There’s a standout single on Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. No, it’s not “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” (although that’s a close second), but “1979,” that melancholy ode to teenage ennui, where an entire suburb can serve as your playground — just keep an eye out for cops.
“1979” became one of the most important songs Smashing Pumpkins ever wrote, because it was both a celebration and eulogy for adolescence. From the quintessential shot of the teens flipping off their small town set to a sunny sky, to some of the group getting left behind by the end of the night after trashing a corner store, the message is implicit: Those years of your life will come and go just as fast as day turns to night. Angst, carelessness, confusion, frustration, lust, and, of course, melancholy, are all wrapped up in four minutes and 22 seconds.
The parties aren’t as great as they used to be — youth turns to adulthood, and suddenly everything changes. Sadness is inevitable, one of those emotions that we fear and try to ignore whenever it presents itself. But doesn’t it deserve to be celebrated like all others?
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is that; an ambitious two-disc, 28-song, 121-minute project dedicated to the thing we fear most, with Billy Corgan and company serving as the backing band to the saddest party ever.
The songs are beautiful and luscious in their production, each one seeping into the next seamlessly. The title track, with its somber piano melody, leads into the upbeat gloom that is “Tonight, Tonight,” orchestral strings sweltering underneath pretty guitar. “The impossible is possible tonight,” sings Corgan, the statement just as triumphant as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra that bravely follows his lead.
Then, everything gets heavy: “Jellybelly” bleeds with dissonance and distortion; “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” offers one of the most self-pitying choruses ever written (“Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage”); and “F*ck You (An Ode to No One)” is a feedback ticking time bomb that Corgan claimed he had to record until his fingers bled.
You’ll notice that Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness does this a lot — lush, silent songs one moment; loud, abrasive ones the next. Somehow, everything works; even the lengthier songs are still engaging in a time when most songs clock out at three, maybe four minutes, tops. Smashing Pumpkins meticulously chose the song list, treading between anger and sadness in a way that was consistently challenging and engaging, but rarely ever overbearing.
At least sonically. Lyrically, Corgan’s approach is — to put into colloquial terms — that of the super sad boy. Melodramatic, miserable and self-indulgent, Corgan wasn’t kidding when he hoped to “sum up all the things I felt as a youth, but was never able to voice articulately,” through Mellon Collie. Yes, there’s a retrospective wisdom that permeates throughout the album, but sometimes the intention is so explicit that you’ll find yourself saying, “Okay, Corgan. We get it.” But there’s so much that he got right — the aforementioned chorus of “Bullet with Butterfly Wings;” the final lines of “Thirty-Three;” and, of course, “1979.” Sometimes, Corgan fully indulges into that younger self on this album, but it’s when he provides a layer of matured distance and detachment, that you see that Corgan is a good songwriter.
Which brings us back to “1979.” We like that song so much from both a sonic and lyrical perspective, because it’s flawless in its delivery. It’s a perfect song, and the video only solidifies that. Corgan is both the commenter and participant in the “1979” video. He hangs with the teens at their house party, while riding in the backseat of someone’s car, singing to no one in particular. He doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, cruising through the place we can only assume is the same as the video’s teenage pranksters. Maybe it’s his last ride before embarking on another journey; maybe it’s a ride that’s representative of how most people feel when they’re transitioning into adolescence and, inevitably, adulthood (feeling like you’re going nowhere, and wondering what will happen next). Nevertheless, it’s all nostalgic — the glamorization of teen boredom; the only visual from Mellon Collie that didn’t rely on the surreal, but the real — the privilege of being bored.
There was a time when a close friend, Michael, and I were obsessed with “1979.” He was much more into it than I was, and, in retrospect, I think I understand why. Michael was a junior in high school when I met him as a freshman. While my road to adolescence was barely beginning, his was about to end. There were already talks of college, as well as possibly moving to other parts of the country. One day, we watched Clerks II together and, halfway through the film, “1979” serves as the background music to a montage of shots that symbolize the forthcoming changes that may or may not occur in several of the main characters’ lives.
After that, I ended up listening to “1979” with Michael at least once a day. And, as a talented pianist and multi-instrumentalist, it was only inevitable that he would learn how to play it, which I tolerated at first until it got to the point that I could no longer willingly listen to the song until several years later. But “1979” had tapped something in him I couldn’t understand, because I couldn’t relate yet. Michael was about to take the next step in his life, and with any big step is sure to come nostalgia, because nostalgia is comforting — something familiar.
As I listen to “1979” now as a 23-year-old, I finally feel the same way Michael did. I reminisce on certain things I did as a teenager — taking my grandmother’s car without a license and cruising the streets of El Paso with a girl, only to get pulled over by a cop and receive my first ticket; attending my first house party and consuming too many drinks too quickly; attending my first concert and getting into a mosh pit; and being dumb and rebellious with my closest friends.
“The street heats the urgency of now / As you see, there’s no one around,” croons Corgan at the end of “1979.” Life goes on. People get busy. Familiar faces begin to blur and disappear — everything’s changed. In a matter of four minutes, Corgan managed to articulate that lifelong crisis we all experience the older we get — accepting and adapting to the inevitability of change.
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is still cherished today not only because of its ambition, but for being something so relatable. It basks in sadness throughout, but by the end, there’s some sense of closure. “Goodnight, always, to all that’s pure in your heart,” sings Corgan on album-ender “Farewell and Goodnight.” It’s innocent, something you could imagine a parent singing to their child. I’d like to think that this was Corgan singing to a younger self, that life is going to be tough, and everything — including yourself — will change.
But you’ll be alright.
