Billy Corgan Song Quotations

The Killer in me is the Killer in you.

Say you write a song about a chandelier, and the chandelier gives off light. And the light is the color red and red reminds you of the color your not supposed to wear around a bull. So you name the song 'Cow.'

The title of a song is like the wrapping on a present.

I was playing heavy metal when I was 18. I had to evolve out of that into an alternative consciousness about what it meant to change the way I played guitar, and the kind of songs, and the subject matter, and singing about child abuse, and all this stuff. I had to come from somewhere, and I had to take chances to do that.

Smashing Pumpkins has never been a band about hit songs.

It's a simple formula for me now, I don't play any song I don't want to play.

In my particular instance, I came from a family that didn't have anything. Everything I earned in life I made. Myself. With songs that I wrote.

People try to make a big deal, like I don't want to play my old songs. That's not it. I don't want to play my old songs if that's my only option. That's a different thing.

The reason I don't play any of the old songs is because I really honor my old band, and I think that those songs are best served within the context of that band.

I have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is definitely feminine.

I want to make great songs.

I don't think people are fans of me because I wrote hit songs. I think they're fans because I'm a lunatic or a weirdo. The hit songs came out of my idiosyncratic personality, not the other way around.

In 1992, with the weight of a perceived world on our shoulders, we disappeared into a parking garage to write the songs that would change the course of our lives forever. 'Siamese Dream' represents all of our dreams coming true, while the dreams of a happy band fell apart.

You give me a @#$%& kazoo and I'll write you a good song.