“The year was 1994 and I’d just moved into a new house, what was eventually going to become a purple Victorian house in Chicago. This song really embodies the spirit of that time, I’d just gotten married, I’d just moved into a new house, the band was achieving the kind of success that people only dream of. Hope is really the key component in life because you need to have hope and faith to get out of bed and do anything in this world. I was 27 years old and thought that I had arrived, I had the wife, the house, the fame but all I really ever wanted was a happy home. I called the song “Thirty Three” because I intended to write three songs, “Thirty Three,” “Sixty Six,” and “Ninety Nine” but I never wrote the other two. The reason I was attracted to the number Thirty Three at the time was because I had a friend who read Tarot cards who said that when I 33 years old my life was going to completely change. So as I sit here today at the age of 33, my life is going to completely change at 33, so this song serves as notice, prophecy and hope un-wished.”Billy Corgan (406)

“That’s me turning the corner, finally stepping back from childhood. What I love about ‘1979’ is there’s no pain in it. It’s a resolution. “And we don’t know where our bones will rest/To dust I guess/Forgotten and absorbed into earth below”.”Billy Corgan (835)

“The album is not about her dying [his mother, Martha – Ed]. It’s more a tribute to her spirit. Her strength in facing death was unbelievable. Unbelievable. Quiet resolve. True acceptance. ‘This is my fate. This is my life. That’s it.’ I mean, I… everyone who ever thought I was a pain in the ass, they should know it was my mother who gave me the courage to be a pain in the ass and stupid and boisterous and personal and. It made me realize that true compassion, true love is really the stuff that strength is made of. It’s heavy when you have a son who’s basically telling the world that his childhood sucked and his mother abandoned him. But she let me be wrong without saying, Fuck you, then! We already had a great relationship and then when she became ill she entrusted me to take care of everything. I became the parent and she became the child. That’s the real beauty of life if you can enjoy it. It all comes around.”Billy Corgan (835)