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ten times removed
i forget about where it all began
bastard son of a bastard son of
a wild eyed child of the sun
and right as rain, i'm not the same but
i feel the same, i feel nothing
holding back the fool again
holding back the fool pretends
i forget to forget nothing is important
holding back the fool again
i sensed my loss
before i even learned to talk
and i remember my birthdays
empty party afternoons won't come back
holding back the fool again
holding back the fool pretends
i forget to forget nothing is important
holding back the fool again
i forget to forget me
i forget to forget you see
nothing is important to me
i knew my loss
before i even learned to speak
and all along, i knew it was wrong
but i played along, with my birthday song
holding back the fool again
holding back the fool pretends
i forget to forget nothing is important
holding back the fool again
i forget about where it all began
bastard son of a bastard son of
a wild eyed child of the sun
and right as rain, i'm not the same but
i feel the same, i feel nothing
holding back the fool again
holding back the fool pretends
i forget to forget nothing is important
holding back the fool again
i sensed my loss
before i even learned to talk
and i remember my birthdays
empty party afternoons won't come back
holding back the fool again
holding back the fool pretends
i forget to forget nothing is important
holding back the fool again
i forget to forget me
i forget to forget you see
nothing is important to me
i knew my loss
before i even learned to speak
and all along, i knew it was wrong
but i played along, with my birthday song
holding back the fool again
holding back the fool pretends
i forget to forget nothing is important
holding back the fool again
Lyrics submitted by Ice
Track duration: 04:17
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This is a song about loss, losing something you never even knew existed. What that is is a relationship with his mother. His parents divorced when he was 3 and his father got custody and Billy was abused by his step mother. His father soon divorced his step mom and he went to live with HER, he was left alone with neither one of his birth parents, a bastard. This song touches on the idea that his father probably had a similar upbringing, so he didn't know any other way to do it. Abuse, neglect and things that create dysfunction in a family often go from generation to generation, and what are we left with? People having kids and trying to raise them when they themselves didn't really have a childhood. Dysfunction begets dysfunction, completely out of control of the children and in a way the parents. SO, this is Billy's way of trying to forgive them, because they, like him, had no real choice because they were both products of the same sort of abuse and neglect.
SO that line is important the way it's written above.
the title made me think he was saying 'to forgive' during the chorus, then i checked out the lyrics and its clearly "i forget to forget".
and that line is him telling himself he needs to forget sometimes, stop worrying about the past, leave those emotions behind, because life is your playground, its not important in the grand scheme of things.
What I always thought it was about, when I first listened to it, though, was a child realizing that he was going to die, the same way everyone born is going to die. I thought the bad thing he inherited from his family (and from all humans) was mortality. A very depressing view, I know.
I remember listening to this song and "Galapogos" from the same album alone in my room in a beach house my family rented, and I don't know if I have ever felt so much from music as I did right then.
Some of us are born broken.
the heart of this song is a specific memory of billy corgan being beaten/physically abused as kid and then having to go out an act normal at a (his?) birthday party. i remember reading a series of online posts he did around 2005 and most of them seemed to totally give away a song's origin. "writing is therapy" as one of my creative writing high school teacher would say. i think it was on myspace, but the posts aren't there anymore, sadly. peace to all that can relate to this powerful-beautiful song.