July 12th, 2010
The Smashing Pumpkins – Tonight, Tonight
Here is this week’s song (a few days’ late so it’s actually last week’s song) off my iPod. Beth loves this song and thinks highly of the Pumpkins and Billy Corgan.
The Smashing Pumpkins is an alternative rock band from Chicago, Illinois. The group was formed by Billy Corgan (vocals, guitar) and James Iha (guitar, backing vocals) in 1988. The members of the band during their biggest years in the 1990′s were, in addition to Corgan and Iha, D’arcy Wretzky (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Jimmy Chamberlin (drums, percussion). Chamberlin was kicked out of the group in 1996 when he and touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin overdosed on heroin in a hotel room in New York City. Melvoin died and Chamberlin was arrested for drug possession. The group remained a trio for the rest of the 90′s. Today Corgan is the only original member of the group.
The group had their biggest success with the albums they released during the 1990′s, each of them going at least platinum. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, a double album released in 1995, was the group’s most successful album going 9X platinum in the USA and featuring five singles reaching the top 10 on Billboard’s alternative music list. The album was noted for the Pumpkins heavy use of guitar overdubs which is considered their singular style. “Tonight, Tonight” was the fourth single from the album and besides being a commercial success was critically acclaimed. The video for the song was also critically acclaimed and won several awards. The video was inspired by Georges Méliès’s 1902 silent film “A Trip to the Moon” and was filmed in the style of a turn-of-the-century movie using theater style backdrops and primitive special effects.
Tonight, Tonight
Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave
Without leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change the less you feel
Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you’re not stuck in vain
We’re not the same, we’re different tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
And you know you’re never sure
But you’re sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake
The place where you were born
Believe, believe in me, believe
In the resolute urgency of now
And if you believe there’s not a chance tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
We’ll crucify the insincere tonight
We’ll make things right, we’ll feel it all tonight
We’ll find a way to offer up the night tonight
The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight
