Pennies

Pennies is an instant pop classic, regardless of the fact that it's buried on a single and no-one buys singles anymore, do they?!  Anyways, it's easy to see why Pennies wouldn't have fitted on Mellon Collie.  It has a completely different feeling from the, for lack of a better word, melancholy mood that prevails.  I'm not saying that all of melancholy sad, nor am I saying that Pennies is happy (which it isn't, really).

Pennies is a very simple love song, about someone who used to be involved with another but now they aren't together and the other doesn't like Billy (or Billy's character) anymore.  The greatest part (what really makes the song, maybe) is in the second verse, when it is proclaimed "but i've got a new girlfriend, she looks a lot like you, dear!"  Clearly our narrator hasn't gotten over it, and is dating maliciously.  Or it would seem malicious, were it not such a pretty song.  As it is, the way the song sounds makes our narrator seem very naive, as if the relationship that has ended was his first.  Billy has said that a song like "Stand Inside Your Love" isn't as optimistic as everyone thinks it is.  I feel like "Pennies" is that song without the sarcasm.  Or with a different kind of sarcasm.

Pennies is one of the songs in the Pumpkins oeuvre that shows how good the band is at making stellar pop tunes. It's always their most pop songs that are more popular anyways (maybe that's why it's called 'pop').  I would love to hear an album full of Pennies-style jams.  Or maybe not.