Why Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” Was a Happy Accident: “I Can’t Say Anything Like That Has Ever Happened Again”

There are two types of artists: The artist who deliberately explores for inspiration and the one who stumbles across it. Now, the same person can be both types of these artists, as experience and context often dictate creative direction. Nonetheless, artists who stumble upon inspiration might call this phenomenon a happy accident, and one musician who would seemingly agree is the lead singer of The Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan.

The Smashing Pumpkins’ rise to fame primarily transpired in the year of 1993. Now, a good deal of people associate their mainstream introduction to the year 1995, but that is not the case. In reality, The Smashing Pumpkins’ breakthrough came with their 1993 single, “Today”, which resides on their album, Siamese Dream. Upon its release, the single peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks and at No. 28 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

While this song introduced them to the world, it is not the song that the majority of people know Billy Corgan and The Pumpkins for. That song would be their 1995 top 25 hit, “1979”, which, according to Billy Corgan, just came to be on a whim.

The Lyrics Are From One of Billy Corgan’s Old Poems

Funny enough, Billy Corgan actually wrote “1979” about the year 1984 during the year of 1994. Regardless, Corgan’s lyrics for the song were seemingly not written for that purpose. Rather, they were written as a poem, a poem that would later fit perfectly into the musical melody Corgan wrote for the track.

Recalling how the lyrics and the music came together, Corgan stated, “I had written it as a poem, and all the lyrics are actually as I wrote the poem,” per Variety. “So when I wrote the song, I was looking for something, and I stumbled across the poem, and I just sang it. I can’t say anything like that has ever happened again,” concluded Corgan.

This beneficial misstep, happy accident, or whatever you may call it, led to The Smashing Pumpkins’ biggest hit. Specifically, when the song came out in 1995, it went on to peak at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also peaked at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks and Modern Rock Tracks. This success wasn’t by design. Instead, it was, in a sense, an incredibly successful mistake. Though, the best forms of art typically are.

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