The Story Behind: "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins

1979 is a song by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. The song was released as the second single from their third studio effort, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, which was released in 1995.  

Backstory/Recording

The song was written when Corgan was writting new material after the Siamese Dream tour, where he wrote about fifty song for the upcoming album, which was Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The song that he was producing were mainly inspired by the double self-titled album by The Beatles.

Billy Corgan said in an interview: "We almost had enough material to make Siamese Dream a double album. With this new album, I really liked the notion that we would create a wider scope in which to put other kinds of material we were writing." Corgan also stated that the style of writting songs until this point ran its course, and wanted to write an album differently as if it was his last work.  

After the band set out to record the album, the record producer Flood said that the song 1979 was not good enough for the album, and almost dropped it from the song list. Corgan was determined to make the song better, using 4 hours in the studio to finish the song. The new version of the song was recorded and put in the album immediately after Flood had listened to it the next day.

The Lyrics

The song's lyrics are about the transition out of youth into the adulthood. Corgan was 12 years old in 1979, and consideres it to be the year that he transitioned into adolescence. The year 1979 was also chosen for the title because it rhymed with a lot of words that he initially wanted to include in the lyrics.   

Corgan stated in VH1 Storytellers: "Sometimes, when I write a song, I see a picture in my head. For some reason, it's of the obscure memory I have." The memory that he wrote this song on was a memory of him driving down the road on a rainy night near his home. He continued "it emotionally connotes a feeling of waiting for something to happen, and not being quite there yet, but it's just around the corner." The song had the most meaning to Corgan, and that is why he put so much extra work into it when the producer told him it wasn't good enough for the album.  

The Music Video

The music video for the song was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Fairs, whom worked with the band in the video for Rocket and with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for their song Otherside. The original director was Spike Jonze, whom wanted the band members to be in an alien hotel wearing special alien masks. The idea didn't work because it would cost almost a million dollars to make the video.  

The video features suburban teenagers driving around in their car. It was an idea by Corgan, whom wanted to make an idealized perception of teenage life. The idea that Corgan had also was also that he wanted the kids to vandalize a store, but the directors told Corgan that they should do something tamer. The video features Corgan in the backseat of the car, with other members appearing at the store as a clerk (James Iha), as an angry neighbor (D'arcy Wretzky), policeman (Jimmy Chamberlin) , and at the end in the party scene as the band.  

The video later won the MTV Video Music Award for the Best Alternative Video in 1996 and is considered to be by Corgan as "the closest we've ever come to realizing everything we wanted."