteristics, the defining sounds, not just the guitar, not just that serious drumming from Jimmy Chamberlain, but Billy Corgan's voice. It's kind of a love it or hate it thing. He basically has three modes. It's that breathy, melodic, almost stage whisper, but with melody to it. There's the high, sneering whine and then there's this almost growling yowl. And this song kind of gives you all three of them. It's so expressive.

[Lori]

And he has such a distinctive voice. I mean, I know I've said that about a few other people that we've discussed over the years, but there's no mistaking him for anybody else. When you hear a Pumpkin song right away, you know that this is Billy.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

And you know I always knew, you know, I always thought that about the voice. Studying this album has made me realize how distinctive his guitar sound is and how copied it is. There are many imitators after this album came out. Yeah. Good stuff, though.

[Lori]

Yeah. The song is specifically about Billy's discontent with the indie music scene. He said, quote, I really idealized alternative music as the place where, if you're the weird kid, you could go there. Well, once I actually got into that world, I realized the politics were just the same. You know, there's the in crowd, there's the clicks. You know, you're not cool enough to be part of this scene. It's basically high school all over again. Right. Hence the lyrics where he's singing, let me out. Right. Let me out of this independent music scene that I found myself in that I thought was gonna be fantastic.

[Scott Free]

Hipsters unite. Come align for the big fight to rock for you. But beware all those angels with their wings glued on. Cause deep down we are frightened and we're scared.

[Lori]

Who wants honey? As long as there's some money? Who wants that honey? And to me that's selling out. Right?

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yeah.

[Lori]

The video for the song features footage of the band performing the song live in a forest setting. It was shot outside San Francisco, entirely on Super 8 film on a very modest budget. The director, Kevin Kerslake, tried some different experimental techniques when developing the film to give the video this broken and dirty look. There were instructions for how to chemically treat the film to develop it, and he was intentionally skipping over steps or bunching things up and trying to make it look, well, grungy. Yeah. Billy Corgan was extremely unhappy, not just with the shooting experience, but with the final outcome of the video. And as a result, they would not work with Kevin again until, I want to say, 96. 7.

[Scott Free]

Dang. He's a notoriously particular man.

[Lori]

That's a good word, particular. Yes. So this was the first single that was released off of the album. Now the record label wanted another single as the first single, but Billy really fought for this one, and he won. The single was released on June 21, 1993. It reached number seven on the US Alternative Airplay chart, 23 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. It was nominated for a Grammy for

[Scott Free]

Best Hard Rock Performance, and deservedly so.

[Lori]

Again. This was my first initiation into the world of the Smashing Pumpkins, and it sucked me in immediately. I remember getting off my shift at the mall and walking down to Record Town because the mall has it all, and buying the CD that same day.

[Scott Free]

Right on all Right. I guess. That brings us to track two, the ironically titled Quiet.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

I am asleep in Hell under the house. That's you.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so while the opening track, Cher Brck, had enough of that Gish era psychedelia to take the edge off of it, this track just goes hard, I think, in no small part. It's just that. That relentless ascending bass line throughout and of course, Jimmy Chamberlain just pounding the shit out of the drums. Yeah, damn. This. This track is a rocker and I am about it.

[Lori]

That introduction, the very beginning of the song, it sounds kind of like a racetrack.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

So that's actually a slider running up the strings of a guitar tuned to F sharp. And it's sampled and layered a few times to sound like a racetrack. So Billy said, when I was little, I had a record of race car sounds. The guy would say funny cars or dragsters, and you'd hear the cars going around the track. And I think that's where the inspiration for the intro comes from.

[Scott Free]

Love it. And speaking of guitars made to sound like speedy vehicles at like the minute 50ish mark, there is an interlude, there's a drum roll and what sounds like an ascending airplane. And clearly it's just Billy Corgan getting crazy with the guitars. And then it becomes like a dive bombing airplane. And like this is just some masterful guitar noise that he's making here. Just really kick ass work.

[Lori]

Yeah. And then there's a guitar solo. And again, I would like to quote Billy, the solo lifts the song up physically and hopefully it sounds like it's from another planet. The song itself is about his relationship with his parents. Billy says, I was in such a severe state of denial. It was like, I know I'm an idiot. I don't want to hear it anymore.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

It.

[Lori]

It was kind of a swipe at my parents. Now, Scott, you have mentioned before Billy's unstable childhood. His father being very emotionally damaging at times, physically abusive, largely absent.

[Scott Free]

But when he was around, he was not a good guy.

[Lori]

Right. And he was definitely very emotionally abusive. In interviews, Billy has said that his father was involved in drug use and drug dealing, which I think you alluded to sometimes exposing him to that world and even taking him along on situations that you shouldn't be taking a child to. He also said his father could be verbally and psychologically abusive, criticizing or dismissing him, telling him to be quiet as a child. So I think that's where this quiet title comes from. And later responding to his success with jealousy and discouragement instead of support, which again, you mentioned in the Intro to the episode. But the lyrics to this are just so dark.

[Scott Free]

For years I've been sleeping helpless Couldn't tell a soul Be ashamed of the mess you've made My eyes never forget

[Lori]

you see Silent metal mercies Castrate boys to the bone Jesus, are you listening up there to anyone at all?

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

Now, I did find a People magazine article by Bailey Richards that was published on January 23rd of 2024.

[Scott Free]

Don't lie to me. You happened upon it because you have a subscription to People magazine that you read religiously.

[Lori]

No, no, no, I do not. Is People magazine, is that still, like, an actual physical publication nowadays, or is it all digital? Because a lot of the magazines that we grew up with are all digital. Now.

[Scott Free]

What else are you going to have in the doctor's office waiting room?

[Lori]

Well, yeah, Billy says. What highlights for children. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Goofus and Gallant find the differences between the illustrations.

