Lyrics for 1979 as interpreted by Ice

1979 Lyrics
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 the 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


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Annie-Dog
12-21-2004

Rated 0 
PEOPLE, PLEASE READ THIS POST!


THE SONG IS WHAT BILLY CORGAN WANTED HIS LIFE TO BE LIKE WHEN HE WAS A TEENAGER. IF YOU READ THE PUMPKIN'S BIOGRAPHY, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THAT PEOPLE DID NOT UNDERSTAND HIM WHEN HE WAS GROWING UP. piceses rule the neptune

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Annie-Dog
12-21-2004

Rated 0 
PEOPLE, PLEASE READ THIS POST!


THE SONG IS WHAT BILLY CORGAN WANTED HIS LIFE TO BE LIKE WHEN HE WAS A TEENAGER. IF YOU READ THE PUMPKIN'S BIOGRAPHY, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THAT PEOPLE DID NOT UNDERSTAND HIM WHEN HE WAS GROWING UP. piceses rule the neptune

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m_modano190
12-29-2004

Rated 0 
I heard that he wrote this song in chicago while stopped at a red light in the early early morning, and that when the red light turned green he continued writing stopped at the intersection, not really a song meaning just somethin i heard.

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Rojj
12-30-2004

Rated 0 
This song really stirs emotions in me. It makes me feel regret before I'm supposed to feel it. I'm a teen now and I hate it, but I know when I'm 30 I'll look back filled with regret, thinking about how I didn't appreciate my freedom and how I should have made the most of it - but also how it was the best time of my life.
So basically I'll still be depressed when I'm 30 about a how I want to go back to another time I was depressed. Ironic huh?

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Love.Is.Suicide
01-02-2005

Rated 0 
Rojj, you took the words right out my mouth.

I can't listen to this song without my eyes getting all teary. >_<

"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"

Yep, that part gets me everytime...

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TREXOR
01-06-2005

Rated 0 
yeah, good song, honestly.

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SmashingDream
01-08-2005

Rated 0 
Like a lot of you have already said, this song reminds me of hanging out with my friends.It would be a themesong Like the times when we are goofing off. hearing it has a mixed mood effect. i am happy thinking about all the fun times, but sad from missing it all.
i still wish the meaning of "zipper blues" was clearer. but then again, there probably is several meanings knowing how SP was.

i really wish they would get back together. i was too young to enjoy it when they were big.

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i love the world
01-14-2005

Rated 0 
awesome.

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amazon_0505
01-14-2005

Rated 0 
This soung is definately about youth but I think it is about the end of being a teenager, realizing that life is calling. They are starting to really think about life and although they never want it to end they are realizing that these might be their last years of "freedom". This song is what turned me on to the pumpkins at a relatively young age and I have been a huge fan ever since.

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walking_barefoot
01-16-2005

Rated 0 
Yeah, absolutely one of the best songs ever. Everything's already been said but basically it's a teenager who's worried that his carefree days of just being happy with his friends and not having to care about anything he doesn't want to care about are going to end soon. It couldn't describe my life more perfectly. I can't imagine anything more beautiful than a sweet, hot suburban summer evening when everything in your life is just right. And hey, maybe we can make it last.

And to whoever said this song amplifies your mood - definitely. It can make you the happiest kid in the world or make you want to cry your eyes out.

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Deadpoet1
01-16-2005

Rated 0 
yeah I agree, it'a about youth and enjoying these yhears to the fullist, and although you kinda fear moving ahead to fast. you just enjoy these years and screw off.


peace

oh and yeah Smashing Pumpkins have some of the best lyrics I've ever heard.

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kelar
01-28-2005

Rated 0 
One of my favorite songs ever, but one of my favorite bands.

I think everyone has got the basic meaning down pretty good.

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John Doe
01-30-2005

Rated 0 
Maybe my comprehension is not that good. I have always thought that this song means we are not sure when we are going to die, "we don't know just where our bones will rest to dust i guess, forgotten and absorbed into the earth below". And we are lulled by the temptations in the city. "we feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts" I thought that it is somewhat related to something that Buddha said. I just found out that actually it is a nostalgic song.

