The first single I bought
She Loves You by the Beatles, for 25 cents at a garage sale in Glendale Heights, Illinois, even though I didn’t know who the Beatles were. I just liked how they looked on the cover, their faces half in shadow.
The song that makes me cry
I’ve been lucky enough to play Wish You Were Here both when Pink Floyd were inducted in the Hall of Fame, and with Roger Waters at a benefit. It’s speaks to me in a way very few songs do. The pleasure of playing with them is hard to describe.
The song I do at karaoke
The last song I did at karaoke was Zero by Smashing Pumpkins. I thought it would be funny to sing my own song, but the longer it went, the more I performed it like I was on stage in front of 50,000 people, and the less people thought it was funny.
The song I can no longer listen to
My father was a musician, so I was steeped in music and had very strong musical opinions as a child. Baby I’m-A Want You by Bread reminds me of being stuck in the backseat of a car in the 70s, hating yacht rock and wanting to murder everyone, because I wanted to listen to Queen and Elton John instead.
The song I inexplicably know every lyric to
I’m not a lyric person. My wife freaks me out because she knows every lyric. I sit there with mystification while she sings along to Stay With Me by the Faces and Tiny Dancer by Elton John. Now my daughter has the same gift: she’ll sing along to every song too.
The best song to play at a party
I don’t really go to parties. If I do, I’m usually horrified by what they play. My father played in dance bands in the 80s, so he’d play things like Celebration by Kool & the Gang and ended up hating them. I must have inherited the same hatred.
The song I secretly like
When I hear Roar by Katy Perry at the grocery store, I think: “That’s a good song.” We were at a party and Katy and her husband mistook my wife for a nanny, because she was watching after all the children, and they were fishing around for a nanny.
The best song to have sex to
We don’t have sex in the goth world. We just stare out of a black window into the black sun.
The song that changed my life
Fade to Black by Metallica showed me the power of music when I was going through some hard times as a teen. When you’re really down, a song really can save your life.
The song that gets me up in the morning
One of Bach’s choral pieces, like Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft, BWV 50. There’s a brilliant version on YouTube by the great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, where he performs it live in the 50s.
The song I’d like played at my funeral
I’d probably pick one of my own just to make some sort of posthumous, bitter point: “You should have paid more attention to me when I was here.” To Sheila from the Adore album by Smashing Pumpkins would be a good one, if you’re sitting there, mourning my loss.
Billy Corgan’s podcast The Magnificent Others is out now. Smashing Pumpkins tour the UK in August.
