Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins wrote the song Disarm about a fantasy of cutting his parents limbs off. Because he hated them, he hated the fact they brought him into this world which is full of hate and all he wants, is to be loved.
“It’s about chopping off somebody’s arms.. The reason I wrote Disarm was because, I didn’t have the guts to kill my parents, so I thought I’d get back at them through song. And rather then have an angry, angry, angry violent song I’d thought I’d write something beautiful and make them realize what tender feelings I have in my heart, and make them feel really bad for treating me like shit. Disarm’s hard to talk about because people will say to me ‘I listen to that song and I can’t figure out what it’s about.’ It’s like about things that are beyond words. I think you can conjure up images and put together phrases, but it’s a feeling beyond words and for me it has a lot to do with like a sense of loss. Being an adult and looking back and romanticizing a childhood that never happened or went by so quickly in a naive state that you miss it.” — Billy Corgan on Disarm
Does this sound familiar?
Well it defiantly does to me, my all time favourite book is “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley which is an amazing story written in two view points. Dr. Victor Frankenstein created a monster and being scared of his creation abandoned it. Monster Frankenstein was a lost soul, with nothing the desire to be loved, yet his creator abandoned him and society feared and wanted to destroy him.
At the very end of the book when asked to justify his actions Monster Frankenstein said something like; “I do this because I feel too much, I was brought into this world with the desire to love and denied it at every turn”
Both Billy Corgan and Monster Frankenstein both wanted to be love but life and society seemed to give them violent thoughts. Billy Corgan expressed his dark thoughts via writing a song but Monster Frankenstein didn’t know how to handle these thoughts.
Support Knowledge Lost and my reading habits, If you wish to get a copy of Frankensteinor the Smashing Pumpkins album which featured Disarm; Siamese Dream do so here.
[…] this book would make my life. I’ve mentioned it before in reference to pop culture and even a Smashing Pumpkins song. This book is simply a brilliant book on very real social […]
I love Frankenstein, too, but I don’t see a real connection here.
The creature in Shelley’s novel was despised from the very moment it took its first breath. I don’t know if Corgan’s parents hated him as much as Victor hated the monster. Sure, Billy expressed disain for his parents but can it be regarded as anything more than the angst of a teenage kid whose parents divored and whose life was not picture perfect?
Victor wanted the monster for his own selfish reasons and who knows why Billy’s parents had him. I seriously doubt Billy’s parents could have been any more selfish than Victor. Victor was an ass and a selfish one. The monster was a lost soul but I don’t see Billy the same. In fact, Billy has too much soul…
Finally, Billy is no monster. Sorry, we may feel compassion for the creature in the novel but he still kills innocents. Billy did not do that – he simply did what millions of other angst-ridden teenagers did, dream about it. This is why we love Billy; he couldn’t kill but he sure should sing about it.