[Lori]

Anyway, okay, so in this People magazine article, Billy says, I absolutely believe in the concept of generational trauma. I mean, much of what we were taught or not taught or we went through as children, my brother and I, I think, was the result of what our parents had been taught or not taught, even down to the concept of, yeah, I'm hitting you, but I'm hitting you less than I was hit. So this is better. And he added that he's actually heard that from a parent before. So. Wow. You know, you think you got it tough. Well, when I was a kid. Right.

[Scott Free]

No, dad, what about you?

[Lori]

I learned it from you, dad.

[Scott Free]

Okay.

[Lori]

But, yeah, and incidentally, in that second verse that I quoted, the reference to Jesus. Are you listening up there to anyone at all? Billy was raised Catholic. And like me and many other people that were raised to believe in a certain religion, he became very disillusioned and lost his faith. Yeah, well. And, you know, especially though, if you think about it, if this is the kind of relationship that he had with his father, where he's writing lyrics about castrating boys to the bone, if the biblical God is supposed to be the father, the all loving father. Right. And then if you grew up with a father that was this abusive, then how, as a child, then do you perceive God? You know what I mean?

[Scott Free]

I do know what you mean. Yeah. Disillusioned, I would say.

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Narrator]

Yes.

[Lori]

That brings us to track three. This is one of their better known songs. This is called Today.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Today is the greatest.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so if you were conscious in the 90s, you know this song. I mean, this is one of those that literally everyone can just pop the CD into their brain and press play and hear this song note for note. I am fully convinced of that. This is one of the biggest songs of the 90s, is it not?

[Lori]

Oh, definitely, definitely. Although I don't know about having a CD in your brain, Scott. Don't you have like an eight track tape or something?

[Scott Free]

Oh, it's a whole console system, eight track set. It's got an aux in, so I can also play, you know, MP3s and the like. But yeah.

[Lori]

Ah, okay. All right, well, that intro that. Yeah, that's. It's iconic, right? That was actually the last part that they added to the song.

[Scott Free]

Big crunchy riff first.

[Lori]

Yes. Billy said I had all the chords in the melody but no opening hook. I knew I had to come up with some sort of opening riff. Then out of the blue, I heard the opening lick for the note in my head. Billy has said in many, many interviews that this song is actually about him being suicidal. Sure.

[Narrator]

Damn.

[Lori]

He said. The ultimate in irony. A chirpy song about my near suicide that all the kids can sing along to.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

And he said that the song's opening line, Today is the greatest day I've ever known was written with such irony because I felt so low. It's like there's nowhere to go but up, huh?

[Scott Free]

Yeah. This song was one of two that Billy Corgan wrote in a single songwriting session. A single 24 hour period in his bedroom where he decided that he was going to embrace and reveal the darkness that was inside him and that he was grappling with both in his present and about his past. And he wrote two songs in that songwriting session and they were two massive era defining singles, this being one of them. And the other we'll talk about in just a little bit.

[Lori]

Now that you know that listeners, now that you know that this is a song about him being suicidal, let me go into some of the lyrics. Today is the greatest day I've ever known can't wait for tomorrow I might not have that long and then a little while later Pink ribbon scars that never forget oh, damn. Yeah, right. Which sounds like somebody slitting their wrist. I tried so hard to cleanse these regrets My angel wings were bruised and restrained My belly stings so it's a interesting juxtaposition, right between the kind of bouncy tone and the very, very dark lyrics.

[Scott Free]

Oh yeah, that sing songy lilting guitar bit at the beginning makes it sound so cheery and like it kind of sounds like an ice cream truck. Which figures into the video then, doesn't it?

[Lori]

Yes.

[Scott Free]

Talk about iconic alternative rock videos. This is right up there with Smells Like Teen Spirit, right?

[Lori]

Absolutely.

[Scott Free]

I mean, you got Billy Corgan, the lonely ice cream man, tormented by love all around him, good looking alternative people with piercings and colored hair making out all around. So he drives his ice cream truck out into the desert with at one point James IHA in a lovely sundress, leaning out the ice cream truck door as they're driving on the highway. They pick up Jimmy and Darcy, irresponsible gas station attendants, and, you know, drive off into the desert. Again, iconic.

[Lori]

Oh, the video is amazing. I love the colors. You know, a lot of yellow, a lot of really bright colors.

[Scott Free]

Hyper saturated color palette that they filtered the video into. Right.

[Lori]

And they used very low quality camera equipment. This might also have been another Super 8. I'm not sure on that, but that kind of became another one of the band's signatures is kind of this grainy, low quality video.

[Scott Free]

Speaking of colors, at one point, everybody in the band is painting the ice cream truck, like aggressively painting and smearing their bodies all across it. And it's a whole sequence. Eventually it looks like Billy Corgan gets kicked out of the ice cream truck and they throw his shit at him and drive away. And he's left in the desert next to this mountain with all the beautiful alternative people aggressively making out on the mountain. And he is all alone again. So sad. Billy Cargan.

[Lori]

So the idea for him being an ice cream man, you know anything about where that came from?

[Scott Free]

I don't know. What do you got?

[Lori]

Oh, well. So when he was a kid here in Chicago, there was an ice cream truck in his neighborhood. And one day the driver decided, I've had it with this job, I'm gonna quit. So he pulled up, all the neighborhood kids came running and he's like, kids, I'm quitting. Everything is free. And he just gave away everything in the truck. So then Billy said, in our minds, this guy was a sort of a hero. I just saw it as a simple analogy for sort of breaking the chains of convention. Now the other bits with like the people making out and everything like that, that was the idea of the director. It's a Frenchman named Stephane Sednaouy. And that part was his idea, which I understand Billy wasn't too terribly crazy about. Stephane wanted a video inspired by a film called Zabriskie Point, which I'm not familiar with.

[Scott Free]

I have not seen Zabriskie Point.

