Viva La Vinyl

30 Years Of Siamese Dream

When I had a guest on for the first time on the Better Band podcast I would ask: “When did you first hear of Pearl Jam?” This bit was taken from the Talkin’ podcasts¹ of Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott, who would ask their guests when they first heard of the band that was the subject of that particular season. Most guests not taking the of seriously, and just going into how they got into the band.

I missed the official day of the 30th anniversary of the release of this seminal Smashing Pumpkins album, but with the anniversary goings-on happening this weekend, I thought I’d share my story of how I got into the Pumpkins, and weave it into my story about Siamese Dream...

I had heard of Smashing Pumpkins growing up. Mid 90s MTV and rock radio was the hopeful infection vector Virgin Records sought to spread album purchases through constant spins. The middle of my Senior year, I had started the band my friends and I would be in for the better part of a decade. 1997. I was still all-in on Pearl Jam, but I couldn’t figure out how to play their songs in the pre-ubiquotus-internet age. Skill and the broad availability of tablature being my primary obstacles.

My brother had the Smashing Pumpkins album Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness for some reason. He mostly listened to Bad Religion and anime soundtracks, but he also had this double CD behemoth. I was teaching myself to play guitar around the time that the song “Zero” was prominent as a new single, and it fucking rawked! One of the guitar magazines at the time had the tab for how to play it, and since my brother had the album, I figured I’d just get the single so I could listen to it as I tried to figure it out so my band could play it.

Now, if you have the single, there are two notable things about it that blew every teen’s mind at the time when they got it.

1. There’s a full-on naked lady on the inside of the CD.

2. There were several (superb) B Sides, with the final one being over Twenty Minutes of parts from Seventy Songs that they didn’t put on the double album.

As a budding songwriter, this freaked my bean. I was sold on the Pumpkins from here, forever. The prolificness (prolificity?) was an inspiration, and I had to take in all that I could.

Now, this is after Siamese Dream had been out for a couple years, but all I had heard from it was the radio songs. And while I stalked the few record stores we had in town for import singles so I could obtain those “Sweet Sweet” B-Sides², I had calculated that it would be a far simpler task to receive said album as a birthday present (since I am not comfortable with birthdays and stuff, and didn’t know what to ask for³). That gift request was made to my girlfriend.

She must have gotten it from some place that also sold that censored version of In Utero since the track names aren’t on the back

She was pretty much my first real girlfriend. Not like elementary or middle school “girlfriend” where you say that you’re girlfriend and boyfriend and just stand next to each other at recess for a week, and then you “break-up.” Where you call one another on the phone, but don’t really know what to say, so you both are just silently warming up the handset with your ear — clammy and clamped between your head and shoulder.

No, we actually went on dates, I took her to prom, we were together my whole Senior year. First kiss. First love.

Putting on the album, the music and lyrics reflected the ups and downs of my fickle teenage mood swings. A depression that I can remember seeing staring back at me in the mirror since I was seven or eight — ten years later, and that depression that will lie undiagnosed and untreated for yet another ten years, reverberates in headphones squalling Big Muff riffs. And of course, I wasn’t alone on this ten month long portion of my turbulent emotional roller coaster — she was right beside me on a ride she didn’t buy a ticket for.

Our whole time together, I tried to hide this darkness in passing shadows. Not wanting to expose this part of me for fear that the horror would be too much to bear. In a way, a fear that proved itself to be true. She wouldn’t be able to fix what was wrong with me, and it’s cruelty on my part if she took on that folly of a quest — if I led her to believe that she needed to. That’s not something to weigh down a sixteen year old with.

I had about a month with this album when her tear congested voice told me: “I can’t do this anymore.” It has always felt like this album was the opening of a portal back in time to this version of me that doesn’t exist anymore. Preserved in amber⁴, forever reliving this nuclear blast and cursed to walk the emotional desert wasteland of sand turned to shards of glass.

It’s not the anchor that I forecasted it to be for the remainder of my life, however. You get older. You experience more things — not necessarily worse or better, just more — and you learn things about yourself. You start to tell yourself stories about how the things that happened to you impacted where you’ve ended up in life, and it has to be because of those things happening, right?

Being afraid that letting others know about the darkness tamped down in myself would ward others away — a radioactive symbol warning others to keep their distance. Yet, Corgan let his darkness out in the lyrics of this record, and it connected with me and millions of other people. It’s not The Darkness keeping other people away, it’s me. Being my true authentic self and not holding with white fingertips onto the poison, doesn’t prevent it from infecting other people. It allows you to hold it further away, until you can cast it off.

Probably not forever... But for long enough that you can practice your kicks or go to a batting cage, so you can make sure to swat it away with more precision, next time.

And as I said, it would still take me ten more years of struggling at life until I was able to allow myself to get treatment. Ultimately, it was that work and medication that got me to here — not any sort of negotiating with the vile psychic creature holding me hostage. I had to work at getting better before I could feel better. Before I could be better.

And music helped. People and relationships helped. But it couldn’t be done for me. I had to do it. And so I guess with the weight of the story I have inextricably intertwined with it, what I get from All This is, that it’s not a burden. It’s not something that will derail me off into the quicksand marshes of nostalgia. I still feel sorry for that kid that went through all of that. That didn’t have any hope. But I’m glad he made it.

-bcp

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream [Apple Music]

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream (Deluxe Edition) [Apple Music]

1. Those podcasts being U Talkin’ U2 To Me?, U Talkin’ REM RE: ME?, R U Talkin’ RHCP RE: Me, and U Talkin’ Talking Heads 2 My Talking Head?

2. See what I did there?

3. A hint, perhaps, of something I’ve been writing?...

4. The coincidence froze me in my tracks for a second, as my brain thought of the words, but my fingers hesitated. Part of her name has “Amber” in it...