[Simon & Garfunkel - "America"]
Nostalgia is a weird concept.
We have an idea of it as this vague longing for the past
that marketing teams are continually attempting to mine for profit.
But from its Greek origin the word comes from nostos meaning homecoming
and algos meaning pain or ache.
In its original form it was considered a form of melancholy,
the idea that you can never fully return to where you came from.
That once away from home you will never be the same.
But this has morphed.
Today it's more of a positive or at least bittersweet emotion.
This is compounded by the way our memories work.
We don't remember the events but the last time we remembered the event.
We are simply recalling the memory.
This leads to embellishment and rose tinting of the past.
Nostalgia is the past idealized
and one piece of pop culture that truly evokes this feeling is the Smashing Pumpkins' "1979".
[Smashing Pumpkins - "1979"]
Billy Corgan was about 12 years old in the year 1979.
That age usually represents the transition between childhood and adolescence
the last step before adulthood and real responsibility.
When "1979"'s parent album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness came out in 1995
Corgan was now 28 and he acknowledged:
Corgan voiced this vision of idealized youth with lyrics like:
which conjures images of teenage meetups on the streets
with the ever-present potential for hijinks.
Throughout there is an ever encroaching sense that this all will end,
that the adult world is just around the corner
but the chorus is dismissively in the moment:
Who cares of the future when there is today to live?
Pitchfork stated about the song:
The music video is the closest visual approximation of this feeling.
It follows the episodic exploits of a group of teenagers being teenagers
They ride in tires down a hill,
they flip off their hometown,
they drive about doing nothing in particular.
They engage in the most minor of teen rebellion
and in doing so they get the grown-ups,
mostly played by the band in disguise, all agitated.
There's also the infamous house party with music provided by the Pumpkins themselves.
This is youth shown at its most dreamlike.
In reality there were bad times: school, parents and heartache
but in these four minutes they are notable by their absence.
All the while Corgan sits in the backseat of the car
smiling knowingly at the kids shenanigans like he's remembering his personal experiences.
Corgan considers it the Pumpkins' best video, calling it:
Corgan has said about its title:
And yeah that is the thing that happens.
Some years sound more iconic than others.
This is why Bryan Adams was fucking around and starting his first band in the Summer of 69
when he would have been 8.
1984, which would suit Corgan's age better for teenage rememberings
has a deeply embedded pop cultural significance that contrasts with the songs intended message.
"I hate purity, hate goodness. I don't want virtue to exist anywhere.
"I want everyone corrupt."
That said 1979 itself is a seismic year for music.
In the rock spectrum it saw a shift from purely guitar-focused fare
into something that was more electronic in nature.
Bands like The Cars, XTC, Suicide, Devo, The Cure
and Joy Division were fusing punk rock with more futuristic sounds.
While the band have dismissed Punk's influence on their work
preferring Pantera, My Bloody Valentine and Cheap Trick,
"1979" is definitely on the same wavelength as this cultural shift.
Corgan himself has said that his "1979" is a shameless ripoff of New Order
while there are elements of the Cure and Depeche Mode present in the electro pop leanings of the track.
In the same way that 1979 the year marked a shift in music
the song also signals a shift to the band.
Before Mellon Collie... the Pumpkins were known for a certain style.
Corgan told Rolling Stone in 1995:
[Smashing Pumpkins - "Bullet With Butterfly Wing"]
"Bullet With Butterfly Wings" with its ultra moody chorus is seen by the band
as a full stop to that era
and this could be why it was released as a double a-side single with "1979".
[Smashing Pumpkins - "1979"]
It's a gleeful breath of fresh air with this use of drum machines and synths
contrasting with their more metallic previous work.
The almost positive nostalgic sentiment is singular in the Pumpkins catalog
who are universally more linked with less positive emotions.
"1979" was a portrait of Billy Corgan looking back to his salad days,
his lost youth and innocence,
whereas today it inspires listeners to look back and compare.
Back to who they were when they first listened to the track.
Perhaps 12 years old on the verge of adolescence.
The memories that go with the song, that idealize rose-tinted and embellished version
of what they were doing in 1995.
Recently the Smashing Pumpkins with their almost reformed lineup announced they wanted
to revisit the house party concept from their "1979" video
and created a competition inviting fans to said exclusive gig.
The band themselves are looking back to what they once were
but the comparisons aren't too flattering.
In years in between they've lost band members,
Corgan has become a bitter shadow of what he once was
and the newer music, the most important part, hasn't inspired in quite the same way.
Nothing compares to the band's best days of Gish, Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie.
There is an ache and longing for what the Smashing Pumpkins once were.
They say that your teenage years are where you learn who you are,
when you are your most passionate, your most emotionally intense.
You've never loved or lost anything as intensely as when you were 14.
Those are the years they will continue to return to in memory
though it may be hurtful, though it may consume you
in hindsight they will always seem like you at your prime.
The best years of your life.
And it's no wonder that "1979" resonates in a way that no other Pumpkins song does.
"Today"'s the day that you didn't kill yourself,
"Zero" is your teenage angst writ large
but "1979" is swirled layers of memories and pure joy.
Of your youth, of Corgan's youth and of the Smashing Pumpkins at their prime.
It's that feeling you're only gonna relive in echo, made tangible
It is "1979".
40 years of nostalgia in four minutes of alt. pop.
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