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dwil8686
01-27-2003, 11:22 PM
I'm sure that a number of you out there remember 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins. At the time it sounded like incoherent babbling to me (still a nice track though). While fooling around on the net I came across the lyrics to this song which leaves me with one question. What in the hell is he talking about?!

Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meet
Junebug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we'd never see an end to it all
And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
Double cross the vacant and the bored
They're not sure just what we have in store
Morphine city slippin dues down to see
That we don't even care as restless as we are
We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts
And poured cement, lamented and assured
To the lights and towns below
Faster than the speed of sound
Faster than we thought we'd go, beneath the sound of hope
Justine never knew the rules
Hung down with the freaks and ghouls
No apologies ever need be made, I know you better than you fake it
To see that we don't care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
The street heats the urgency of sound
As you can see there's no one around

Mrs. JB
01-27-2003, 11:23 PM
It's a slice of life.

Manny Ramirez
01-27-2003, 11:27 PM
Rule #1 - Don't try to understand Corgan's lyrics...most of the time they have meanings that can be interpreted many different ways

Rule #2 - buy Corgan's new band's CD, Zwan, tomorrow

Kam
01-27-2003, 11:32 PM
It's a good video too. Just regular you's and me's doing regular things. Going to the corner store mart, doing things in a car. The good stuff in life.

Jeff
01-27-2003, 11:35 PM
Sounds like life in his neighborhood as a kid. 1979 probably represents a certain time in his life that he waxed nostalgic about in this song.

I have a friend who is a songwriter and his lyrics are always an inside joke between he and his brother or one of his friends. This sounds a lot like that.

rockHEAD
01-27-2003, 11:38 PM
he's never been the same since he got hit in the head with a shoe at a show in Houston!

dwil8686
01-27-2003, 11:42 PM
And another thing. What is being repeated in the background throughout the song? Maybe I should have played it backwards like the end of Prince's Darling Nikki.

Supermac34
01-28-2003, 09:57 AM
Originally posted by dwil8686
And another thing. What is being repeated in the background throughout the song? Maybe I should have played it backwards like the end of Prince's Darling Nikki.

Yeah, I've always wondered what that was playing in the background too!

Anybody know?

MadMax
01-28-2003, 09:59 AM
Originally posted by Mrs. JB
It's a slice of life.

it's merely a playful jab at interoffice politics

:D

Refman
01-28-2003, 10:03 AM
Originally posted by MadMax
it's merely a playful jab at interoffice politics

:D
So he wanted to be a high ranking exec? :D

MadMax
01-28-2003, 10:05 AM
Originally posted by Refman
So he wanted to be a high ranking exec? :D

it's a seinfeld quote

subtomic
01-28-2003, 10:20 AM
Originally posted by rockHEAD
he's never been the same since he got hit in the head with a shoe at a show in Houston!

LOL - he went bald not long after that show also. That shoe must have had a hex on it.

Jeff
01-28-2003, 11:31 AM
Originally posted by MadMax
it's merely a playful jab at interoffice politics

:D

A vorstein?

:)

MadMax
01-28-2003, 11:51 AM
Originally posted by Jeff
A vorstein?

:)

man, that's a great episode!

haven
01-28-2003, 11:56 AM
It's a series of vignettes from his youth. Quite well done, imo. Some of Corgan's lyrics are grandiose, but I don't think 1979 is, really...

...pleasantly melan chollie;).

dwil8686
01-28-2003, 04:07 PM
So again.........does anyone have a clue what's being repeated in the background throughout the song.

DrLudicrous
01-28-2003, 04:14 PM
Originally posted by dwil8686
So again.........does anyone have a clue what's being repeated in the background throughout the song.

The only thing I hear repeated in the background is a guitar riff.

dwil8686
01-28-2003, 04:32 PM
Originally posted by DrLudicrous
The only thing I hear repeated in the background is a guitar riff.


It's something sampled at the end of every line. I don't know why I so preoccupied over this 5+ years after the fact but I would really like to know.

Mrs. JB
01-28-2003, 04:33 PM
Perhaps a Smashing Pumpkins BBS would be better able to answer your questions.

mateo
01-28-2003, 04:35 PM
Did you hear him give "his side of the show story" at their last Houston gig? He was hillarious.