Here's some really old stuff I found on a hard drive. Some guy who was trying to archive these Guitar World articles, quotes and notes about the band pertaining to songs or recording sessions. I didn't see them on your site so hopefully they will be useful.
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From: "hummer23" <
[email protected]>
Subject: Song Project Post 1/17 ////////////` "Today"
Date: Monday, August 27, 2001 5:49 AM
Introducing a collection of articles I compiled a couple of years back for a
web project that, well, never got off the ground I guess, and were basically
long forgotten until picking up an old disk tonite.
These articles chronicle comments about individual songs by the band from
the years 1988-1995 and they are quoted from various songs. It is an
interesting read and I hope you like the next 17 days of posts as I purge
them from my archives into the amsp world. Any questions/complaints email
me!
"Today"
According to Billy, the most notable single from Siamese Dream, Today would
have never made it onto Gish. "Never would have allowed such a cheesy pop
song." He explains his natural progression in perspective from Gish to
Siamese in this context. "I finally got over all the hangups about what I
should or shouldn't be doing. Now I just do whatever comes to me."
"The obvious things are always easy to see. The day after I wrote Today, my
manager heard it and said, 'It's a hit', and I guess in a way, it was."
This song was one of two of the tracks on Siamese that were "the first
melodies I ever sang against the chords" Corgan explains, "And when you find
melodies like that, everything seems to just fall into place effortlessly.
It's as though the song is already writen, and you're just trying to find
the thread. It's a weird feeling when you hit upon that."
"I had all of the chords and the melody, but no opening hook. At that point,
we just started the song with the verse chord progression, which in and of
itself is pretty catchy because of the melody. I knew I had to come up with
some sort of opening riff. Then, out of the blue, I heard the opening lick
note for note in my head. That's the state of mind I've trained myself to be
in: I'm always looking for the guitar hook. When I added the opening riff,
it completely changed the character of the song. Suddenly, I had a song that
was starting out quiet and then got very loud. I could start to hear the
shifts in the song as it progressed. I knew that I was going to bring that
riff back in for emphasis, and I knew where I could do that."
One of the surprises fans learnt after Siamese Dream was finished was the
fact that Jimmy Chamberlin's drumming on the album was almost all live and
recorded in one take. "For one thing, we always fight over how many tracks
we have anyways... So there's never enough drum tracks to do drum overdubs."
Jimmy explains one of the few overdubs on the CD with his snare swap on
Today: "It's really heavy, and then it dries out when it comes into the
verse, with just the drums and bass. So what I did was play the heavy part
with a Pearl 61/2" chrome Free-Floating snare, which is really a kickin'
snare. Then I stopped the tape and matched up a click track to where I was
playing before. We then edited in the verse, which is where I used the Radio
King (1940 Gene Kruppa model snare). The drum is so totally dry and crisp
that you can barely hear the snares on it. In production, they kind of
matched the sounds up a little, but it sounds like night and day on the dry
tracks. "
The video for Today was directed by Stephane Sednaoui. The clip originated
from an idea by Billy to illustrate a song that finds ironic comfort amid
despair. "When I told the band about the ice-cream truck, everybody was
like, you've got to be kidding" Corgan says. But the truck was actually his
perfect metaphor. "I remember being about 14 and there was an ice cream
truck driver in the neighborhood," he explains. "One night about 10 O'clock
he comes along and we run up waving. And he says, 'God, I hate this job.'
Typical 17-year-old guy. And he just hands us all the ice cream left in the
truck. He takes off---fuck the job, fuck the ice cream truck. For that one
moment that guy was the coolest guy in the world."
Today has probably been played live more then any other Pumpkins song and
the band will take the song on and off the setlist. "We get sick of hearing
it."
Compiled by Hummer23 [1997]
From: "hummer23" <
[email protected]>
Subject: Song Project Post 2/17 ////////////` "Spaceboy"
Date: Monday, August 27, 2001 8:51 PM
The 2nd of 17 posts chronicling the bands explanations of individual
Smashing Pumpkins tracks.
SPACEBOY: Some excellent versions of this song (Siamese Dream) have been
recorded on acoustic radio shows. "[The song is] about my little brother. He
's an interesting character. It's kind of about how he's different. He has
physical handicap, it's hard to explain. He has a rare chromosomal disorder,
it gives him a some what different genetic make up. He has different
physical and mental problems and yet somehow by all accounts, I'm physically
and mentally OK. But I feel our lives are the similar." Similar in what way?
" Freaks of nature, freaks of society, I always keep going back to something
by Henry Miller. No matter how much he smiled, told jokes, shook hands,
patted people on the back. People still looked at him funny, they still
sensed something wasn't right. I've always felt that way, that no matter how
normal I appear, I was treated differently.
