The 1960s masterpiece Billy Corgan calls his favourite song of all time: “My sweet spot”
“Eight years old, I put on the Black Sabbath record, and my life is forever changed. It sounded so heavy. It rattled the bones. I wanted that feeling,” Billy Corgan once said.
To all intents and purposes, given his allegiance to Black Sabbath and the influence which heavy metal had on his earliest sonic visions, you would imagine Corgan’s collection of favourite songs would almost glean exclusively from that early 1970s time period. While that’s true in some respects, it’s the mark of a true musician that he knew the world expanded to so much more.
Indeed, that idea of never-ending horizons and a sonic universe full of possibilities is perhaps the most pertinent thing which shaped Corgan’s musical education in its most formative state – but then again, it did that to everyone when it was The Beatles. Back in 1967, the Smashing Pumpkins frontman was only just born, and the Fab Four were at the height of their swirling greatness.
Maybe this coincidence of factors is what made The Beatles’ back catalogue from this specific year all the more appealing to Corgan, but it was the masterpiece of ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ in particular that took the crown of being his favourite song of all time. It was a straightforward choice to make because, in his mind, it was the pinnacle of everything music should be.
“If you told me to pick one song, just one song, I would pick ‘Strawberry Fields’ by The Beatles, because to me, it’s the… ultimate pop song,” the frontman once admitted. “It’s innovative, and it satisfies this balance they can get sometimes, where it’s high art and high pop. I love pop, and I love high art, but there’s something about when you marry it – to me, that song is like my sweet spot.”
The presentation of this sugary elixir might seem at odds with the darkness, hedonism, and scandal with which Corgan has so often sought to associate himself. But in reality, it was the Fabs’ determination in pioneering a new sound and not stopping until they had achieved something truly original, which would have served as the most intoxicating idea to most.
Corgan is no different in this respect, despite how his own musical proclivities may have strayed somewhat from the muse in the years that followed. But this conflation of pop and art is undeniably the most interesting point to stick on – because although The Beatles may have considered themselves artists in the purely sonic sense, their portraiture and flair for colour symbolised so much more.
When it boils down to it, that’s the true high which every musician is constantly in pursuit of chasing. It’s something which, ultimately, so few manage to actually capture, but by some virtue of greatness, The Beatles had flowing from them in abundance. That has the power to make certain people jealous, but it was more so the case that the masses could only stand in awe.
The Smashing Pumpkins continue to live out their tenure based on very different values, sounds, and views of the world, yet at the end of the day, when all the noise is stripped away, one thing remains that connects them and The Beatles forever: their childhood memories swirl as reflections on their formative minds, and they will never let go.