[Lori]

But, you know, the end result, I think is really, really good. And, you know, I never even thought about it until you mentioned, you know, that everybody around him is hooking up, except. Except for him. And that makes sense, I think, given where he was in his life. And as we're going to kind of see in some of the other songs, there were some breakups that also contributed to his depression at this time. So that. That makes sense.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

Also, can I just say, Scott, I thought Billy Corrigan was so cute, like, good looking in that video with the short dark hair and the paper hacked. Well, yeah, I mean, that's the costume, I suppose, for the ice cream truck driver, but he used to be freaking adorable. And I'm sure he would take offense at that. And this was before he went with the shaved head, looking kind of like Anakin Skywalker from the end of Return of the Jedi.

[Scott Free]

How dang.

[Lori]

Well, doesn't he?

[Scott Free]

Before he went full Michael Stipe, they both used to have long, luxurious, curly, wavy locks. And then, you know, age catches up with all of us. Some of us more than others. And sometimes you just got to embrace it.

[Lori]

Yeah, well, I don't go for bald.

[Scott Free]

Well, I don't know what to tell you.

[Lori]

Yeah, that. Yeah. Don't send me hate mail.

[Scott Free]

Okay, fellas, Your man has luxurious thick black hair.

[Lori]

Yes.

[Scott Free]

I want to cut out that entire part. Probably.

[Lori]

Probably. I have information on chart performance.

[Scott Free]

I would imagine it performed quite well.

[Lori]

Yes. So it was released as a single on September 13th of 1993. Was really boosted on MTV by that video that we just talked about. Of course, it went to number 56 on the US Radio Songs chart.

[Scott Free]

Is that it?

[Lori]

Number four on the US Alternative Airplay chart and number 28 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. Incidentally, Scott, this is the song that the record label wanted as the lead single. But Billy wanted Cherub Rock and that one won out.

[Scott Free]

I think that is a relatively savvy mood. We have talked about a few bands in the past where the big single comes out and people have one idea of the band, so they rush out and buy the record and then they're like, what the hell happened here? Especially when Cherub Rock is the album opener and it hits pretty hard. If you came to that album having only heard today, between that and then quiet, you might have been in for an unpleasant surprise.

[Lori]

I never thought about it that way, but yeah, that makes sense.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Savvy, that Billy Corgan. Well, that brings us to track four, Hummer, But I don't want

[Guest or Additional Voice]

anymore.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so the opening of this song, it's so scratchy, glitchy, noisy. Like, I looked at my Stereo and was like, oh, my God, has the channel gone out again? Is my stereo fucking up? Yeah, it's got this, like, irritating itch of channels going out and repetition. Is it skipping? Is it scratching? What's going wrong here? And then it's like, oh, no. This is an intentional effect, making it glitchy so it can just become a layer of texture.

[Lori]

Obviously. This one begins with these sitar sounds. It's an electric sitar. I guess Billy played it for like, 30 minutes so they could get the sample that they wanted for the beginning of the song under.

[Scott Free]

Then the bass line that comes in and like, damn, that is. You're a bass player. How good is that bass line?

[Lori]

Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing. And, you know, all this time I thought it was Darcy.

[Scott Free]

It's a little disillusioning, isn't it?

[Lori]

A little bit. A little bit.

[Scott Free]

I mean, they pulled it off live, so, you know.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yeah.

[Lori]

This song also has two guitar solos.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

One at the beginning and one at the end. So the first one at the beginning of the song, apparently he's using a technique that I wasn't familiar with because I'm not a guitarist. You might know it, Scott. It's called bending the nut.

[Scott Free]

Okay.

[Lori]

Which is actually bending the string behind the nut on the low E. Sure. Yeah. And surprisingly enough, even though it sounds like there's distortion, there's no distortion applied to that.

[Scott Free]

Fascinating.

[Lori]

The second solo, which is towards the end, just has a delay effect applied. And again, it's not distortion. It's just this kind of delay or reverb type effect.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. And the fact that the song is long enough for there to be two guitar solos in it. This is a not quite epic length song. It's just shy of seven minutes. 656. The guitar solos, great. The main riff, great. Weird scratchy intro. Also great. For me, it's the quiet interlude at the 429 mark. We've talked a lot in this podcast, particularly in the context of Nirvana, but others who admired them talked about the Pixies and Nirvana. Loud, quiet, loud shtick. Right. But this is like, next level. And it lasts for the rest of the song, starting at this 429 mark. It's like giving me Led Zeppelin vibes as well. I don't know what the I wrote here. The something, something gentle guitar. I just trailed off, I guess. It's in the castle. What? The castle. What is that? He must have died while carving it. Oh, come on. Well, that's what it says. Look if he was dying, he wouldn't bother to carve Arg. He'd just say it. Well, that's what's carved in the rock. Perhaps he was dictating. Oh, shut up. But yeah, like, it's next level on the loud, quiet, loud thing. Really embracing the quiet here. Clearly somebody has listened to some Led Zeppelin in their time.

[Lori]

Okay. And then as far as what the song is about, because the lyrics are a little bit obtuse.

[Scott Free]

Curiously. Jim DeRogatis, famous Chicago music critic, works for the Chicago Sun Times, called the lyrics sophomoric. Billy Corgan, surprisingly, did not like that review and in response, publicly called him that fat fuck from the Chicago Sun Times.

[Lori]

Oh, geez. I am inclined to agree with DeRogatis. Sorry, Billy. But happiness will make you wonder Will I feel okay? It scares the disenchanted far away all right. Billy said it's a beautiful song that in its totality lends a message that is hard to convey, but bigger than its original intention. To be yourself, you must live your life. To live your life, you must be free.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Free.

[Lori]

I have no idea how that relates to. Life's a bummer when you're a hummer Life's a drag. Yeah. Yeah, but that's what Billy said, so. Yeah, well, I guess then. Ask yourself a question Anyone but me I ain't free Ask yourself a question Anyone but me I ain't free do

[Scott Free]

you feel love is real? Yeah. These lyrics are not gonna change your life. They don't all have to. Sometimes it's just another instrument, another sonic texture. And particularly when you got Billy Corgan singing like he does, you're not always understanding all the words anyways, are ya?

