“Here is No Why,” Disc One, Track Five.

Rock & Roll, so often, is the misremembering of what’s come before. As generations pass on their influences, an aural game of “telephone” ensues. A kid today listens to a band who listened to this band who themselves listened to that band who themselves were influenced by this band, who listened to The Beatles, who themselves listened to Elvis. But the band the kid today is listening to isn’t thinking of Elvis. He couldn’t care less about Elvis, though he’d be formless without The King.

Between the misrememberings also comes the response and recoils— The “alternative nation” was an offshoot of the grunge miasma, which was itself a response and recoil from the hair metal birds nest, which was a response and recoil from punk rock dystopia. But Punk Rock and Hair Metal were a response and misremembering of Glam Rock. 

Hair Metal took the sexuality and guitar riffing, and put those above things like ‘taste’ and ‘subtlety.’ Glam Rock, certainly, was full of wanton sex and brilliant riffs, but it was also about liberation and pose, rather than posture and libation. Punk Rock took the revolutionary force of Capital-C ‘Change” from Glam, threw the glitter under the bus, and blunted Glam’s Social Sashay into a pimpled sneer. Punk & Glam shared a desire for the headline: Bowie declaring himself as ‘gay’ in the music press, or Rotten declaring himself the Antichrist.

Glam & Punk where also just as important for their eye-opening Image as they were their songs. Grunge, though, while a musically very much tied to Glam & Punk, were consciously anti-Image (thought this anti-Image posturing led to a ubiquity of flannel anyways). “We’re not fabulous,” their clothes said. “We’re just some guys.” Uncool was the new Cool. 

Grunge’s child Alternative, though, re-embraced color and Image, reaching back to the ‘psychedelic 60s’ for inspiration. It was too soon to call it a resurgence of Glam Rock, though— Glam was still too tied to Hair Metal to even be considered ‘uncool-ly cool.’ But Alternative embraced the Uncool, the Slacker Chic, even more than Grunge did. Once Nirvana covered “The Man Who Sold The World,” (and once people realized Kurt didn’t write it), Glam was on the ascent.

Jane’s Addiction was an early purveyor— they were the earliest Alt-Dandies. Billy Corgan, though, wasn’t quite ready at first to go full-on Ziggy. He, like some, but certainly not like Perry Farrell, backed up his ‘uncool’ posture with actually feeling uncool— weird teeth, bad posture, thinning hair, and oh God that voice— he cast himself first as a psychedelic shredder, then as a Cosby-Sweatered alt-rock grandpa. Billy Corgan just wanted to melt away and let his music do the talking.

But behind Billy Corgan was a group of super-attractive people (yes, even Jimmy) that appealed to multiple demographics. It didn’t matter if ol’ Snaggletooth was up in front— surrounded by James and D’arcy, he became much cooler, much hipper, someone you’d want to look at. 

None of this, of course, should matter. And it doesn’t, not when you’re sitting down with headphones and taking in an album. But this is the MTV era we’re speaking of, when the Music Video was the ultimate statement, the perfect meld of artistic intention and commercial domination. And in the early 90s, Uncool was Cool. The disaffected youth had their champions. 

Billy Corgan realized this. He saw the excess around him— especially after the Pumpkins’ stint at Lollapalooza, and having, by 1994, already watched the majority of his peers be destroyed by their Alternative Hubris. Sure, he was probably worried that it’d happen to him. So he decided to make a double album. To re-define musical excess in a genre that derided ‘trying too hard.’

Mellon Collie is The Wall, misremembered and accepted (allowing Pink Floyd to be cool again), just as “Rock n’ Roll Suicide” is a deranged and misremembered Jacques Brel, appropriating the old chanteur hypercool.

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Billy Corgan’s goal for Mellon Collie was to mix Alt-Rock with a mix of Psychedelia and 1920s whimsy. The whimsy comes through in the album art, the psychedelia in the liner notes— cat weddings, rabbit baseball, and weeping suns, oh my! But then you get to the end of the booklet, and you find this:

Where did these people come from? Where are they? Are those real pants? What’s a Zero? What’s with that carrot? It’s a picture to hang on your wall, inside your locker. An image to get lost in.

