The year was 1995. The Smashing Pumpkins released their third studio album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It was their first double album, and it debuted at Number One on the US Billboard 200—the band’s only album to ever do so.

However, we’re not here to talk about the album. Rather, we’re here to talk about one particular song, nestled near the middle of the second disc—a song that would be released as the album’s second single in January of 1996.

We’re here to talk about “1979.”

It was The Smashing Pumpkins’ highest-charting single. To this day, it remains my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song—and one of my all-time favorite songs, period.

Excellent question, my dear reader! You should be an interviewer! 🤪

Let’s dig in and explore the haunting nostalgia of “1979” and what it means to me.

“It’s a song that somehow captures the ache of adolescence, the fleeting nature of youth, and the strange comfort of looking back.”

My youth didn’t resemble the music video at all. Instead, I grew up in the outskirts of Southwest Philadelphia during the ’80s and ’90s—decades apart from Billy Corgan, who turned 12 in 1979. While his nostalgia might be rooted in the late ’70s, mine was shaped by a different cultural landscape. My youth was a collage of contrasting experiences, a patchwork of reinventions as I searched for a sense of identity. At times, it felt like a futile pursuit, as if I were chasing a version of myself that didn’t yet exist. In fact, I didn’t begin to truly find myself until my 30s.

Even so, the song still manages to perfectly capture the tone and mood of my nostalgia for my Gen X youth. From playing street kickball and games of Hide & Seek and Ghost in the Graveyard that spanned three neighborhood blocks, to learning to ride a bike, performing backyard acrobatics, and overcoming fears with the help of my friends in the early years—to rollerblading, street hockey, playing electric guitar (poorly), and getting up to typical ’90s teenage mischief in the later years.

Yet, through it all, there was one constant: none of us really gave much thought to where we would end up or what life had in store for us. We didn’t care. We were living in the moment.

That, perhaps, is at the core of why 1979 speaks to me as deeply as it does. The musical arrangement and wistful lyrical delivery envelop me in a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia for my “carefree” youth—though in reality, it wasn’t all that carefree, considering I was also brutally bullied until high school, and my less-than-stellar academic performance was a constant source of stress.

Even so, I look back with a mix of melancholic longing for the simple joys of those years and a quiet pride that I truly lived in a time before the internet and smartphones reshaped how we connect—before screens became both our windows to the world and the walls between us.

And ultimately, that, my friends, is what is so unique and special about 1979. It’s a song that somehow captures the ache of adolescence, the fleeting nature of youth, and the strange comfort of looking back.

Perhaps that’s the magic of it. 1979 doesn’t just belong to Billy Corgan’s memories—it belongs to all of us who’ve ever felt the ache of growing up, the blur of fleeting moments, and the quiet beauty of looking back. It’s a song that somehow manages to hold both the joy and the sorrow of youth in a single breath.

If 1979 speaks to you in a similar way, I’d love to hear your story. What does the song mean to you? What memories does it stir up? Feel free to drop a comment below, and let’s share in the nostalgia together.