[Lori]

Yeah, that's true. Now, another interesting thing that I hadn't noticed, but a few people online had pointed out, other than the first and third stanzas, there's no vocal melody or chord sequence ever repeated in the verses. It's the loud, quiet, loud that you mentioned, but there's not a lot of repetition here. Where a lot of pop songs are very formulaic and, you know, repeating some of the same sequences and stuff like that. This song does not have that. So it's like a collage, you know, it's like changing from verse to verse.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, freeform.

[Lori]

Yeah. Yeah, that's a good word for it. That's all I got on that one.

[Scott Free]

That seems like plenty.

[Lori]

Okay, so that brings us to another big single off of the album. This one is called Rocket.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Jesus.

[Scott Free]

So it's less talked about in Siamese Dream than it is in Gish, but the influence of Psychedelia. Right. Talked a little bit about it at the beginning, but here it really comes to the fore. So the guitar line at like the 11 minute 18 mark, it's. It's like a little bit of reverse reverb, I think. And everybody by this point who listens to this show knows that I am a sucker for reverse reverb. But I think he also, like takes the attack of the guitar just totally out. So it's all sustain and decay and it seems like there's also some slide in there. So basically he's making his guitar into a fuzzy electric sitar and I am all about it. And I don't know if this is a super uncool reference or not, but I think it's apt. There's some echoes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers behind the sun, which itself had echoes of the 60s in general but particularly psychedelic era. Beatles, let's go with Tomorrow Never Knows. Like, that's really that guitar sound that you're getting is that reverse reverb, that no attack, all sustain thing. It's becoming a sitar, but it's not, I don't think a sitar here. But yeah, it's just a really rich, layered, lush sound. And he is getting crazy with the effects and the guitar production and he's very good at it. Like, this is again, maybe some Kevin Shields influence. He's not going for shoegaze, but he is going for wall of guitar sound.

[Lori]

Yeah. So this song was actually written around the Gish era and there are recordings of the band playing it live in 1992, but it wasn't fully formed yet. And so if you find any of these recordings, Billy's just kind of improvising the lyrics over the song. Billy had actually said that this was, quote, the first song written for Siamese Dream and for a time the only good new song we had. He also said that the inspiration for the song was like the spirit or the soul taking off like a rocket and becoming something bigger and better than you are. He actually called this one of his favorite songs that he's written.

[Scott Free]

Oh, wow. Speaking of Rocket the video. Oh, yeah, definitely worth getting into, right?

[Lori]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Scott Free]

It's got, you know, studio performance footage of the band, but the band in sparkly 60s style retro futurist spacesuit garb and, you know, they're playing the song and sending. Broadcasting that signal to the earth from wherever they are in space. And a gang of suburban super science kids receive the signal and proceed to Build a rocket out of junk so that they can fly into space and go see the band. And then there is a twist.

[Lori]

When they get there, they're surprised to see that the band members have grown old since that transmission was sent out.

[Scott Free]

They take a while to get there. Rockets take very shockingly short time to build, but a while to travel to space. And yeah, the band is all elderly.

[Lori]

Right. And there's that relativity thing that Einstein talked about where the children, if they're moving close to the speed of light, they're not aging as quickly as somebody who's stationary on a planet.

[Scott Free]

Science,

[Lori]

that's another episode. I love this video. Honestly. I think this is my favorite video by the Pumpkins.

[Scott Free]

Oh, wow.

[Lori]

Yeah. And if Cherub Rock was the one that made me go out and buy the cd, Rocket is the one that I think made me a fan, you know.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I'll buy that.

[Lori]

So this was the fourth single off the album released on December 27th of 1994. Rocket went to number 28 on the US mainstream rock chart and also went to number 29 on the Canada top singles chart.

[Scott Free]

Also number 28, I Believe in New Zealand. Strangely, those Kiwis must have some good taste. I guess that brings us to track six, Another monster hit for Smashing Pumpkins. Disarm.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

You want me to cut that little child inside of me Inside your part of you. I used to be a little boy.

[Scott Free]

It was a monster hit, right, okay.

[Lori]

On US radio songs chart, it went to 48. Alternative airplay number eight, US mainstream rock number five. So.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, well, I mean, monster hit, relatively speaking. You know, it did not have the crunchy guitars that were still so popular at the time. Even if we're coming out of the grunge era, this is a very different animal and, you know, a very moody pop song. What makes it so compelling that it became a straight up pop hit? I mean, that fast eighth note acoustic guitar strum at the beginning. Compelling. But those tubular bells

[Guest or Additional Voice]

sold.

[Scott Free]

I mean, come on. That is so catchy and haunting. The timpani rolling into the chorus with the string section, which was a couple players from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra that Billy Corrigan recruited into it.

[Lori]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, like, oh, wow. Icing on the cake. Also mirroring the tubular bell that dun dun dun, the glockenspiel. And that was Billy Corgan actually playing the glockenspiel. Alternative instrumentation for the Win song is incredibly compelling.

[Lori]

All right.

[Scott Free]

I mentioned earlier that There was a 24 hour period in which Billy Corgan wrote two huge songs for the band. Incredibly productive songwriting session. The first one was, of course, Today. And the second one was this one, Disarm. I mean, that is a pretty good day of songwriting.

[Lori]

I would say so.

[Scott Free]

So I read a substack article by Poetic Wax, Andy Fentermaker called why Disarm is the Smashing Pumpkin's most traumatic song, in which he quotes Billy Corgan saying, I made this sort of weird, fundamental choice, which was, well, I'm kind of at the bottom and there's nothing else to live for. I might as well make the music I really want to make. It was the beginning of the change in my life. That's when I started writing stuff like Disarm and Today, which for me were, like, literally ripping my guts out.

[Lori]

In 1993, Billy Corgan told Rage, an Australian music program, what this song was about. He said, I didn't have the guts to kill my parents, so I thought I'd get back at them through song. And rather than have an angry, angry, angry, violent song, I thought I'd write something beautiful and make them realize what tender feelings I have in my heart and make them feel really bad for treating me like shit.

