Smashing Pumpkins ~ Disarm
Another mix tape by a different young man.
I was going to focus this time. I was going to focus on one person that this entry's songs remind me of.
Then of course my little brain ticked a few times back in time and I remembered other links... other times... other people.
Oh so confusing.
But I'm going to try to stick to the original intention without actually giving anything away. A quick shout out to all my homies in Mrs Edwards' English Class in 1997 and the time we all did our best Corgan impersonation, and to the entire 7th form of Tawa College for that great questionnaire we all filled out asking us how we'd feel if we lost an arm... and we all had the same dumb answer...
I didn't live in a hole (really Tawa being a valley is more like a ditch). I did know full well who the Smashing Pumpkins were at high school. Infact I remember clearly the time in 96 they were due to play here and pulled out at the last minute because someone's mother or father died. They were my best friend's favourite band. I also had a good friend in my final year who called herself Charlotte Corgan. They were a big band. I just wasn't a particularly devout fan. Er... at all.
After I finished school I met a boy. He loved the same kind of music as me, mainly... but he also loved all this old music that I never listened to. He too made me a tape. I wanted to be a hippie after listening to that tape. My friend and I used to listen to Hendrix and dance around in the dark on my parents balconey. All because of that tape.
You know how it goes. You're smitten with someone so you take the music they offer and love it because it's them. Well I can thank him for shaping my musical tastes a lot, as he encouraged me to step back from the 90s and move back back back in time to appreciate the finery of the 60 and 70s.
This one tape he made me in particular sticks out. I used to put it on late at night and lie in my bed and feel warm and snuggly and close to him, even though he wasn't actually there. Even long after we lost contact the music made me feel like he was there. Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, The Who...
But in the middle of all this was a smattering of his favourite... modern(er) stuff including a couple of Pumpkins song, one of which being Disarm.
I very occasionally see him around Wellington. I used to see him every so often at Uni and not because I'm stuck up, but because I'm socially retarded... I used to pretend like I hadn't seen him and then kick myself for a solid week afterwards. Funny because I thought he was the most beautiful boy in existance...
...disarm you with a smile...
(AND HOW!)
More enduring than the Pumpkins was the inclusion of Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd ~ Comfortably Numb
See, the thing is... sometimes I need a push in the right direction. I don't know how long it would have taken me to actually seek out Pink Floyd and appreciate them for being the pioneers of rock that they are. Of course I will always be grateful to him for pushing me into the rubber paddling pool of miraculously atmospheric epic rock.
The strongest feeling I get when I hear Comfortably Numb isn't linked to the movie and it isn't linked to the story of the Wall. It isn't even linked to him anymore. What I feel most is my soft bed and the soles of my feet against my bedroom wall. I used to lie there with my feet against it above my bed and listen to the song on repeat. And I felt relaxed and blissful and like THAT is how music is supposed to be listened to! I have made attempts to recreate that feeling but without really feeling like I'm home anywhere right now it's a lost cause.
Perhaps I just need to find a new place to hang upside down, close my eyes and hypnotically nod my head in time to the music.
But Disarm (which I didn't even own on CD until 2003 when Kam encouraged me to buy it.. thankfully because I love it) and Comfortably Numb in one way or the other will always remind me of the scruffy little (well not really little...) brown eyed Liam Finn look-alike who apparently named his puppy after me, decorated his rez room with my lame ass drawings and once juggled for my amusement.