1979

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.