Billy in a Guitar World tuition: "Why am I writing a song like this? At that
point, I was supposed to be writing rock songs for the album; the last thing
I needed was another quiet acoustic song. As I continued to mess with the
riff, it occurred to me that I was writing about something that had to do
with a certain kind of alienation, an 'out-of-touchness.' I began to think
about my brother, and the fact that he and I share a certain identity by
virtue of the similar experiences we had growing up. I felt there have been
handicaps in my life that reflect the handicaps he has experienced in his.
Suddenly, I had stumbled upon feelings and thoughts that moved me, and the
song kind of wrote itself."
"In and of itself, 'Spaceboy' doesn't seem to be anyone's favorite song. Our
producer, Butch Vig, didn't think it was an album track, and the band didn't
think so either. Nevertheless, the spirit of the song--what it meant to me,
and what it ended up being about--made it worth putting on the album. This
is a good example of where inspiration turned just another song into
something that I'm proud of. Of course, if I assess 'Spaceboy' on the
criterion of, was it a hit song? the answer is no. Did it have a video? No.
Do people cite it as their favorite song? No. Do they scream for it at
concerts? No. But does it mean something to me? Yes. Would I do it again?
Yes. "
"The obvious things are always easy to see. The day after I wrote 'Today,'
my manager heard it and said, 'It's a hit,' and I guess in a way, it was.
The success of 'Disarm' was no mystery to anyone, either. 'Spaceboy' doesn't
have the same qualities as those songs; it's different, and that's what I
like about it. It grew from a unique kind of inspiration."
From: "hummer23" <
[email protected]>
Subject: Song Project Post 3/17 ////////////` "Geek USA"
Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 11:05 AM
The 3rd of 17 posts chronicling the bands explanations of individual
Smashing Pumpkins tracks.
GEEK USA:
"Geek USA is the only song on Siamese Dream that to me is an extension of
what Gish was," Corgan wrote in his Guitar World tutorial.
Geek USA had one of the most amazing solo breaks in the bands history.
"People really miss the point on soloing. It's just another emotional
expression. A fast solo is an emotional expression too; it's just like
screaming or something. For a perfect example, the solo on Geek USA
completely jacks up the song. It's not there because I wanted to play a
solo, but because the song needed to kick up another notch. "
In Guitar World magazine in 1994, Billy went in depth with song composition
and arranging, and used Geek USA as the model. He talks about the original
riff for Geek. The text is reprinted below:
We played [the riff a certain] way for a while, but it never really took off
and it sounded too Black Sabbath-y. What ultimately happened proved to be a
good argument for observing the commandment, 'Never throw a riff away.' For
if you keep playing it, and fucking with it, sooner or later you might find
a use for it. This rejected riff lingered in my head for about a year.
Finally, I was just fucking around with it one day, and I played a variated
version.
Our drummer, Jimmy Chamberlin, started playing a syncopated rhythm
underneath, and, boom, that was it!
I now had to decide whether this was going to be the riff I was going to
sing over. I ruled against this, so I needed to find a variation to play
under the vocals. I then wrote a variation to assist my vocals.The next step
in writing the song was to ascertain whether I could use the initial riff
for the chorus. It didn't work out, so then I had to write another part. The
chorus riff is a spin-off of the verse riff.
I now had the main riff, the verse riff and the chorus riff, which led me
back to the initial riff.
But instead of just repeating it verbatim, I overdubbed high single notes
and a couple of little riffs on top of it. Even though the additions are
minor, I used these little melodic guitar figures to carry the song's
arrangement along.
When I got up to about the two-minute point, I wanted to do something that
would change up the song and send it in another direction. After two
minutes, a song this heavy ceases to have any dynamic impact. You can't play
it any louder, and you can't play it any faster. My trick is go in the
opposite dynamic direction, which we in the band refer to as a "reset." We
reset the dynamics by quieting down the song, which serves to increase the
impact of it getting loud and heavy again.The funny thing is, that little
insert was actually a different song idea. Remember: Never throw out a riff.
After all these shifts in dynamics, the song then kicks back into
ultra-heaviness. This new surge of adrenaline gave me a few choices of where
to go, and in this case I opted for a guitar solo to jack up the song. After
the solo section ends, I follow with a vocal section that I wrote thinking,
"What can I sing over that will sustain the full momentum and weight of the
song without killing everything that I've set up?" I wrote [an] ascending
chordal figure specifically to address my needs at that point of the song.
Initially, I was going to play a crazy solo during that section, but, while
we were in the studio, I decided that a light, contained part was more
appropriate. That line of thought led me to a descending riff which is
played over the ascending chordal figure.
What I've done here compositionally is use the technique of contrary motion
to elevate the song's dynamics.
