Let Me Give The World To You

So if "Stellar" is the song that would have saved Zeitgeist, it's arguable that "Let Me Give The World To You" is the song that would have "saved" Adore.

I'm going to disagree with this, mainly because I don't think Adore needs saving at all.  If there was any Adore out take that should have been on the album, I would prefer Chewing Gum (Adore has some great pop moments, why not play them up?) or Once In A While (if it was taken off because of Once Upon A Time, couldn't you just rename it? I digress). 

The reason I say all this is that there seems to be this prevailing mood around the song that it was the 'hit' single Adore 'never had.'  I don't know who started this, but thinking like that is kind of silly.  I may say that "Set the ray to Jerry" really should have been on Mellon Collie, but when I think about it, I have trouble placing it on the album.  It sounds perfect on the 1979 single!  That said, Let Me Give The World To You would probably have an easier time 'fitting' on Adore than Billy thought (he said it didn't fit once, btw).  

I think what really drags the song down for me is it's placing on Machina II, which is a problem Machina II often has.  It feels more like a collection of songs rather than a set in stone album.  So any one great song has a rough time standing out because they're all jumbled up in one big mass.

The other thing that drags LMGTWTY is it's production.  Of all the songs that have that strange reverb sheen of Machina II songs, LMGTWTY is the one that really suffers from it.  It makes the song so bland, which is odd, because if you strain to hear Billy, he's giving one of the more passionate vocal performances of the era.

Apparently a version exists somewhere that Rick Rubin produced, featuring "a stripped down arrangement, with guitar, bass, organ, and Joey Waronker on drums" (thanks SPFC).  Now that would sound great! I could see why it wouldn't have fit on Adore, but couldn't they have just released it as a stand alone single?  Why don't more people do that these days?

The band has recently started to bring the song into the setlist, but (based on one version I heard of it, maybe the first night was better) the song still seems a little bland, and sounds like it's the 'one more than we needed' of songs the New Pumpkins play that's based on jangly-delay-guitars-and-maybe-organ.

So the jury's still out on this one, I guess.  In some alternate dimension, would the Pumpkins have retained their popularity (or found a new one) if they'd released this song back in '98? sliderssssss.