The Smashing Pumpkins: Muzzle (1995)

Let's start off with a song that has some of my favorite lyrics ever. As an angsty 13-year-old, I sat in front of my computer, listening to this and chatting with girls who I would never talk to face to face or even meet. I couldn't help but feel a complete connection to these words right from the first lines: "I fear that I am ordinary/just like everyone". It sums up so much in such little space. Everyone is out there trying to make a name for themselves, trying to be a unique person, trying to accomplish something. But one of our biggest fears is that we won't be able to do it-- how can we come to terms with that possibility?



Muzzle

I fear that I am ordinary,
just like everyone
to lie here and die among the sorrows
adrift among the days
for everything I ever said
and everything i've ever done is gone and dead

as all things must surely have to end
and great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world

my life has been extraordinary
blessed and cursed and won
time heals but I'm forever broken
by and by the way...

have you ever heard the words
I'm singing in these songs?
It's for the girl I've loved all along
can a taste of love be so wrong?

as all things must surely have to end
and great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world

and in my mind as I was floating
far above the clouds
some children laughed I'd fall for certain
for thinking that I'd live forever

but I knew exactly where I was
and I knew the meaning of it all
and I knew the distance to the sun
and I knew the echo that is love
and I knew the secrets in your spires
and I knew the emptiness of youth
and I knew the solitude of heart
and I knew the murmurs of the soul

and the world is drawn into your hands
and the world is etched upon your heart
and the world so hard to understand
is the world you can't live without

and I knew the silence of the world
-----------------

It's great, right? Well, I think it's great.

The chorus is one of the most interesting bits here. "all things must surely have to end/and great loves will one day have to part." Essentially that everything in the world, even the best things, will cease to be eventually. A downer, to be sure. But the last line, "I know that I am meant for this world", piques my curiosity, although its meaning may not become entirely clear until the song's end. I'll come back to it later on.

Lyricist and lead singer Billy Corgan has said that this song was written partially as a preemptive attack on critics who, hearing The Smashing Pumpkins' grandiose double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, were "going to tell [him] to shut up." That in mind, there has to be a sense of playfulness when he asks "have you ever heard the words I'm singing in these songs?/It's for the girl I've loved all along". It's easy for a critic or a casual listener or an angsty 13-year-old to classify a lot of Corgan's work as either love songs or songs lamenting its loss, but that would be underselling his ability to comment on life in general.

Similarly, it's easy to dismiss other lines as Corgan mouthing off to the critics who would peg him as arrogant or as a know-it-all. Certainly that's what he's doing when he sings that "children laughed [he'd] fall for certain/for thinking [he'd] live forever". But with the eight line interlude beginning with "I knew..." there seems to be something else at play. For starters, the things described here range from the vague ("the meaning of it all") to the specific, scientific ("the distance to the sun"); the emotional ups ("the echo that is love") to the emotional downs ("the solitude of heart"). It seems to me, here, that these eight lines are Corgan's interpretation of everything about life; these are things that he was unable to even remotely comprehend before, but he is slowly beginning to understand. In this way, "Muzzle" plays as a coming-of-age story.

Which leads us into the pivotal moment of the song. "And the world is drawn into your hands/and the world is etched upon your heart/and the world so hard to understand/is the world you can't live without". Stated simply: The world we live in can often really suck, but it's part of us and it's all we have. This doubles for the meaning of the last verse of the chorus that I said I'd get back to: "I know that I am meant for this world."

What makes this interesting is that you would think it would be the other way around; either a dreamy desire for some other world, some place where things are perfect, or a total rejection of the world and a desire to escape it. But that's not what's here. He knows that he is "meant for this world," which is thoroughly "etched upon his heart".

The message becomes to strike out, soldier on, make a name for yourself, become unique, come to terms with life. Do it all in spite of "the silence of the world" and you've accomplished something.

That just about does it for me as far as the lyrics go, although there is, of course, room to delve deeper and for other interpretations. Some people seem to think that the entire song revolves around a man who has committed suicide and is looking back on his life, but given what we've analyzed, I really think that Corgan would view that as a cowardly alternative. I choose to believe it's the slightly more positive notions I've espoused here.

Future posts may or may not get into the actual music behind the words, depending on how much it is warranted. But a couple things of note here as we wrap up:

First, the drumming here is ridiculously good and infuses the song with an incredible energy. Listen to the drum fills after the second line of each verse and tell me that this song isn't going places. Second, Muzzle features a Smashing Pumpkins trademark of the music going from loud to soft to loud again. The instruments cut off right with "for thinking I'd live forever" and it is a slow build back to brilliant euphony from "I knew the meaning of it all" through to the end of the song.