"1979" reached number two in Canada and Iceland, number six in Ireland, number nine in New Zealand, and number 12 in the United States. It charted within the top 20 in several other countries, including Australia and the United Kingdom. The song was nominated for the Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 39th Annual Grammy Awards, and won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video. In 2012, it was voted the second-best Smashing Pumpkins song by Rolling Stone readers.
1979" is the Smashing Pumpkins' highest-charting single, reaching number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Mainstream Rock Tracks and on the Modern Rock Tracks charts. Virgin credited the inclusion of the single's bonus tracks for driving sales. The song was nominated for the Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal at the 1997 Grammy Awards. Pitchfork Media included the song at number 21 on their Top 200 Tracks of the 90s and said "'1979' was Billy Corgan asking, 'You know this feeling?' and the second you heard that guitar line the immediate answer was, 'I do-- tell me more.'"
In a 1996 Spin interview, Corgan indicated that "1979" was probably the only indication he had for what the next Pumpkins album would sound like, "something that combines technology, and a rock sensibility, and pop, and whatever, and hopefully clicks. Between 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' and '1979' you have the bookends of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. You've literally [heard] the end of the rock thing, and the beginning of the new thing".
In Australia, the song was voted number 13 on Triple J Hottest 100 in 1996. It was later voted number 71 on the Hottest 100 of All Time in 1998, number 35 on the Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time in 2009, and number 21 on the Hottest 100 of the Past 20 Years in 2013.
The music video for "1979" was directed by the team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who had previously directed the music video for "Rocket". Originally, the band approached another director (possibly Spike Jonze) to film the video for "1979". His idea was that all the band members were residents in an alien hotel and they were all going to have specially made alien-elephant masks. This video would have cost over a million dollars.
The video follows a day in the life of disaffected suburban teenagers driving around in a 1972 Dodge Charger. It is based on a concept Corgan created, featuring an idealized version of teenage life, while also trying to capture the feeling of being bored in the Chicago suburbs, where Corgan grew up. In the video the Dodge Charger has Illinois license plates, although in the driving scenes the mountains of California are visible in the background shots. Originally, Corgan wanted a scene of violence, in which the convenience store was trashed by the teens at the end of the video, but Dayton and Faris convinced him to go for something tamer. Aside from Corgan appearing throughout the video in the backseat of a car, the other band members had small parts in the video; James Iha appears as a convenience store clerk, D'arcy Wretzky as an irate neighbor, Jimmy Chamberlin as a policeman, and all three of them appear together as the band in the party scene. Band manager "Gooch" plays Jimmy's partner.
Upon finishing the video shoot, the band flew to New York to perform. However, all tapes of the footage were accidentally left sitting on top of a car, and were lost as the driver departed. The group later flew back to re-shoot the party scene.
The "1979" video was highly acclaimed. It won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video in 1996. It was one of Canadian cable television music channel MuchMusic's Countdown number-one videos of 1996. Billy Corgan considers it the Pumpkins' best video, calling it "the closest we've ever come to realizing everything we wanted."
The video for the 1998 song "Perfect" is a sequel to this one, and involves the same characters who are now older. The aforementioned incident with the loss of the original footage is parodied in one of the later video's final scenes, in which a cassette tape is left on top of a car and falls off as a character drives out of a parking lot at high speed, and is subsequently destroyed by another vehicle.
1979
The Smashing Pumpkins Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meet
June bug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we'd never see an end to it all
And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
Double cross the vacant and the bored
They're not sure just what we have in store
Morphine city slippin' dues, down to see
That we don't even care, as restless as we are
We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts
And poured cement, lamented and assured
To the lights and towns below
Faster than the speed of sound
Faster than we thought we'd go, beneath the sound of hope
Justine never knew the rules
Hung down with the freaks and ghouls
No apologies ever need be made
I know you better than you fake it, to see
That we don't even care to shake these zipper blues
And we don't know just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
The street heats the urgency of now
As you see there's no one around
"1979" is a song by The Smashing Pumpkins, released in 1996. The track is an ode to the aimless boredom of suburban youth, a love letter to the innocent confusion that comes with being a teenager or young adult in modern America. The first verse of the song, "Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time On a live wire right up off the street You and I should meet," describes a sense of restlessness and boredom felt by many young people who grow up in the suburbs. The "cool kids" are too busy being cool to care about anything else, while the rest of the youth are left unsatisfied with a lack of meaning and direction.
Later in the song, the lyrics "And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues And we don't know just where our bones will rest," articulate a sense of aimless wandering that is emblematic of youthful ennui. The song paints a picture of life in the suburbs as an empty, unfulfilling experience for many, a world of picket fences, dead-end jobs, and small town tedium.
Overall, "1979" is an important cultural artifact of the 1990s, a time when many young people were feeling adrift and unanchored. The lyrics of the song beautifully capture the sentiment of youth in a time of social, economic, and cultural upheaval.
Line by Line Meaning
Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time
The year is 1979 and the cool kids don't have time for anything.
On a live wire right up off the street
We are living life on the edge like a live wire just above the street.
You and I should meet
We should get together.
June bug skipping like a stone
We are carefree and skipping around like a beetle skipping across water.
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We are driving towards the rising sun in the early morning.
We were sure we'd never see an end to it all
We thought we would never reach the end of our journey.
And I don't even care to shake these zipper blues
I don't care about my problems and worries.
And we don't know just where our bones will rest
We don't know where we will end up after we die.
To dust I guess
We will turn to dust when we die.
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth below
We will be forgotten and become part of the earth after we die.
Double cross the vacant and the bored
We are deceiving those who are unoccupied and uninterested.
They're not sure just what we have in store
They are uncertain about our plans.
Morphine city slippin' dues, down to see
We are in a city that is drugged up and we are going down to check things out.
That we don't even care, as restless as we are
We are so restless that we don't even care about anything.
We feel the pull in the land of a thousand guilts
We can sense the influence of guilt in the world around us.
And poured cement, lamented and assured
We are stuck and saddened, but we know this is how it is.
To the lights and towns below
We are going down to the cities and towns below us.
Faster than the speed of sound
We are moving so fast that it's faster than the speed of sound.
Faster than we thought we'd go, beneath the sound of hope
We are moving faster than we could have ever imagined and it's below the sound of hope.
Justine never knew the rules
Justine was not one to follow the rules.
Hung down with the freaks and ghouls
Justine would hang out with the strange and unusual people.
No apologies ever need be made
There is no need for apologies to be made for being oneself.
I know you better than you fake it, to see
I know the real you better than the fake version of you that you present to others.
The street heats the urgency of now
The street makes us feel the sense of urgency in the present moment.
As you see there's no one around
As you look around, you see that there is no one else here with us.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: William Patrick Corgan
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@trcsonic
One of the best songs ever made.
@AkaHexx
idk what it is but the subtle vocals in the background at the start are just perfect.
@carefulicarus7393
What subtle vocals?
@ronakinwonderland
1979, what a memorable year
@1ceblock
It sounds like he's singing silently but very intensely at the beat drop ,weird but in a good way
@octothorpedrakonidae5317
I was lucky enough to meet Billy at ComicCon once. He was gracious. :-)
@Outdoradventureswithkev11
The “Hey!” during the instrumental bits itches my brain somehow
@carefulicarus7393
What the hell are you talking about? There's no such thing
@Kestrel096
exactly, i've noticed that too
@MilkyLore
@@carefulicarus7393That vocal right at the start of the instrumental