Memories | The Smashing Pumpkins

Cupid De Locke

Annie Freeman Jackfield, Shropshire, GB

I remember the lushness of a summer as a teenager whilst I was meant to be studying for exams. Listening to this album on repeat gave me so many ideas, I sacked off my work and made this video for Cupid De Locke. It blows my mind that a 17 year old version of me running around their garden with a camera and flowers in their hair has been seen around the world nearly three quarters of a million times and connects me with other SP fans. I’m honoured my face even comes up when you google the song!

Sp saved me

Wim Van Kelst Antwerp, BE

When l listened cinstantly to Mellon Collie, I was in my 2nd year of nurse studies, it was a tough year for me with a lot of techniques to learn and demands getting higher in our hospital practice. Your music kept me going and your concert @Flandersexpo was the highlight of that academic year.

What I still remember was Filter warming up, the set started with Tonight Tonight, the whole crowd going up and down during Bullet. Amazing light show and never ever saw such impressing drumwork as I saw tonight by Jimmy. I missed out your gig in Antwerp because I was afraid of losing my good memory but if you come back, I will be there. Love to you all, Billy, James and Jimmy from the bottom of my heart.

Ps the box “The aeroplain” is the only box I ever bought, love the artwork 💜

CD walkman

Stef Wolverhampton, Shropshire, GB

The day it came out I queued outside the recordshop to buy it. Double CD, I loved it instantly. A 90s grungy girl with short cropped hair and huge headphones excitedly got the CD Walkman out, but it was the 90s, so you had to hold the Walkman perfectly flat, the slightest jolt and the CD would stop. Every day on my journey to and from school, two jerky bus rides. It could take 20 minutes to get through a single song 😂

That album is perhaps the most played album of my teenaged years, but the strongest memory is that CD Walkman jerking to a stop

With my vinyl copy, October 2017

Beau Boudreaux Birmingham, AL, US

I first heard this album on a thursday night in late March or early April during my sophomore year in high school (weird the details we remember). When the title track gave way to the opening strains of ‘Tonight, Tonight’, I knew this was something big. Since then, SP has become one of the artists that I associate with that time of year; a time of rebirth, a time for discovering new things and exploring life’s possibilities.

Once a thief…

Víctor Merida Arica, CL

I was around 15 or 16 yo and had no money to spend on anything. So, when I saw that one of the guys I used to be around of, friend of a friend, had the album, I ask him if we could listen to it at his place. The guy lived alone almost, so we gathered around a pack of cigarettes and wine, laying on the carpet and my mind was blown.

So I decided it. It is to this day, the only time I’ve stolen something.

And it changed my life forever.

I won’t deny the change

Josh Groppel Nashville, TN, US

In early 2016, my then fiancé and I called off our wedding and went separate ways. This mentally and emotionally crushed me in so many ways and I fell back into music. MC&tIS was one of my most played albums that year, and Galapagos was so impactful in helping me move on. I got the words of growth tattooed to my ankle. “I won’t deny the change.”

Teenage Years

Shaunagh New Mills, Derbyshire, GB

My memories may seem boring compared to some, but smashing pumpkins are my total fave. In my teenage years I wasn’t exactly popular and had a lot going on, I may have been 19 years late but this album really helped me through all that and made me feel like I belonged. Love the merge of thrash and peaceful tracks. All I can say is thank you 🙏🏻

Mellon Collie saved my life

C IE

In the summer of 1995 I was subjected to child abuse that left lifelong scars. That October an album came out that showed me there was hope in the darkness and that I would survive. That it was not my fault these things happened and others have been where I was and persevered. MCIS will always be my favourite album period. It is a light in a dark year for me and has remained a constant in the 25 years since. It is impossible to express my feelings other than to thank WPC and the pumpkins for this masterpiece. Singular, Beautiful, timeless. From a lifelong fan

My Grandmother Hazel

Sarah Slancauskas Hereford, GB

Melan Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Track One) was played at my beautiful grandmother’s funeral. We wanted a song to begin her service, but couldn’t find one that fit. Then my brother, the one who introduced me to the band, suggested this song. We agreed straight away. It was such a beautiful piece of music, and she was as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe, and deserved a perfect end. We sobbed as the piano started. When I hear it now I remember her, not her funeral. Hazel. I do cry sometimes when the first keys sound, and other times I just sit quietly and contemplate life, death and the after. I think about her. It’s painful and tender. I love it. It’s very dear to me.

Winter Tunes

Ryan Park-Lopes Brantford, Ontario, CA

I used to do this long 2 hour drive from Hamilton to Barrie Ontario during the winter, and I would always pop in Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and blast it the whole way there. Now, whenever I listen to it, it reminds me of those melancholic (haha) winter drives, with the cold wind on my arms and snow on my windshield. Especially songs like Galapagos and Thru The Eyes of Ruby.

