18
Nov
The Smashing Pumpkins - “Disarm”
Disarm you with a smile
And cut you like you want me to
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you
Ooh, the years burn
I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
And what i choose is my choice
What’s a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you
My love
I send this smile over to you
Disarm you with a smile
And leave you like they left me here
To wither in denial
The bitterness of one who’s left alone
Ooh, the years burn
Ooh, the years burn, burn, burn
I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
And what I choose is my voice
What’s a boy supposed to do?
The killer in me is the killer in you
My love
I send this smile over to you
The killer in me is the killer in you
Send this smile over to you
The killer in me is the killer in you
Send this smile over to you
The killer in me is the killer in you
Send this smile over to you
Billy Corgan always appealed to me because he sang his lyrics with such genuine feeling and emotion that you knew he wasn’t putting up a facade. Every scar on paper was a scar on his skin, and every heart-wrenching cry not only came from his lips, but from a place of pain in his past. No bullshit like the other guys. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, take a listen to Corgan’s vocals in the last verse of “Disarm”.
“The killer in me is the killer in you.” Putting aside the endless debates over nature vs. nurture, it’s undeniable that who we are as a person is shaped and molded constantly by outside influences when we’re first experiencing the world as a child. As our clay hardens with time, we can look into a mirror and see what society has created of our flesh. For some, the face gazing back at them is one they are content with, but for others like Billy Corgan, the face is a monster. Only three years after his birth in 1967, Corgan’s birth parents underwent a divorce. Throughout his childhood, Corgan lived in Illinois under the custody of his father and stepmother, a flight attendant Corgan’s father soon married after parting ways with Billy’s mother. The relationship between Billy and his stepmother was reported to be dysfunctional, resulting in Corgan being “subject to much physical and emotional abuse” through the course of his childhood years. “Ooh, the years burn(ed)”. Or perhaps those years still burn in Corgan’s mind.
Studies have shown that physical and emotional abuse is often passed down generations of a family. In other words, people that were abused as a child are more inclined to abuse their own children later in life due to the psychological repercussions of such molding. Corgan wrote “Disarm” in response to this disturbing pattern, showing concern for his own childhood development in fear that his past experiences would influence his own fathering approach. Yet Corgan didn’t want to simply lie down and become another statistic – he refused to let his stepmother’s actions define his own future actions. Instead, he disarms the “killer”, or the abusive nature, in him by neglecting the past’s influence and leaving the psychosomatic imprint of his adolescence to “wither in denial”. When Corgan says, “cut that little child inside of me and such a part of you”, he is in a sense killing off the abusive disposition associated with his childhood self and stepmother. Throughout the song, the “you” Corgan continually refers to can be interpreted as Billy’s stepmother or the malignant nature within himself. By breaking the trend of abusive parenting, Corgan disarms himself “with a smile”. This “smile” can be interpreted as Corgan’s happiness at his self-improvement, or as a metaphor for a calm, caring fathering approach he hopes to embody some day.
“What’s a boy supposed to do?” Rather than looking in the mirror and accepting his disposition, Corgan decides to break free from his premeditated mold. He saw what he was and realized it wasn’t who he was. So he didn’t let the outside world define who he was– “what I choose is my choice… what I choose is my voice.” Every one of us is the product of influence– and that is, the majority of the time, an absolutely beautiful thing. But when you look into the mirror and see someone different from who you want to become staring back, change your mold. Mold yourself and be an individual. What you choose is your choice. What you choose your voice.
