Bullet with Butterfly Wings
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| “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” | |||||
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| Single by The Smashing Pumpkins from the album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness |
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| Released | 1995 | ||||
| Format | CD and Cassette | ||||
| Recorded | 1995 | ||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | ||||
| Length | 4:16 | ||||
| Label | Virgin Records | ||||
| Writer(s) | Billy Corgan | ||||
| Producer | Flood, Alan Moulder and Billy Corgan | ||||
| The Smashing Pumpkins singles chronology | |||||
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| Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness track listing | |||||
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"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" is a song by The Smashing Pumpkins. It originally appeared on their 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, from which it was the lead single. The single would later be part of the box set The Aeroplane Flies High, and the song would appear on the greatest hits album Rotten Apples. The song won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. This song was the band's first Top 40 US hit, peaking at #22 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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[edit] Song
Corgan has stated that the line "but can you fake it / for just one more show" refers to the band's headlining slot on the 1994 Lollapalooza tour, where they supposedly became disillusioned with the idea of "alternative" rock.[citation needed] This interpretation is also supported by the fact that the first fully played incarnations of the song occurred at a few Lollapalooza shows, as well as on demos recorded early that year. A very embryonic version was apparently recorded during the recording of Siamese Dream; according to Corgan, "somewhere, I have a tape of us from 1993 endlessly playing the 'world is a vampire' part over and over." In fact, these lines quoted do not appear in the song until a demo from late 1994, although Corgan was more likely referring to that section of the song rather than the lyrics themselves. It was not until 1995 that Corgan finished writing the "rat in a cage" chorus section of the song[1].
[edit] Live performance
"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" like "Disarm", "Stand Inside Your Love" and "Today" metamorphosed dramatically during and after every tour. "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" in particular, verified by Corgan himself, comes in five different versions.
During the tour in support of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the band performed the song with an audio clip intro which stuttered the line, "The world, world, world, world, world..." - at which Corgan would shout the opening line, initiating a quick tempo version of the song. Later, the band would drop the intro, starting off the song with a drum beat, a style reminiscent of the variation adopted for the "Sacred & Profane" tour. A third and fourth version showed dramatic variations of the song, both of which were adopted for the Adore tour. The former was an extended and extremely distorted electric version, including several other instruments outside of the ones used for the studio track, such as a 7-string Ibanez electric guitar and a bunch of percussion drums - this version would crash and burn with Corgan screaming at the top of his lungs, "Despite all my rage, I'm still just a rat in a cage". The latter was a nine minute or longer jazz version of the song. During the "Sacred & Profane" tour, the fifth variation of "Bullet" started off with an extended bassline and drumbeat build-up into the main song. This version is similar to the newest versions the band has been using on its 2007 tour.
Also to be noted is that later renditions of "Bullet" used the C tuning of "The Everlasting Gaze" and "Heavy Metal Machine", making the song sound heavier. As a result, the chorus was so low in Billy's register it sounded almost spoken. They then preceded non-stop with a cover of "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads. Post-reformation renditions restore the original tuning.
[edit] Video
The music video for the song, directed by Samuel Bayer, is a performance video with heavy conceptual elements. The visual look of the video was inspired by documentaries about diamond mining, while, in contrast, the band used the video to debut their new glam rock wardrobes - notably, Billy Corgan's black shirt with the word "Zero" written in silver, and silver pants. The video also marks the last filmed appearance of Billy Corgan prior to his decision to shave his head.
[edit] Trivia
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Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- "Weird Al" Yankovic included the song in his polka medley "The Alternative Polka", from his 1996 album Bad Hair Day. It was also featured in the Cold Case episode entitled "Rampage", during the flashback sequence from 1995 where the two mall shooters featured in the episode are made fun of by jocks sitting at a table at the mall they work at. Also, the song was used in a television ad for "World Extreme Cagefighting" on the Versus television network.
- After the September 11, 2001 attacks, "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" was one of the songs put on Clear Channel's list of possibly inappropriate songs.
- The band Hawthorne Heights released a cover of the song on their MySpace page in 2007.
- During VH1's "Top 100 Hard Rock Artists" count-down, Dr. Dre described this song as "the perfect epitome of anger expressed in music."
- In BZW (Battle Zone Wrestling) Jamie Grunge uses "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" as the name of one of his signature moves and as of May 28th 2008, it is now his theme song.
- In a recent issue of [[Rolling Stone]], this song was charted as Number 70 on their list of 100 Greatest Guitar Songs.
[edit] Track listing
[edit] Single track listing
The following tracks appeared on the original single:
- "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" (Billy Corgan) - 4:16
- "...Said Sadly" (James Iha) - 3:09
[edit] The Aeroplane Flies High track listing
- "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" (Corgan) - 4:16
- "...Said Sadly" (Iha) - 3:09
- "You're All I've Got Tonight" (Ric Ocasek) - 3:10
- "Clones (We're All)" (David Carron) - 2:43
- "A Night Like This" (Robert Smith) - 3:36
- "Destination Unknown" (Dale Bozzio/Terry Bozzio/Warren Cuccurullo) - 4:14
- "Dreaming" (Debbie Harry/Chris Stein) - 5:11
"...Said Sadly" features Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt on vocals. "You're All I've Got Tonight" is a cover of a song by The Cars; "Clones (We're All)" is an Alice Cooper cover; "A Night Like This" is a Cure cover; "Destination Unknown" is a Missing Persons cover; and "Dreaming" is a Blondie cover. All songs feature Corgan on lead vocals, except "...Said Sadly" and "A Night Like This", featuring Iha, and "Dreaming" which features D'arcy's voice.
[edit] Samples
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"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - Problems playing the files? See media help.
[edit] External links
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Corgan, Billy. "King B's", Guitar World, January 1997.
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