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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
So again.........does anyone have a clue what's being repeated in the background throughout the song.
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.
