52. Bullet with Butterfly Wings by The Smashing Pumpkins

"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by The Smashing Pumpkins

Written by Billy Corgan
Produced by Alan Moulder, Billy Corgan, Flood
Released on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (October 23, 1995)
Released as a single October 24, 1995
Peaked at #22 on Billboard Hot 100
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The first few times I shared an office with someone, I was young enough to think that my officemates wouldn't mind if I sometimes played music without headphones. They in fact did mind, and made that fact known. At one point, when I had something by The Smashing Pumpkins on, one of my colleagues asked me very seriously, "Why do you listen to such terrible music?" I didn't really know how to respond. I wanted to say that my music wasn't terrible, but part of me knew that it was going to be incredibly hard to justify why The Smashing Pumpkins weren't terrible, and why it might be appropriate to play in the office. So, I just played something else, or turned off the music. The next day, instead of not listening to music, I played the Garden State soundtrack. My officemate expressed genuine shock because now I was playing something that was actually pleasant, and in their opinion good. I'm not sure they ever fully rectified the fact that I could genuinely enjoy both The Smashing Pumpkins and The Shins.

The Smashing Pumpkins represent a lot about what I love about music. Music for me isn't always about beauty and perfection. I like beautiful music, but the music I love isn't always beautiful. The Smashing Pumpkins' music inspires me because they, and specifically Billy Corgan, had vision.

Billy Corgan's vision involved writing introspective lyrics and sad melodies, and then recording layer upon layer upon layer of guitars. His sound has been referred to as a "wall of guitar" sound (paying homage to Phil Specter's "Wall of Sound" production method). I love guitars. It has been reported that at least one of their songs had over 100 guitar parts layered into its final recording. Billy Corgan is clearly a gifted musician, songwriter, and guitar player, but it was his vision and the sound he created that really connected with me.

I didn't always think of The Smashing Pumpkins as a band I liked. When they were at their creative and commercial peak in the mid-1990's, I might have actually said that I didn't like them. Their biggest song, at the time, was "Tonight, Tonight." It had a pretty cool music video, and is a good song, but I didn't like it then because instead of layered guitars, it featured orchestral strings. Orchestral strings were certainly not my jam. As the years went by, I found myself drawn to their music because I was able to ignore songs like "Tonight, Tonight" and spend more time listening to the more guitar-heavy songs from their catalogue like "Bullet With Butterfly Wings," "Cherub Rock," and "Siva." When I actually saw them in concert a couple of years ago, "Tonight, Tonight" might have been their best performance of the night for me because they didn't have an orchestra with them. Instead they played it on their guitars. It was really cool.

One big question that remains is: Would The Smashing Pumpkins be better if they had a good singer? I think that's the real reason that my officemate, all those years ago was so put off by them. Maybe you don't particularly like layered distorted guitars, but you could tolerate them if there was a pleasing voice to be heard above the noise and tumult. That's a trickier question to answer. There have been many successful musicians and bands who did not have a traditionally talented vocalist. I often find it fascinating to hear cover versions of Bob Dylan's songs done by exceptional vocalists. Those cover versions often help emphasize the beautiful melodies that his limited voice often only hinted at.

Had Billy Corgan given the singing duties over to someone else, his music may have been more pleasing to the ears of my officemate, but it also may have lost something. The imperfections in his voice sometimes gave the lyrics and feel of the music a different kind of power.

That's what makes all of this so difficult. Why is this my 52nd favorite song? How can I adequately explain the feeling I get when I hear it. Is it the imperfections that make the song more perfect? There's no real way to quantify how a song makes me feel or why it makes me feel that way. Maybe it's the minor key signature or the guitar harmonies or the angry lyrics or the quiet-verse/loud-chorus song structure. It might be all of those things or maybe none of them. Popular songs illustrate the power of synergy better than almost anything else. Each individual part of the composition and recording cannot be quantified until they are put together into one comprehensive, whole unit. Once fleshed out and complete, you have something that is so much greater than the sum of its individual parts, that it's hard to imagine how it was built in the first place. 

Music does that. It is inherently impossible to quantify why it works the way it does, especially because each individual song will illicit vastly different reactions from individual listeners. All I know is that sometimes music just works, and it doesn't always have to make sense. Billy Corgan and The Smashing Pumpkins aren't the most talented or the best, but I love their music. I love how they executed their vision. I love guitars and angst and anger and vision, and this song has all of those things. Put together, they make a fantastic song. If you agree with my former officemate's assessment of this song, I get it, but...

Right now "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" is (probably) my 52nd favorite song of all time.