It's "slipping doobs down our sleeves", not dues.

According to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-vpkxPlqo
Billy wrote the song off the memory of being eighteen, sitting in his car in the Illinois rain, waiting at some lights. That fragment of a memory is the evocative inspiration for this song: the feeling of youthful anticipation.

What I'm surprised no one has commented on is whether mewithoutyou's 1979 is a REPLY to this song or not.

Good song, regardless its origins. It is THE alternative-rock anthem of the 90s.

Lisent and feel its true love it

if you REALLY look at the words and imagine what he's saying, of course its about being a teenager, the headlights pointed at he dawn is my favorite part, its romantic

The song is about growing up, but what many people dont realize is that the lyrics do not necessarily reflect a story being told chronologically but rather short phrases that billy must've came up with or that were actually said in real life and written down. Many artists recreate their experiences by writing down phrases and quotes that perhaps their friends or family have said that made them laugh, cry, think, etc. So to us, the lyrics may be obscure and rather meaningless, but to them it holds more meaning that we could ever imagine.

I like the nostalgia

the freedom of not caring about the time

the long road echos

I really don't like the smashing pumpkins, i find the lead singer to have a really annoying voice. This is the only song I've ever liked by them i guess cause its mellow and the singer isnt trying so damn hard, it is in my personal top 5 "best songs of all time"

love it <3

It says "Cool kids never have the time" but it sounds like "cool kids never have their turn"

What can you say about the smashing pumpkins. Another adolensent band that thinks they have a message. They need to take a minute and listen to the masters.

Yeah if you listen to the song played live in Vancouver in 1997 he says "This next song I wrote when I was 12 years old", he also says "It's kinda sad because it's a really good song, and he hasn't written much better songs since he was 12, but none the less it's a very nice song".

Now, go look at this storytellers session and he has a completely different story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9-vpkxPlqo

So he admits here that the song had no lyrics other than "Shakedown 1979". It was just an idea with little music written yet. Now it is possible that he wrote a portion of the arrangement as a kid and never put lyrics to it, but I'm more of the feeling that what he said in the concert is just a good story and segway into the song. I believe what he says in this youtube video that it was basically put together over night to make it on the album.

I fucking love this. :D

I heard this 5 minutes ago!
So I came to comment on it cause I grew up around The Smashing Pumpkins music.

And this one song has always been the best, the beat is so calming and relaxing..

240th comment i see
i never knew the words to this
looks like a collage of sorts
youth and stuff i'd guess
i prefer not dissecting it,
very cool song

It's about expectations of the future. Growing up in the nineties and you know the real future (next millennium) is just around the corner. Billy Corgan thought of this song while sitting at traffic lights in the night while it was raining, taking the car back to his parents or something. And he was just sitting there in the dark and rain with the glare of the traffic lights and realizing that a whole future is awaiting him.

Also, there are obvious parallels to teenage suburban life and relations. A sort of generation song.

And he chose 1979 because it rhymed with most of the words in his song. But it's also a common year for birthdays of teens in the nineties.

Shakedown 1979
Cool kids never have the time
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meet

This suggests the typical longing for connection felt by most suburban teenagers. Notice that the speaker seems to speaking only to himself; “Cool kids never have the time”. The next 2 lines are that yearning for a specific friend (perhaps a girl) “on a live wire right up off the street” A telephone wire perhaps? It also seems to point towards that desire all teenage boys have, they want to be “live wires”- dangerous, outgoing and generally interesting.



Junebug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we'd never see an end
To it all

I’ve read that Junebug was a song Billy was fond of when he was young, the “skipping like a stone” also creates the image of carefree times by the sea. Notice also that the speaker now appears to be older than in verse 1. He has access to a car, and refers now to “we” rather than “I”; he now has friends he was longing for. The “headlights pointed at the dawn” creates the sense of looking to the future. In the next line however, the speaker is now reflecting on the past, no longer speaking as a teenager. There’s real sorrow in the last 2 lines of this verse.



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

Again we are back to the voice of the teenager. “zipper blues” may be sexual frustration. I think he is saying that, although this is the source of a lot of paint for teenagers, it doesn’t even occur to him that this will change. “we don’t know…where our bones will rest” paints the picture of a young person who still has no idea where his life will go. As we see later in the song, it suggests that he doubts that he will even be in his current city/town later in life.



Double cross the vacant and the bored
They're not sure just what we have in store
Morphine city slippin dues
Down to see

The first line is a reference to how teenagers are often quite ruthless in how they pursue a good time. The “vacant and bored” are peers who they don’t want to spend time with because they are seen as dull. This is perhaps a nod to the voice in the first verse longing for “cool kids”. Is he now one of those cool kids he used to idolise? The idea of morphine could be that of using drugs to suppress pain, I’m guessing it’s a metaphor for teenagers’ drinking/smoking pot. Morphine is also very similar to heroin, is the speaker now loosing innocence and being exposed to the destructive behaviour in the city?



