| The Everlasting Gaze | ||
| Band's Comments | Lyrics | |
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ATN: This album opens with the line "You know I'm not dead." That seems like sort of a bold statement coming from you, don't you think? A bit loaded? Billy: [laughter] The irony wasn't lost on us, but it was nothing that was intentional. ATN: It's one of those classic Pumpkins rock tunes, a return to that hard sound. Was it meant to signify some kind of resurgence? Billy: The cerebral part of it kicks in when the album's done, but when we're doing it we don't really think in those terms. We insulate ourselves, we don't really have a posse of friends, so we get in our hermetically sealed world. In a metaphysical sense, having "I'm not dead" — it has a great irony to us as the first line. We chose that song first because it just seemed to kick the door open, and for us — every album that we've done with [drummer] Jimmy [Chamberlin], it's always been trying to top ourselves. Not just in terms of a rock dynamic, but in terms of finding something new, because we're such fucking over-the-top music fans that we can't — it's so postmodern — we can't escape our own influence ... I don't mean influence, but awareness of influence. So if it doesn't have anything new, we get, like, 'This sucks.' It had more to do with the riff. The riff says "I'm not dead" more than me saying it. ATN: You can imagine that people are going to read into it... Billy: That's become like a game now, at this point. ATN: What about this line, "The fickle fascination of an everlasting god" from that song? What have you seen in your life over these past few years that led you to write a line like that? It has this feeling of divine randomness. Billy: I'm speaking more to human nature. I use my life as a paradigm by which to stream information, but ultimately it's inconsequential. Oftentimes I assume — I wouldn't go so far [as how David] Bowie says he'll take on a character — but I assume an emotion that is not something you could hold onto for a week, but you could hold onto for an hour. ATN: Or three minutes. Billy: Yes. A lot of people question the line in the song "Zero" from Mellon Collie, about, "God is empty, just like me." People were like, 'Are you that deep in despair?' And all the religious 16-year-olds, their bibles came at me for like a year. I had lots of good religious discussions. [laughter] If you're exploring emotion, you have to explore all permutations of it. That kind of feeling is not something I hold 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but it does pass through me. And I feel it. It's easy to sit here and cerebrally deconstruct, but that stuff just comes out of my cracked head. I don't believe in randomness. I don't know if you've read any of the studies that have been coming out lately, but you cannot mathematically prove randomness. I believe in divine order. ATN Interview, Gil Kaufman, 2000 |
Written by Billy Corgan
You know I'm not dead
You know I'm not dead
On the ways of your desire
You know I'm not dead
begging to
You know I'm not dead I'm just the tears inside your head
On the ways of your desire you know i'm not dead
we all want to hold in the everlasting gaze
You know i'm not dead
You know I'm not dead You know I'm not dead | |
| Official Releases | Listen To This Song | |
| MACHINA/The Machines of God |