Performer: Smashing Pumpkins
Songwriter: Billy Corgan
Original Release: Siamese Dream
Year: 1993
Definitive Version: None
When I made tapes to listen
to when working out, I always did so with a clear song order in mind. At the
end of a workout, I’d finish with a cool-down walk on the tiny indoor track at
my gym in Flint. This song is a little summer breeze after the stormy wailings of
Silverfish on Siamese Dream, so I always liked it as a calming wrap-up song
after pushing it hard.
And I was pushing it hard when
this album came out. As I mentioned, I had a clear workout goal after the
softball season of 1992—changing my swing to hit more home runs—and that gave
me a source of motivation. So I spent a lot of time in the gym with weight
exercises that targeted certain muscle groups, in the cages as long as they
were open around the five-month winter snowfall and in front of a mirror,
taking swings and trying to get the muscle memory built up as fast I could.
Pro baseball players can
change their swing in one off-season, because that’s their job. They can spend
40 hours a week taking swings and building reps. A newspaperman who plays coed
softball? Not so much. As much time as you think you’re putting into something isn’t
enough if you’re talking only 6 hours a week or so. The bottom line was I
wasn’t doing the right things to generate the change I wanted in the timeframe
that I gave myself.
But it did bring about change:
I was suddenly a lot more serious about my softball than I had been before. Not
so much where I felt like I had to win all the time but that I needed to see
others at least make an effort, and I wasn’t seeing that. There’s a difference
between playing to win and playing like you give a damn, and there was a lot of
not giving a damn in the third season of the Journal coed team. I didn’t like
it, yet there was nothing I could do about it.
Consequently, going to the
diamond that season became a chore. Whereas I have vivid memories of the first
two seasons, good and bad—and particularly during the first season, which I
will relate later—I literally remember nothing about the third season. I have a
general sense that our record was poor and that I didn’t play all that well,
but under interrogation I couldn’t produce any details. I couldn’t tell you
about a single moment of any game. Nothing stood out.
It was time to do something
different.
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