Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 (1996)

The second single from their third studio album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, '1979' was written by Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan. The track was just a couple of chord changes and a snippet of a melody without words. When the time came to choose the songs that were to appear on the album, their producer deemed it not good enough and wanted to drop it from the record. This inspired Billy to finish it in four hours and the next day they decided immediately to put it on, which Billy considering it the most personally important song. Ironially it is the highest charting single of the Smashing Pumpkins to date.
'1979' features a sample of Billy's voice repeated throughout. During recording, Corgan was singing 'ooh' as the melody line. The samples were electronically manipulated and looped against the drum beat.

Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 (1996)
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The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 by EMI_Music

Lyrics:

Shakedown 1979, cool kids never have the time
On a live wire right up off the street
You and I should meet
Junebug 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
And we don't know
Just where our bones will rest
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 slipping 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 the 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