Then, you catch the band on Saturday Night Live, and they play Zero. Billy Corgan’s got that same outfit— he had it in the video for “Bullet With Butterfly Wings,” too!— but he’s different now. He’s got a touch of eyeliner. He’s bald. He looks like nothing you’ve seen (though Kurt did love to slip on a dress from time to time). An unknowable force invading your TV screen. 

And just like that cool-as-cucumber dude in the Mellon Collie liner notes, this “Zero” we see is playing with us, playing to the camera, looking us in the eye. He waves his head around, pouts a little bit. He’s coy as hell, a little femme in his lanky Fester way— but he’s doing it under an ungodly metal sludge! And look to the side— James Iha is wearing a red catsuit! 

Look, I’m not saying the Pumpkins’ image choice for Mellon Collie was as bold and life-changing as Ziggy in ‘72. It wasn’t supposed to be. But the look of the band in 1995 was reaching, sistine-chapel-like, back to Bowie. 

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“Here is No Why” is the most Glam song on Mellon Collie’s first disc. It’s not only in the “glitter burn” of the lyrics, though that’s part of it, and we’ll get to them. But it’s in the playfulness of the main riff as well. There’s a shimmer to the distortion— it’s loud, sure, but it doesn’t sound sinister like “Jellybelly” or “Zero.”

“Here is No Why’s” verses pull a neat trick. They start obscure, in that it’s not really clear who they’re about. Who is this ‘death rock boy’? Is it Billy from long ago? (Yes, probably). While Mellon Collie was meant to be a message for the teenagers (and early twenty-somethings, who are often more teenaged than they think), it was also Billy Corgan ending a relationship with himself. He was stopping up the works. Siamese Dream is also an album that’s for the most part concerned with childhood. “Disarm,” “Spaceboy,” even “Mayonaise,” in it’s own vague way, all delve into Billy’s misspent youth. Billy could’ve probably mined that for ever and ever, and end up being a 90 year old man sitting alone in a tea shop he used to own singing songs about being abused as a 9 year old (here’s to hoping he still doesn’t).

But Billy was smart— he knew he couldn’t keep on doing that. So he planned a huge grandiose project to finally get those demons out. And, as it turns out, to have some fun while doing it. So “Here is No Why” begins with Billy looking at the gloomy Cure fan in his bedroom, bored as all get out, wishing himself far away. But he casts himself as infinitely relatable— who hasn’t sat alone, sitting through ‘the useless drags of another day?’ ”Here is No Why” pulls that classic switcheroo of hiding a universal song in a personal cowl. “Here” gets away with it because it’s so glittery— the cowl is glowing, begging you to look under it.

But the reason why “Here is No Why” is a secret classic (and very truly is) is that there’s a well-masked buildup in the lyrics. But in a song that starts with “the useless drags of another day” would seem like that buildup is negative— you can only go downhill from teenage boredom— but it’s not. “Here is No Why” is a song of slow-building positivity. It’s an uplifting song, under the hood. It shares more with Michael Stipe’s “pep talk” type of song (“Everybody Hurts” is an oddly apt mirror to “Here is No Why” in this regard— both seem depressing on first glace, but both are songs of hope). 

This up-the-hill-to-uplifting is echoed in the song’s structure. The first verse slides right into the chorus, with its “sad machines” and its “desperate and displeased with whoever you are.” It ends with “and you’re a star,” though. Is it sarcasm? Maybe. The next verse, though, is more unsure of the sad-boy narrative. It hangs on the A chord longer than the first verse, adding tension to a line that’s very, very goofy on paper: “somewhere, he pulls his hair down over a frowning smile.” But it’s a line that belies where we are in the song— we’re on the fence about being depressed. The hair-moment is an act of hiding— but why hide a smile (halfway frown or no), if you aren’t embarrassed?

