The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘1979’ Wasn’t Supposed to Be a Song

The Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” doesn’t sound much like the music of the 1970s. Instead, it became one of the most beloved alternative rock songs of the 1990s , even though it wasn’t supposed to be a song. The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan seemed blindsided by his band’s success during that era.

The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘1979’ was based on a poem Billy Corgan forgot

During a 2023 interview with Variety , Corgan revealed the oddball history of his band’s biggest hit: “1979.” It’s easy to pin the song’s success on the 1990s wave of nostalgia for the 1970s. “1979” doesn’t sound much like the Bee Gees or Paul McCartney & Wings , but it makes the late 1970s sound like a lot of fun, including to people who weren’t born yet. With that in mind, it’s incredible that the initial version of “1979” was about the 1980s, not the 1970s.

Corgan said that the track originated as a poem about the year 1984, not 1979. Corgan penned the poem in 1994, one year before the song came out and two years before it was released as a single. “I had written it as a poem, and all the lyrics are actually as I wrote the poem,” Corgan said. “So when I wrote the 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.”

Billy Corgan felt The Smashing Pumpkins were too dark to be successful at the time

During a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone , Corgan discussed the reaction to “1979”‘s parent album: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness . “What surprises me is that it’s a very dark album,” he mused. “And that such a dark album was so successful. People always say, ‘Oh, it’s dark,’ and I would think, ‘Eh, it’s not dark to me.’ But now I listen to it years later and I think, ‘Wow, there’s some pretty dark tones. There’s some pretty dark themes.’

“A song like ‘X.Y.U.’ and ‘Tales of a Scorched Earth,’ those are pretty dark,” the rock star added. “There’s something about the darkness of it all that really resonated: the tonality of the thing. The production is fairly stark in many places.”

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‘1979’ didn’t become a huge hit but it left a mark

“1979” became the band’s only top 20 single on the Billboard Hot 100 when it peaked at No. 20. The tune spent 22 weeks on the chart, more than any of their other songs. The band released three other singles that hit the top 40: “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” (No. 22), “Tonight, Tonight” (No. 36), and “Thirty-Three” (No. 39).

“1979”‘s parent album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness , became one of the most beloved alternative rock albums of the 1990s. That record peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a single week, lasting on the chart for 93 weeks in total. The Smashing Pumpkins released a few acclaimed records, but for many fans, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness will always be their definitive statement. Aspects of the album even inspired the recent indie film I Saw the TV Glow .

“1979” is one of the best tributes to the 1970s that you will ever hear, even if it was initially intended as a tribute to the mid-1980s.