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

The first two lines represent that teenage dichotomy of emotion- you are both carefree and incredibly caught up in yourself, so at the time your problems seem real, but as you get older they seem insignificant. Feeling the pull of “the land of a thousand guilts and poured cement” seems to be corgan’s gothic phase- very melodramatic language coupled with the desire to head for the big city and make something of yourself, in this case, musically. The part of the verse about speed refers to the speed at which time passes “faster than we thought we’d go”. As if he has been taken by surprise by how quickly “we” have aged. Is “beneath the sound of hope” the idea that there’s nothing that can be done about it?

The line “lights and towns below” has a personal meaning for me, as, when I was walking home from school there was a railway bridge, which by a strange illusion made it look like my neighbourhood was hovering above the neighbourhood I was walking through. Sitting in my home I often reminisce about my old school, which is in a particularly beautiful part of the city- I feel drawn to “the town below” the railway bridge and my childhood.



Justine never knew the rules
Hung down with the freaks and the ghouls
No apologies ever need be made
I know you better than you fake it

Notice the speaker is now alone again, and like at the end of the previous verse is now looking back at the past. This is particularly warm verse; he is saying to his friend “no matter how you change, you will always be the same person to me”. Anyone older than 16 will have friends from their childhood who have changed, but no matter how much they try to transform their image, these friends always retain the essence of the person you first knew them as.



The street heats the urgency of sound
As you can see there's no one around

I’ve always thought he sings “street heats the urgency up now” in this line, but either way I think it means this: He is walking down the street where he grew up, probably in a metaphorical sense, this brings back the “urgency” teenagers feel in their lives- everything is about now, not latter. He soon realises, to his disappointment, that the people that made this place special are no longer there. This brings the dreadful realisation that memories cannot be relived, because the people who created them have moved on.

I think this song is particularly poignant because of the tone of the last line of each verse- always tinged with sadness. Yet the song as a whole is not depressing- it displays the range of emotions you’d expect from a review of the past. However, I think its fair to say that regret is the overriding sense that this song evokes.

I realise that this is a song, and the music is just as important as the lyrics, but I can’t really talk about music using text alone.

I always thought this song was about a small town during high school. This song is interesting because it is the only song with that same theme that actually makes me think of my hometown.

This song is about how life changes over time...and how some people remain them self and some people change to try to fit in in a sense. The singer obviously singing about how he is staying true to himself due to the fact that he says something about bones being layed to rest...basically saying he wont waste his life being someone hes not.

I agree with the general consensus that it's about the awkwardness of growing up. According to wikipedia, Corgan was born in 1967, which would make him 12 in the year 1979 (and I've heard he wrote it at age 12, too), and twelve's an awkward age for anyone.

Love the song, too. Overplayed as hell, but deservedly so! I love the Pumpkins! (or at least the old, 1991-1998, pre-Machina incarnation of the Pumpkins).

Well, there is a DVD on the smashing pumpkins that features every music video on all of their singles in you have it or go out and buy it the band members comment on all of the videos and what the songs are about... you should all check it out

I dont think it has anything to do with reminiscing about teenage years seeing as how Billy only would've been about 11 in 1979.

its about looking back. its basically billy looking back on his teenage life and his train of thought then. its that simple. this song is a masterpiece. like all of sp's music. billy corgan for president or at least vice.

I'm not getting any of that "best time of your life" or "fear of rushing into adulthood" vibe from this song at all. To me it's a nostalgic look at a time that was pivotal, but not necessarily good.

To me it's about feeling trapped and apathetic in a suburban setting that really has no place for teenagers. I read "morphine city" figuratively, btw. That's certainly how the suburbs seemed to me at that age.

And then there's just the general unpleasantness of being a teenager, when you spend a significant portion of your time feeling bad about everything and nothing. The line about not knowing where our bones will rest sounds fatalistic, not happy-go-lucky. Kind of a morbid way to say you're feeling lost and adrift.

But sometimes you get together with your friends and you do something stupid, like you all pile in the car and leave the city limits and drive way too fast down a deserted road and just for a minute in the rush of adrenaline you forget everything that's wrong with the world and everything that's wrong with you, and the rush breaks through the apathy that protects you from all of that, and just for a little while you've escaped.

i've always loved SP ever since i was little, and since i am a teenager this song reminds me a lot of the weekends i spend out partying and having fun with my friends.
the song's imagery in the lyrics is astounding. "with the headlights pointed at the dawn" depicts what it reads.
"we're not sure just where our bones will rest. to dust, i guess" that lyrics reminds me of when i'm out with friends late at night when regular people in town are sleeping, we're partying and having fun, but yet, we don't really know where we will sleep that night, and at that moment we don't really care if we were to die, because we're having such a good time.

As with most SP songs, I could dissect each and every line, as many of their songs are not linear stories but rather are a hodge podge of lyrics that evoke images.

This song is really just getting at the carefreeness of youth and the coming of age. Understanding who you are, not necessarily as an adult, but the process of leaving childhood behind, adolescence. But I'm 31 now and this song still speaks to me. I think this one will prove to transcend all ages.

Well done Billy

As usual

He's reminiscing on his teenage days