Pushy Sales Woman

Joe McCullagh Launceston, Tasmania , AU

In 1995 a friend of mine recommended buying the Siamese Dream CD, and I loved Disarm, so I did. The sales woman was pushy, and I ended up pre-ordering the deluxe edition of MCIS as well. I love that woman, she changed my life! 17 at the time, and just getting into alternative music, and this album was like a reflection of my soul.

Love of my life!

Paul Ramsey New Cumnock, East Ayrshire , GB

I was a young British Solider based in Canada. There I met an amazing woman called Margo! We would stay in her room talking to the early hours listening to MCIS album. At that time I didn’t realise I was sitting across from the woman who I would be married to for over 24 years and have 3 amazing children together. The power of the pumpkins 😍 x

May it hold you through the winter of a long night

Marcin Warsaw, PL

I remember buying Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on CD in early 2016. I was nearly 18 at the time and little did I know, this album was everything I needed at that time. The feeling of some kind of an inevitable closure of youth and beginning my adult life, was terrifing. Add to that the loneliness and (then) untreated depression and you’ll get the idea. So when I first heard the music that was the ulltimate mix of those feelings, I couldn’t help, but fall in love. All this instrumental rage, passion, yearning and unnamed nostalgia was all I wanted from art. And the lyrics completed that. I was “in love with my sadness”, “burning up in speed in my teen machines” and “I hurt where I couldn’t feel”. To this day, that album is my everlasting inspiration and, truly, my savior, that kept me – and it still does – from the loneliness of myself.

Love can last forever

Jasmine Barnegat NJ, US

Siamese Dream was my first exposure to SP, but Mellon Collie cemented a decades long obsession. I would listen by myself for hours on repeat. My father took me to the Madison Square Garden stop on the tour in ‘96 and again to Long Island in ‘97. I wore my tour shirt to school almost every single day. In art class I made a collage incorporating Mellon Collie artwork from magazine ads. I still own it, it’s hanging on the wall with all my other Pumpkins treasures. I have my husbands initials tattooed my my wrist in Mellon Collie font, as a reminder of our shared lifelong love of The Smashing Pumpkins.

A tribute to the song that changed my life

Cesar Rondon Houston, TX, US

This is a song that changed my life forever. “Tonight Tonight” is one of the top 5 in my life’s soundtrack, with so many things that make me reminisce the meaning of time, love and dreams. From the city by the lake (the place where I was born in Venezuela) to a new country (United States), I made this graphic tribute to those who inspired me to believe.

The tape

Jennifer Wilson Hainesport New Jersey, US

So I was about 16 and I went with my mother to see the Pumpkins at the Spectrum in Philly. It was my first time seeing them. It was July 5th and 6th . I had tickets to both shows. I, being an overly emotional crazy Pumpkins fan, cried hysterically during both the shows. I was right up front and at some point my mom just happened to meet Yelena who was also up front. They started talking and my mom said she was there with her daughter… and she pointed me out. And yelena said “oh the one that’s been crying for two days? Hold on a sec”. And she came back with two backstage passes. I went backstage after the show and met the whole band and had them sign this scrapbook that I had made and brought with me. And then I told Billy (through an immense amount of tears) that I had never heard the song “Jennifer Ever” (no internet back then) and that I wanted to hear it because my name is Jennifer. He told me to give him my address and he would send me a tape he made for the band.

Friends with good taste

Hudsun zylstra Burford Ontario , CA

My friend was always a huge fan of smashing pumkins. And he told me to listen to melon collie and I kind of brushed it off and never got around to it. Then one day on a car trip with him he played it and I was hooked. Zero, here is no why and thru the eyes or ruby stood out as the best to me. And ever since its been one of my favorites. I played 1979 at a coffee house at my highschool and hope to do more when covid is over.

Toulouse la Trek

Gareth Jones Scotland, GB

Adventures abroad in the south of France in the summer of 96, my first trip away with friends and no parents. long warm coach rides staring out to fields of sunflowers and mountains and falling asleep with this incredible noise filing my ears and forever becoming part of my psyche till the day i die. The night did come to hold us young.

Life changing

Nick Leamington spa, GB

The first time I heard of the Smashing Pumpkins was seeing the epic Tonight Tonight video on a Saturday morning. It blew me away, I had never heard or seen anything like it. A few weeks later a friend was listening to MCIS and I asked if I could have a listen. I heard up to Bullet and then as a 14 year old went and bought Siamese. I would not be the person I am today had I not heard that one song. I have seen it live 3 times and have cried tears of joy each time. Thank you all so much! The impossible is possible….

Smashing Pumpkins - Memories!