Day After Day #70: Drown

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Drown (1992)

Let's face it, soundtrack albums are usually a mixed bag. One or two good songs, a couple of songs you've heard before and then a bunch of filler. This was especially the case in the 1980s, when artists discovered they could make a lot of money doing songs for movie soundtracks; a video of the song would feature clips from the movie interspersed with the musical performance. It was pretty lucrative for the likes of Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, Sting and the like. 

Soundtracks got a little better in the '90s because directors had more of a say in what went on them. Quentin Tarantino created eclectic soundtrack albums for Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction that featured older AM radio hits from a wide range of artists. Then there was the Singles soundtrack, which benefited from having new music from artists who were blowing up at the exact same time. 

Singles was a Cameron Crowe-directed rom-com looking at the romantic lives of a group of Gen X young adults in Seattle, with the burgeoning grunge scene happening around them. It's nothing overly special, but it's charming and I like it more than Reality Bites, a 1994 movie directed by Ben Stiller that has its moments but tries a little too hard to be hip. People bag on Crowe for jumping on the Seattle bandwagon, but he was living there at the time (he was married at the time to Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson) and his previous film, 1989's excellent Say Anything, was set there. Filming of Singles took place between March and May 1991, several months before grunge really exploded, but bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains were definitely happening, and three-fifths of what became Pearl Jam were featured as Matt Dillon's character's backing band (Nirvana declined to be included, possibly because they were working on Nevermind at the time and possibly because they didn't give a shit.). 

The soundtrack was released in June 1992, nearly three months before the movie finally came out (it made a modest $18 million and had mostly good reviews). By this time, grunge mania was running wild and Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were enjoying newfound success. The soundtrack featured new songs from Seattle stalwarts Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden (in addition to a Chris Cornell solo song), Mudhoney and Screaming Trees, as well as the first post-Replacement songs from Paul Westerberg, a Zeppelin cover from the Lovemongers (aka Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart) and older songs from Mother Love Bone and Jimi Hendrix. 

It also featured an 8:17 slow-building ripper from Smashing Pumpkins, a Chicago band that was coming off its outstanding 1991 debut album Gish. The Pumpkins were lumped in with the grunge bands, although they blended a lot of different styles including hard rock, psychedelia, shoegaze and prog under the mad hatter auspices of singer-guitarist Billy Corgan. Gish wasn't a big success, peaking at #195 on the Billboard 200, but it was produced by Corgan and Butch Vig (who went on to produce Nevermind). The band signed with Virgin Records not long after Gish came out.

"Drown" was recorded after Gish was released and made its live debut on that tour. Unlike some of the other songs that became popular off the Singles soundtrack, it starts quietly as Corgan laments a lost love.

"No matter where you are/I can still hear you when you drown/You've traveled very far/Just to see you I'll come around/When I'm down/All of those yesterdays/Coming down."

The song remains calm until the bridge, when the big guitars kick in, and then gets quiet again before it ramps up to the final verse: "I wish, I wish I could fly/I wish, I wish I could lie/I will, I will try/I will, I will/Goodbye." That's where the single version of the song ends, the full version then continues for the next four minutes with trippy yet tuneful guitar feedback. It's truly majestic.

Corgan has been quoted as saying he wanted "Drown" to be released as the second single off the soundtrack, but the label (Epic) opted to release the Alice in Chains and Screaming Trees songs, both of which became radio staples. Eventually, a promotional single was released to radio only and "Drown" became fairly popular, albeit only the first four minutes. 

I wasn't familiar with the Pumpkins at the time and thought this was what they sounded like on all their songs, and I was there for it. Sadly, that wasn't true, but I picked up their next album, Siamese Dream, when it came out in '93 and later got Gish, which I really love. Siamese Dream was a huge hit, selling 4 million copies in the U.S., although Corgan and the Pumpkins caught flak from indie rockers like Pavement and Bob Mould. They forged on and had another monster hit in 1995-96 with the double album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Things were up and down for them after that, as they switched to a more electronic sound and look and struggled with substance abuse issues and lineup changes. Corgan split up the band in 2000, only to reform it in 2005. The band has released several albums since then and continues to record and tour.

I've never seen the Pumpkins in concert, although my brother and I had tickets to see them at Avalon in Boston in 1993 on Siamese Dream tour. Two hours before the show, the band canceled, citing illness; the rescheduled date was at the Orpheum, a bigger venue that I didn't feel like dealing with so I got a refund. My interest in Smashing Pumpkins waned in the late '90s, especially as Corgan got weirder and weirder, but I still enjoy the early stuff. There's a lot of strong songs in the early catalog, and that "Drown" might be the best of them all.