[Scott Free]

In the liner notes for the reissue of Siamese Dream, he wrote, disarm stands out because it's basically about being abused as a child. And it represents something that was bottled up in me for years.

[Lori]

And because of the lyrics, this song was actually banned by the BBC. Specifically, that line, cut, that little child inside of me.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, that's kind of a misinterpretation of what he was going for. It was not a literal cut of a literal child. Others thought it was about abortion and just a gross misreading of the song.

[Lori]

So then Billy would be pregnant then. How does that work? What are they thinking there? Yeah. But he did say, and this is again, in that book, I Am One by Greg Prato, Billy said, I've written this very honest song about my life, and now you're telling me it's not okay. It's a very direct song to my family.

[Scott Free]

In the past. Sometimes I would bust on Billy Corgan's vocal delivery. Again, I alluded to it sometimes as a whine. That said, that whine works so well in this track. To deliver the line, I used to be a little boy. Like, you can feel that.

[Lori]

You can hear the pain in his voice. Yes, right.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. The killer in me is the killer in you. As the big hook like that is. You know, it's a little emo, but damn if he doesn't sell it. With that delivery. Right?

[Lori]

Very true. Yeah, yeah. This song was the third single off the album. It was released on February 21st of 1994. There was a video for it, although I don't remember the video, so. But you do, Scott.

[Scott Free]

I do, yeah. So he wanted it to have a dreamlike quality. And he talked to the video director whose name I'm spacing on at the moment, Jake Scott. He wanted it to have a dreamlike quality. With the band flying, the director took a different approach, not quite so literal. And it is really visually striking. So there are aerial shots going over cityscapes, but with old sort of gothic looking buildings. And as you're panning through, flying through the sky, over the rooftops, then the band themselves are shot more in close up, oftentimes in profile, and that is superimposed over this aerial shots going over the city. So it all has this really dreamlike and weightless quality. It's shot largely in black and white, as I recall, but then also cuts to color shots of a child. It is a really visually striking and beautiful video, but you're getting right up close and personal with Billy Corgan right in your face.

[Lori]

I'm gonna have to go back and look at it again because I honestly don't remember it.

[Scott Free]

It's a great song, really a highlight of the album and very unlike the rest of the album. It makes sense that it hit in a more pop way, but it is some gloomy, heavy pop, but beautifully done.

[Lori]

Okay, so that leads us to track seven, Soma.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Secrets I can keep. Close your eyes and sleep.

[Lori]

So, Scott, this is one of two. Two tracks on the album that was co written by James iha.

[Scott Free]

Oh, yeah, yeah. What we have here is a straight up ballad and I did not see that coming.

[Lori]

The fact that it's a ballad or that it was co written by James? Both. Oh, okay. It actually started off as a riff that James came up with and Billy called it, quote, the kind of thing I would never have written on my own. But it was so lovely that I completely connected to it. Now there's a couple things I did not know until I was researching this episode. Number one, the piano on this song. Do you know who that is?

[Scott Free]

That is Mike Mills of R.E.M.

[Lori]

oh, look at you, Mr. Smarty Smarty Pants.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I know a thing or two.

[Lori]

Okay. I didn't know that. Billy Corgan estimates that there are 40 separate tracks on this song.

[Scott Free]

Bananas.

[Lori]

That guitar effect at 3 minutes, 10 seconds where it kind of sounds like. Almost like a reverse reverb.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yep.

[Lori]

It's actually 14 tracks of ebode acoustic guitar.

[Scott Free]

Cool. Yeah. I mean, this track, I hear it and it tells me that someone listened to a fair amount of Led Zeppelin and specifically Led Zeppelin 3. I know you're not a fan, but it is the melancholy, sometimes acoustic moody album that has some more ballad like stuff on it and it has that same feel. It's a rock rock band, but doing a melancholy ballad that still manages to serve the rock fans their obligatory dose of rock. And at around the 3:30 mark, the band really kicks in hard, taking it from straight up ballad to full on power ballad, which is not something you saw a lot of in the post hair metal era. In a lot of ways, alternative and specifically grunge was a reaction against the hair metal era and yet still serving up one of their tropes in a way that really works.

[Lori]

Yeah. You know another thing that I learned that I didn't know, there's a female sounding voice in the background which I had just assumed was Darcy, but it's actually Billy.

[Scott Free]

Oh, interesting.

[Lori]

The song is actually about a girlfriend that left Billy in 1992. And this contributed to that major depressive state that he was in when he was writing the album. Now I want to quote him here because I think that his wordplay is absolutely gorgeous. And Scott, you mentioned that he had wanted to be a writer.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

I think this quote from him demonstrates those writing skills. A lover betrays his other he slips into the night he asks her to sleep While he is awakened by the looking city just beyond he is alone no matter who he takes in his bed Love is a fraud but solitude is a friend you can rely on.

[Scott Free]

Oh, nice.

[Lori]

Isn't that deep?

[Scott Free]

Yeah, like that. Yeah. So. So it's a lover who left him in 1992. So it's not that one very famous lover who he had a breakup with.

[Lori]

It might be. And actually there's another song on this album that a lot of people think is a reference to that person.

[Scott Free]

We will save it for then.

[Lori]

Yes, save it for later.

[Scott Free]

Well, yeah, Then the last bit, you know, it goes full power ballad. Then at the six minute mark, the wave breaks and crashes and then the rest of the track until the 6:38 is just this sort of serene falling action echo of that huge crash. It's a really well produced song and like this album does not shy away from longer tracks. Right. You know, the big pop hits a little shorter, but. Yeah, 6:38 and even longer to come. Yeah, yeah, he's going for it here.

[Lori]

The album Itself, not even just the songs. The album itself comes in at like 62 minutes, doesn't it?