As sad as so many teenagers affect themselves (and of course some of them are truly sad), it isn’t the kind of mindset you want to stay in. And so comes a separation from the 1st verse: a pre-chorus that’s pure hope, clothed in dark magicks— may the King of Gloom be forever doomed. It changes everything. The chorus, after this new introduction, is more triumphant now. We’re no longer “desperate and displeased,” we’re “lost inside the dreams of teen machines.”

And from the 2nd chorus, we enter this dream. Above swirling e-bows and feedback swells, we hear a letter to yourself, building from what was to what is:

the useless drags, the empty days

the lonely towers of long mistakes

to forgotten faces and faded loves

sitting still was never enough

We’ve been building and building the tension up to this point. That extra A chord, the first pre-chorus, the explosion into the bridge, the drums thudding louder and louder. And now we get the release: a solo that tries to burst out of its confines, bolstered by background harmonized guitar overdubs that egg it on, double it occasionally (2:44 is the first best example), and scale slowly up to a true explosion— back into the pre-chorus, which may be the most hopeful line Billy Corgan had ever written up to that point:

if you’re giving in, then you’re giving up

We go back to the chorus at that point, but it’s no longer sad. Yeah, sure, you’ll forever stay in your sad machines. But forever’s just a word. Don’t give in to your Teen Machines, and you’ll be alright. You’ll be okay.

—

“Here is No Why” is a remarkable example of a band at the top of their game. It’s a perfectly crafted number, every piece building on another, pulling you through the song, and never overstaying its welcome. It’s telling that this song is often overlooked in the Smashing Pumpkins’ canon— it means that a song this good was considered filler. At this point, they could write songs like this in their sleep. It’s placement in the album doesn’t do it any favors— it’s wedged between two huge singles, and it’s easy to want (if you’re that kind of person) to skip it to get to “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” 

But you’re doing the album a major disservice. Mellon Collie is a dense album, but I’d argue that the tracklisting of “Dawn to Dusk” is an expertly crafted thing. It flows with grace. Plus, you miss the storybook rock ending of “Here is No Why.” It’s such a pleasant sound— like the end of an album, even— what could follow it?

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Post-Script: “Here is No Why,” for quite a while, was my all-time favorite Pumpkins song. I couldn’t tell you what my favorite is now (“Starla?” “Stellar?” “Frail & Bedazzled?” “Pale Horse?”), but the fact that “Why” used to carry such a distinction made it very hard to talk about. I feel pretty nervous about what ended up pouring out, but it took some nerve to get it out there. In the end, though, it was the song’s unending believe in everyone who hears it that made me put it out there. After all, if I gave in and cut out the first half of this entry like I wanted to, then I’d’ve been giving up. 

Post Post Script: “Here is No Why” never made it past the Infinite Sadness tour (I don’t think it even made it all the way through the tour). It’s not too hard to see why— it didn’t translate perfectly from album to stage. Which isn’t to say they don’t play it well— they play it perfectly, a band on top of their game. But there’s just something weird about Billy screaming through the words. It removes the coy subtlety from the song that makes it really shine (that said, I can only imagine how much power shot through the room during the last chorus). It works, but in a different way. More guttural  more earthy. 

Still, it gets at a problem I have with Billy’s recent songs (which I do like, by the way). Since Zwan, he’s cut the whine from his voice, replaced the vinegar with honey. While that’s fine for a softer song like “Pale Horse,” or “Wildflower,” it’s tough on a song like “Doomsday Clock” or “G.L.O.W.” The latter song in particular is taken down a notch because it’s just too prettily sung. 

Billy Corgan’s vocals were magic back in the day because they were hideously beautiful. Now that they’re just ‘well-sung’ and ‘pretty,’ it takes the majesty away.

Post-post-script: “Here is No Why” started as “Just Between,” a slower, more sparkling version. This was played during a show by Starchildren, a ‘side-project’ consisting of Billy, James, and members of Catherine. You can hear the bootleg of this 1994 show here, but be prepared for huge amounts of silliness (and people say Billy Corgan has no sense of humor).