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_Immortal_
02-01-2005

Rated 0 
its hard to describe the exact meaning of this song. they i view it is this. this is a song all about growing up teens and all the pressures and problems that come up. and it gives you a 'why should i even be here any longer' type impression

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kinderwhore76
02-09-2005

Rated 0 
just billy's nostalgia for his youth, but excellent video

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Arianrhod
02-09-2005

Rated 0 
I'm 14. It's raining outside. My best friend and myself are sitting in my room making mix tapes. He's my love, my life, my everything. We're talking about our band. We're going to make it huge. We are. We'll get out of this fucking town.

Thats what this song reminds me of. Just being young, bored, stuck in suburbia. Wanting to get out, not knowing how. Making plans for the future. He's still in that town. I'm a 20 minute drive away, but I'm still tied to that town. We're both 21. We're both still planning our great escape.
Some things just don't change.

1979 will always be the theme song for our plans.

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MolkoPlus
02-12-2005

Rated 0 
This song is about Corgan's relation to Krishnastar's reverse reverberation into the souls of the souls around him and his youthful intolerance to the tolerance of the life of life.

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Empress Sun
02-19-2005

Rated 0 
I think this song is about the moment you become an adult. You realize that your life as a teenager can't last forever, and that someday you'll be gone, but that it was emotional and awesome while it lasted. It's definitely one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

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Pie-Faced-Ghoul
02-26-2005

Rated 0 
It's definately about suburban teenage life, more specifically Billy's suburban teenage life (born in '67, song's 1979, do the math ;) ) Maybe about the misguided direction in kids' lives?

I'm just gonna anylize the more interesting lyrics.

"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"
This is my favorite part of the song, "Zipper blues" is most likely a lyric making fun of teenage drama, no real meaning to it, just a childish term for children's problems the rest of it is refering to teenagers having no direction in life "We are all going to the same place in the Earth no matter what we do in life" Is the way I read it.

"they're not sure just what we have in the store
morphine city slippin dues down to see"
No one knows how each child will turn out and a drug addict is just another possible outcome of a typical teen's life.

"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"
Justine is a rebelious kid who hangs out with all the outcasts, and Billy thinks she's a poser just looking for an identity.

"forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
the street heats the urgency of sound
as you can see there's no one around"
Just another generation of teenlife overwith and done, never to be remembered, and the last line (as you can see there's no one around) I think is refering to someone who lives in the past, and is telling them to grow up and leave that life behind.

This is an awesome song, proving that Billy Corgan is one of the greatest lyricists out there, this will go down as one of history's greates rock songs and Billy will go down to be one of the greatest song writers, up there with Bob Dylan and John Lennon.

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gish05
03-12-2005

Rated 0 
This is a song about a teenage life Billy never had (he actually said this), and also touches on the carefree feeling many kids that age have. "And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues" is a reference to sex. "And we don't know just where our bones will rest to dust, I guess" is just another way of expressing the feeling that you're too young to worry about death or what happens to you after you die.

1979 was actually the last song written from Mellon Collie, it almost didn't make it onto the album. It's a good thing it did. Excellent songwriting, great overall feel.

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x_miss_red_head_x
03-15-2005

Rated 0 
this song is my childhood between the riffs.

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infinite_sadness
03-25-2005

Rated 0 
Bob Dylan and John Lennon do not even come close to the genius of billys song writing skills. he is pure genius, in a frightening way. This makes you respect him even more.

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Stumbline
03-25-2005

Rated 0 
100th comment!

Sorry... great song, though.

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RichardLG
04-02-2005

Rated 0 
101st comment! .. the beat of the song itself is the big point of it for me.. it's just like good memories long gone, you just feel it.

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lunaofthegrayskies
04-07-2005

Rated 0 
this is THE song that can make me happy any time I hopelessly need that. After a while, I start singing along, and when it finishes, I'm happy! And who am I to stop the cd after 1979? =P
I've got an interview somewhere where billy talks about 1979, and I thought he said it just came into his head with the one line:" shakedown 1979" and he finished it. He is THA MASTER when it comes to writing lyrics....can't wait for his solo album as well...!!!

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