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Not getting to the full on limit of what a CD could do, but for 13 songs to come in at 62 minutes, that's. And one of them is just barely there anyway, so it's basically 12 songs. That brings us to track eight, Geek USA.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Twist. We stay delirious t.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so this one started as another earlier song, earlier in their career called Suicide Kiss. Billy reworked it into Geek USA that I didn't know. Yeah. And you know, I hear in this one, sonically, echoes of Jane's Addictions Ritual de la Habitual.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

It's a very similar sound, guitar instrumentation, wise.

[Lori]

Well, Billy Corgan actually called this like, Gish all in one song.

[Scott Free]

Interesting.

[Lori]

It started out as a riff that was rejected by the band for being too much like Black Sabbath.

[Scott Free]

I don't know why you would reject that, but okay.

[Lori]

And Billy said, and this is a quote, this rejected riff lingered in my head for about a year. Finally, I was just fucking around with it one day and I played it like this. Meaning like it's in the song. Our drummer, Jimmy Chamberlain, started playing a syncopated rhythm underneath and boom, there it was. There is a guitar solo, which Billy adds, it's not there because I wanted to play a solo, but because the song needed to kick up another notch. I mentioned earlier in the episode, William S. Burroughs, the author, he was a proponent of the cut up style where he would take writing and he would literally cut it with a pair of scissors and repaste it together and reorder things and what you get is what you get. And Billy Corgan used to do something very similar with lyrics on index cards and he would shuffle them. So this is one of the songs on the album where he did that, where he had a bunch of lines that he liked and just kind of shuffled them around. Billy didn't even want this song included on the album.

[Narrator]

Really.

[Lori]

He didn't think it was good enough. And the title of the song, by the way, the title of the song, Geek usa, that was Billy basically indicating, I know this is a dumb song.

[Scott Free]

I was wondering where that came from.

[Lori]

Yeah, that was his kind of wink and nod to everybody. Yeah, you know, I know this is dumb, but, you know, despite the fact that he didn't want it on the album, despite the fact that he says it's a dumb song, it became a regular set opener for the band's live performances. So, yeah, I can't help but notice,

[Scott Free]

can't imagine it's accidental, but there is a line late in the song that recycles a melodic theme from earlier in the album. I can't believe them. And that's straight out of today.

[Lori]

Oh, oh, oh. Okay. Right, yeah.

[Scott Free]

There's only so many ways you can arrange notes and whatever, but this doesn't seem like a coincidence to me. And it seems like Billy Corgan does very little by accident.

[Lori]

So I'm sure he planned it that way for sure.

[Scott Free]

Guitar World magazine placed this song at number 54 of its 100 greatest guitar solos of all time.

[Lori]

Oh, wow.

[Scott Free]

And he didn't even think it was good enough to get on the album.

[Lori]

Okay, so, Scott, that brings us to the next track. The other track that was co written by Billy Corgan and James iha. This is called Mayonnaise.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Feel the same way.

[Scott Free]

Now I know

[Guest or Additional Voice]

where are secret go.

[Lori]

And before we get into the song, can I just say that the spelling of Mayonnaise pisses me off because it's not spelled correctly. It has two N's. They spelled it with one.

[Scott Free]

Oh, interesting.

[Lori]

You didn't notice it.

[Scott Free]

I guess I did not.

[Lori]

Okay, so here's how this song came about. While the band was touring in Japan, James came up with the riff and played it for Billy. So Billy put on headphones and immediately started singing a melody along to it, which I guess is very unusual for him. So that's how the song initially came about. Now, James guitar is tuned very strangely. Billy says I play normal chords against his alternate tune stuff. That song is tuned down to E flat. So if people are trying to replicate his playing, it's like every string is tuned very strangely, but then billies are normal.

[Scott Free]

The guitar tone in this song is much studied. And one particular quirk of the guitar particularly interesting. After the big, big guitar stroke, chunk with a hard stop, right? There's this feedbacky squeal. And it turns out that this was the result of a technical problem, or at least a technical quirk that Billy decided to embrace. It was a cheap guitar, a Kimberly K or Kimberly Bison that Corgan had bought for 65 bucks from a pawn shop in Madison.

[Lori]

So interesting that he picked it up in Madison because as we know, Butch Vig's Smart Studio is in Madison and

[Scott Free]

they recorded Gish at Smart Studios.

[Lori]

Yes, yes. So I'm sorry, please continue.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, yeah. So the guitar's pickup apparently used gold foil in it, which created this whistling feedback tone anytime it wasn't being actively played. So he plays this big chunk chord and stops and and it squeals. So rather than viewing it as a technical problem, he rolls with it and works it into the song. And it's one of the really signature sounds. And one of the things that makes this song particularly cool.

[Lori]

Yes. At 2 minutes and 1 second and 2 minutes and 7 seconds, where it just kind of drops to silence. Except for that whistle, that feedbacky sound that, as you said, is being produced by the guitar.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

Jimmy Chamberlain has said that this is one of the hardest songs that he's had to play. And he estimated that he must have done like 15 takes per day. This is another song where Billy arranged the lyrics in that William Burroughs inspired cut up method. Let me quote him on this. When I finished the song, I thought, well, this is kind of cheating. I've just put together a bunch of really good lines. But somehow, if you listen to the song, they all kind of make sense. I mean, there's stuff in there about my mother and a girl, but it's a beautiful song. So he just kind of, again, with his index cards, had a bunch of lines, just kind of shuffled them together, and somehow the end result is cohesive. And the thing that surprised me, Scott, is this song took the number one spot in a Rolling Stone magazine readers poll of the best Pumpkin songs. Number one. It actually beat out their big hits like 1979 and Chair of Rock.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, Pumpkins fans love this track. And guitarists love the guitar sound. So, you know, gotta hand it to them. Well, then the next track is track 10, space boy

[Guest or Additional Voice]

tast me, Space boy I missed you. Spinning around my head. Anyway, you choose me, you break instead. Watch me.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so this is another one that makes me think that somebody likes Led Zeppelin 3 quite a bit. And that someone, it's Billy Corgan, obviously. It's got this sad acoustic guitar intro. Eventually, as it builds, it has this string section.

