Jets Under Fire

Say (EP1)

So much to say, in so many ways
So little time, for so many days
Feeling undone
Feeling like you’re just half awake

Have you lost it son?
Have you lost the Holy Ghost?
Are you speaking in tongues?
With no one to tell you so

The words fall like rain
But the words don’t
The words never

Say
The words never say anything
They don’t change
The words never change anything for me

You dig and you try
But you’re only moving ground
Ask yourself why
But answers remain unfound

You don’t talk when you speak
Because the words don’t
The words never

Say
The words never say anything
They don’t change
The words never change anything for me

Me and the voices in my head
Telling me things to do instead
Closing my eyes, yet unable to rest

The weight of the world
The weight of a million souls
Pressing upon
The fear that you’ll lose your own

You draw from the well
But the words don’t
The words never say

Say
The words never say anything
They don’t change
The words never change anything for me

Adore – Track 2 – Ava Adore

Like most people, I associate music with periods of my life and memories.  I usually have very vivid moments that I remember with music, nearly all of them in the car.   I don’t know why, but everytime I hear Ava Adore, I get a vision of pulling out of my friends driveway in my old 1970 Impala.  I believe it’s engrained in my memory, because this was the first time I heard Ava Adore.  I have similar memories of 1979, Cherub Rock, The Everlasting Gaze, and The Aeroplane Flies High.  Apparently I listened to a lot of Smashing Pumpkins while driving in the car.

Ava Adore was the first single from the album Adore.  I assume the label felt it was most suitable because it was basically the hardest song on the album, although it’s really just a mid-tempo song.  Not very hard at all when compared to other SP songs like An Ode to No One, X.Y.U., Lucky 13, or a long list of others.

I remember being confused more than anything when I heard this song.  I enjoy it, like most Corgan material, but something about it just seems different.  It doesn’t seem like a Smashing Pumpkins song.  There is very little guitar, and when the guitar appears it features a much different guitar tone than anything that had been on previous Pumpkins albums.  It also features one of the few guitar solos on the album, a quick  12 second interlude before going back into a chorus.

Up to this point you probably think I could care less for this song, but actually I’m amazed by it.  It’s probably the only song by The Smashing Pumpkins that seems new to me everytime I hear it.  Probably because I just don’t understand it.  It’s like it always heads in one ear, and just drifts through the other, out of my head and into space.

The song feels out of place on the album to me.  Maybe Billy would agree.  I’m sure he was being pressured on the business end to churn out something aggressive, and this was probably what he came up with.

When the Pumpkins performed the song live, they injected it with steroids, adding more guitars, and sometimes extending the guitar solo.  I would post it on here, but unfortunately Darcy liked to wear a see-through shirt during a lot of this tour, so I’ll spare you the surprise.

Listen to “Ava Adore”