What is clearly illustrated is that Geek U.S.A. was completely spawned on
the guitar. It may not be the most melodic song ever written, but it's a
motherfucker guitar song. I use the guitar throughout the song to bring the
dynamics up and up and up. When we were done recording the song, it was a
minute and a half longer than the version released on Siamese Dream. I had
to look at the song as a whole and edit it down. The guitar solo section,
for example, was originally a bit longer, but when I stepped back and looked
at the whole picture, I realized that the solo was the least important
thing. "
---------------------------------
Drummer Jimmy Chamberlain tells of the time in the studio and the
arrangement of songs. "Some things are going to be different when you get
there, and things will definitely change. When you hear things bare on the
24-track, you can tell if the drum track is too raw, if the drums need to be
more driving in certain places, or if the vocals need to be pushed. Geek,
for instance, was completely rearranged once we got into the studio.
"I'll play little fills that just come out of nowhere, like on Geek USA.
Those are too hard for me to try and pull off again if I'm thinking about
them. Then I realise I have to go home and practice this stuff so I can do
it live every night. "
From: "hummer23" <
[email protected]>
Subject: Song Project Post 4/17 ////////////` "Cherub Rock"
Date: Thursday, August 30, 2001 8:57 AM
CHERUB ROCK: The first single from Siamese Dream. Breaking the ice in an
interview in 1994 an interviewer complimented Billy on the solo in the song.
"Tape flange. That's the trick on that one. You copy the solo onto another
tape, then you run the two tapes simultaneously and alter the speed of one
tape. It's geek shit, you know?"
"Cherub Rock and Quiet, which are a step forward in terms of melodicism and
construction, are also a step backwards in terms of dynamics. They're
simpler."
With the numerous overdubs on Siamese Dream critics challenged how well the
pumpkins could play these songs live. ".We do what we can, you know. We're
long past the notion of getting hung up about it. A song like Cherub Rock
has some really good, choice overdubs in it, but the song is just as
effective live, in a different way. We just try to go with it. Sometimes we
try to approximate the studio version, and sometimes we just don't give a
fuck."
The way the video for Cherub disappointed Billy who later explained his
original conception in an interview. "I kinda had this idea of us playing in
this theatre and there'd be angels swinging around on ropes and there would
be these, like, kids who were like metal kids and they would come into the
show...See, already it sounds better than, than... like, I have this, like,
I look like Jason (from Friday the 13th horror movies) at some point in the
video, and... you know."
Billy also talked about the pressures on him while making Siamese Dream.
"When Siamese Dream was finished, the people of the record company
immediately wanted to talk about the first-single choice. I wanted Cherub
Rock as first single, they wanted Today. I mean, I created a monstrous
emotional piece of art of an hour and the only thing people wanted to talk
about was a song I wrote in 10 minutes. That has nothing to do with art
anymore, or depth or complexity. It has to do with who's on top of the
mountain, who decides the 'flavor of the month' and how people should react
to that. "
From: "hummer23" <
[email protected]>
Subject: Song Project Post 5/17 ////////////` "I Am One"
Date: Thursday, August 30, 2001 9:08 PM
The 5th of 17 posts chronicalling a selection of Pumpkins songs and the
bands collected comments on those tracks.........
This will be the last singular post before I purge the rest of them onto the
group in one post....Thanks for reading.....
I AM ONE: Billy Corgan: "[This] is an example of a song that has a pretty
decent guitar riff, but a killer bass riff to support it."
I Am One first came out on a 1989 with a limited release. It is a pivotal
point on the Pumpkins' first album Gish and apparently in the history of the
band. Billy explains: "The only thing I didn't like about Gish has to do
with I Am One. In hindsight, that was really the first true Pumpkins song.
We'd done other stuff before that, but that song seemed to click us into
some other gear. We recorded it at least a year before we did Gish, and put
it out on a seven-inch. What disappointed me was that I didn't take
advantage of the chance to re-record the song for the album. The two
versions are virtually identical; in fact, I've had guys come up to me in
bars and say that the solo on the seven-inch is better that the one on the
record. I'm sure they have a point, because the seven-inch solo was a one
take deal. "
During the Siamese Dream tour, I Am One was added to the setlist for a
period of time, then was altered. Billy: "We're sick of playing I Am One,
right? So I came up with this idea: in the original version there is a bass
break and then the band kicks back in, so instead of that, we just keep the
groove going, the guitars drop out, and I wanted to do this spoken word
thing. I had no idea what I was going to do. Over the course of a few weeks,
I came up with kind of a running/singing dialogue that was a little bit of
commentary, a little bit of whatever, keeping in line with what the song is
about. For a month or two, that rap meant something, but after two months,
the rap ceases to mean anything. It becomes as predictable as some solo that
you'd play. It's no longer an inspired rap about how you feel, and becomes
just another change in the song. Especially when people are seeing you for
the second time, it's like, wow, he's saying the same shit--the first time I
saw him, it seemed like it was coming from the heart, but now I know it's
rehearsed! [laughs]."