[Lori]

There is a Mellotron on this one.

[Scott Free]

I fucking love a melotron.

[Lori]

I know you do. And the band thought something was missing. So it was Butch Vig, the producer, that suggested adding a mellotron. And then Billy was like, oh, this is amazing. I want to put it on every song. In the case of Siamese Dream, he did not. But this is something that then would be used frequently in future Smashing Pumpkin songs.

[Scott Free]

Regular listeners of this show will know already what a mellotron is, because we've explained it a couple times. But essentially, a Mellotron is a 1960s, 1970s proto sampler. It's a keyboard where each time you press a key, it plays a loop of tape that plays the sound. So the most famous one being the pipes in Led Zeppelin Stairway to Heaven. Those are in fact, not pipes being played. That's a mellotron playing tapes of pipes. So each note has a different note of the sound in question. Sometimes it's pipe, sometimes it's a string. I'm going to guess that string section is actually a mellotron section. But the effect is the same, sweeping and emotional. The emotion has come by honestly in the song. Billy Corgan wrote this song about his brother, or half brother, if you want to get technical. Jesse Anderson, who was born with mild cerebral palsy and Tourette's syndrome, among other

[Lori]

ailments, autism and an unnamed chromosomal disorder.

[Scott Free]

There we go. Corgan said about it. And I think this is great. The best way I can explain it is that he's a Rain man type of character. He's got certain things probably greater than someone else, and he's lacking in a few things that most of us just take for granted. He was raised to be a normal boy, but of course, not everyone in the world sees him as a normal boy. Hence spaceman, because here's this kind of kid who comes from some other planet and he's just had to figure it out for himself as he's gotten to be a man.

[Lori]

So, yeah, Billy also said when he was born, we were told he would never walk or talk. We should just put him in a home and essentially forget about him. And luckily, my stepmother chose not to do that. Billy's stepmother was a flight attendant. She was very frequently gone for days at a time. And so a lot of the time, it fell to Billy to care for Jesse. And as a result, they became very, very close. Despite the glum prognosis that the doctors gave. Jesse is a successful adult. He has a very good career working for one of the hotel chains here in town. I want to say it's Hyatt. Billy said he was recently on a picket line protesting with the union. Very proud of my brother. In many ways. He's accomplished more in his life from where he began than I did.

[Scott Free]

Dang.

[Lori]

Yeah. And Butch and the other three band members did not think that Spaceboy was worthy of inclusion on the album, Billy said. But yet the spirit of the song, what it meant to me and what it ended up being about made it worth putting on the album.

[Scott Free]

So even if the rest of the band didn't quite have the faith in it that he did. Yeah, it works.

[Lori]

I didn't know this story about the song until I was preparing for this episode. And I have a family member that has a number of physical disabilities as well. So I was very touched by that. That kind of closeness between him and Jesse and how much he respects him and says that he's accomplished more than Billy has.

[Scott Free]

It is beautiful.

[Lori]

Yeah. So somehow I ended up with all the cuss words on this episode. The next track is called Silver, and this is also the longest track on the album at 8 minutes and 43 seconds. We're only going to listen to a short snippet of it. Here we go.

[Scott Free]

Zero doubt in my mind that Billy Corgan listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin, A Whole Lot of Love, among others. And so much is made of the pumpkin sound being Billy Corgan's snarling voice and these huge, layered, fuzzy guitars. But don't sleep on Jimmy Chamberlain. Homeboy can just beat the hell out of the drums, but with frenetic energy and the speed instilled a precision for a guy struggling with a crippling addiction at the time. Respect. He pulled it off here.

[Lori]

Oh, for sure. Like the song Rock It, Scott. This song was originally played, played live at some of the shows on the Gish tour. Billy called it, quote, an ever infinite magnum opus. So I have another quote about what this was inspired by. Billy said, we are inspired by a UK band called the Hypnotics, that's T H E E Hypnotics, who play a 30 minute encore that goes on for so long that the club cuts the the power, yet the band refuses to stop. A fist fight breaks out. We stand in awe of their magical power. Smashing Pumpkins would often play this as part of their encore. And this actually kind of reminded me of when I saw My Bloody Valentine live. They stretched the song out to 45 minutes or longer at the end of the show, to the point where band management would yell at them, saying that they're costing the band merch sales because the crowd would give up and leave halfway through the encore. And then Billy says, I end the song by breaking every string off with my bare hands. Then at the end, if you listen very closely, you can hear Billy say, all right, this take don't give a fuck.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

I mean, talk about loud, quiet, loud. This is like racetrack Speedway, pin drop, motherfucking jet engine. Like really pushing the trope as far as it can go. And it works so, so well, Right?

[Lori]

Absolutely.

[Scott Free]

Also, there's gratuitous reversed reverb during the bang, you're dead hole in your head part. So, as always, count me in. I'm there for it.

[Lori]

Cool.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Yeah.

[Lori]

All right, well, we go from the longest track to the shortest track.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Like I alluded to this one earlier, the album is generally considered all killer, no filler, and even the one. Minute 38, second song, pretty good. Track 12 is sweet, sweet,

[Guest or Additional Voice]

sweet, sweet, sweet,. Sweet little ad I don't know just where you feel But I'll take, take, take I'll let you in. Where are we going?

[Scott Free]

This track coming right on the heels of Silver, has officially given me tonal whiplash.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

But just when you, you know, get used to it. Minute 38, it's over.

[Lori]

Yeah. So I have one thing that I want to include on this. It's another quote from Billy Corgan. He says the song is about, quote, a hobo that hops the tracks and jumps on the train. He wants to go wherever the ride will take him. There is joy in a refusal to change, even when you know that the journey is fixed.

