Farewell & Goodnight

The art for Mellon Collie is done up like something intended for children (of some past the world never really had), and while some songs on it have a decidedly "children" vibe, Farewell & Goodnight is a downright lullaby.

It's an incredibly beautiful one, too, and contains wonderful singing from every member of the band, which could be such a hokey idea, but it's done with great effect here.

It's small and quiet, but still has it's grip on you.  At the end, it fades into a piano coda, tying the album up with a musical nod to the first track.  It's little bits like that that you really don't see much of these days, especially in this anti-album era.  On a big double album like Mellon Collie, there needs to be cohesion, otherwise the whole thing is too jumbled and rambling.  The piano at the end of Farewell & Goodnight is the perfect thing to package it all up with string.  

It's also the only fade out I'll ever tolerate, because it isn't truly a fade out.  It's only getting quieter because you're falling asleep.

Tales Of A Scorched Earth

Let's start this one with a bang: this is the Pumpkins' heaviest, hardest, and angriest song.

Bam! I'm tempted to leave it at that, but I'm not going to (duh!) You can tell right from the offset that this is going to be an ear-splitter, it cuts in with that tape-start kind of sounds, a hint of feedback, then right in to an really low and heavy riff.

Then Billy gets going.  The lyrics are eq'd up to the highest frequencies, giving an even sharper edge to ridiculous lines like "cause you're all whores, and i'm a fag, and i've got no mother, and i've got no dad."  I mean, damn.

I guess, having said that the song is the heaviest, I'm having trouble writing about it now.  I guess because it's so biting and heavy on all outer levels that it's pretty redundant to note that it's heavy.  It would be interesting to try to make a point about the song's pretty parts, peeling the downer-onion-skins to reveal a kind-hearted gem.  But just like the vocals are stripped of their low-end, I don't think there's much more to this song than the bite.

That said, there are two tiny parts that contain glimmers.  It's implied that Billy has had hope or even has hope, just that everything has worked so hard against him that they don't even matter to him anymore.  Also, at one time, Billy tried to be more than what he is, but was equally stepped on.  The Earth is Hope, and it is Scorched? Sure.

Songs like this benefit from the almost playful tone the Mellon Collie cover art has.  The typeface that spells out "tales of a scorched earth" is so jovial that you don't even notice what the song is called, much less expect something so violent.

Love

I think I've actually managed to not write about anything on Mellon Collie yet! This is ridiculous. I will now remedy this.

Remedy it with Love!

Anyways, Love sounds filthy.  Like, really really filthy.  But it sounds like filth from the future.  Techno-psycho-future-rock.  That's what Love is.

And I think that's what Billy is trying to say Love is, too.  He's singing in a way that could almost sound bored, but he manages to pack a huge bite in there, too. As for the lyrics, they're pretty cryptic and unspecific, but there are some great little moments throughout the song, including the killer couplet of "she shimmy shakes / the jimmy jakes of consequence."  I don't know what a jimmy jake is, but shimmy shakes is downright sexy. But gross-sexy.  Filthy, like the song.  

The lyrics also have a sort of mocking tone towards drippy love-letter-style writing (which makes it downright hilarious to have Cupid De Locke be the next song), especially lines like "born of the airs and dues," things like that, but then Billy reels it back to the mud with "my airs of madness do declare, that it's okay, it's love."

In the second half of the song, things get really interesting, with the build up to the solo, then the solo itself, which I swear to God was beamed down from Mars, then after the solo there's another build-up to the final chorus, which has one little chord change to keep everything interesting (successfully).  Then everything swirls down into oblivion, before sputtering out one last mudsoaked breath.

Now that's love.