[Scott Free]

Okay, then it's in 6, 8. Unusual for this band. And, you know, I'm generally going to be into that sort of thing. And like, as I'm listening to it, I'm like, are there two voices? Presumably two. Billy Corgan's doing harmonies. Like actually octaves, but still not unheard of, but unusual. And then there's three parts where he's doing the vocal, he's doing an octave of the vocal. And then there's a sort of call and response or at least two separate vocal lines interplaying with each other. You don't hear multi part vocals all that often on his tracks. And you don't hear a lot of it here either because the song's over in a minute and a half.

[Lori]

Yeah. Much like my ex husband, but, oh, damn, which one? I'm not gonna say which. So, Scott, that brings us to the final track of the album. This one is called Luna.

[Guest or Additional Voice]

Sing for you if you want me to I'll give to you and it's a chance to take and it's a chance I have she pray hey.

[Scott Free]

This, we can say is a love song in two senses of the word.

[Lori]

Ah, I see what you did there.

[Scott Free]

It's a song about love. And who is that love?

[Lori]

Well, he's never actually said. However, he was romantically linked to Courtney Love before Courtney hooked up with Kurt Cobain.

[Scott Free]

Right.

[Lori]

So many people speculate that this is about Courtney.

[Scott Free]

There are some lines that make you think it probably is, but.

[Lori]

What do you got in that book again that I've been quoting? Yes, I am in love with someone that doesn't love Me, my songs are

[Scott Free]

better than hers, so she may be a musician.

[Lori]

My guitar has been painted day glow at the hands of a sweet madman. I sing a love song in an empty room. And the empty room he's referring to is actually a hotel room in London during one of their tours where he

[Scott Free]

wrote, this guitar has been painted dayglo by a madman. The madman is his brother, but not the spaceman. He has another brother who paints custom guitars and drums. So interesting there.

[Lori]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Scott Free]

Lyrically, I go along just because I'm lazy. I. I go along to be with you. And those moon songs that you sing, your babies will be the songs to see you through. It should be noted that Francis Bean Cobain was born in 1992. So the time frame is right. That this woman who he is singing the song to, who is singing her moon songs to her baby, It's Courtney.

[Lori]

I suspect it is, yeah.

[Scott Free]

I was seeing in interviews stories about that origin story and what a different world it might have been. At one point, Courtney asked if she could come visit him. He was seeing someone at the time, but she came anyways and essentially proposed that they get together. And he was like, yeah, no, she flew off and went to be with Kurt. She had been kind of bouncing back and forth and that was it. That rejection sealed the deal. She was with Kurt from then on and rock history was changed for the. Who knows? Yeah, yeah.

[Lori]

The other notable thing about this song, Scott, is besides Disarm, it's the only other track on the album that features both strings and an electric sitar.

[Scott Free]

Oh, nice.

[Lori]

It's also a great way to close the album.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. You know, a little wind down let you decompress from some of the hard rock action that has happened before.

[Lori]

Yeah. Do you have anything else on Luna?

[Scott Free]

I have a completely blank page about Luna.

[Lori]

Okay, well, you came up with a lot for somebody with a blank page

[Scott Free]

doing that from memory.

[Lori]

Okay, so, Scott, what is your favorite track on the album?

[Scott Free]

Disarm is such an amazing song, but it's another one of those that I can just press play and hear in my head at any time. It's brilliant, but I am going to have to hand it to Silverfuck.

[Lori]

Okay. Any particular reason why?

[Scott Free]

Honestly, as much as anything else, it's Jimmy Chamberlain just going full bonzo on it. But also the reverse reverb, the loud, quiet, loud. It gives you all the things that this album gives you in one condensed, but not that condensed, 8 minute and 42 second long package. Gotcha and yours.

[Lori]

You know, it's the same as it was when I first heard the album. My favorite song is Rock It. Yeah, yeah. Maybe it's just that chorus. I shall be free I shall be free Free of the voices inside of me. I find it uplifting. Yeah, okay, Rocket. Uplifting. Haha. But yeah, I really like that song, but it was really hard because there's so many good songs. Right, right. Yeah. Okay, so that brings us to the. And then what happened?

[Scott Free]

I mean, Smashing Pumpkins are one of the biggest bands of the alternative era throughout the 90s. They follow this banger of an album up with Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness. And nobody's mad about that. Right.

[Lori]

And we may actually end up doing an episode on that one.

[Scott Free]

I mean, in about eight years. Yeah, at our pace. In like eight years. Yeah. You know, the band. We mentioned early in the episode how the creative conflict or the heavy hand on the helm of a controlling band leader led to conflict within the band, substance abuse problems and the like. Smashing Pumpkins would very famously break up. Other side projects would ensue. Billy Corgan and James collaborate to work on Zwan, another band. Billy Corgan releases a couple solo albums. The band gets back together. Smashing Pumpkins are still a thing. And Billy Corgan now owns a tea shop in Highland Park, Illinois. He hosts his own podcast that seems to be doing pretty well. And I don't know, Smashing Pumpkins, they're still huge.

[Lori]

Yeah. Chicago legends.

[Scott Free]

Absolutely.

[Lori]

This is a really good album for us to start. 93 about.

[Scott Free]

I will agree.

[Lori]

Speaking of 93.

[Scott Free]

Yes.

[Lori]

What are we doing for the Next episode? Scott?

[Scott Free]

The Next Episode is one of my favorites from 1993. It is the fourth album from the band project that really at its heart is a one man situation of one Matt Johnson. But this is the second album by this band that also features Johnny Marr, formerly of the Smiths. The band is the the. And the 1993 album is Dusk, where the former synth pop pioneer turned artful pop song maker discovers his inner blues man and really has something.

[Lori]

Okay, well, that'll be interesting because other than this Is the Day, which is the song that was in Empire Records, I don't know any music by Viva.

[Scott Free]

You know, I think you're going to be surprised. You know, at least one of the big singles from the album. It was a staple of alternative radio at the time, but we will get into that in a month.

[Lori]

Okay, well, I'm looking forward to getting to know the the. So we will be back on July 24th with the new episode on dusk. We'll see you then. It's a goodbye from me, Lori.

[Scott Free]

And from me, Scott free. See you back here in a month.