1979 Wasn't Perfect

[DISCLAIMER]

One year ago this month, on September 11, 2024, to be exact, I attended a concert at which the Linda Lindas, Rancid, the Smashing Pumpkins, and Green Day were featured for The Survivors Tour in Arlington, Texas. I went with some of my closest friends and a couple of their children.

The group I most wanted to see was the alternative rock band Smashing Pumpkins, as their album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995) that was released during my senior year of high school, evokes within me nostalgia (an sentimental yearning for return of some past period).

Among other songs, I wanted to see and hear “1979” live. Aside from nostalgia, I’m aware that my dad lost vision in both of his eyes. This may eventually happen to me, as well. When my vision goes, so do I. Therefore, I wanted an opportunity to see and hear “1979” before that time.

Regarding the track, one source states, “The song was written as a nostalgic coming-of-age story by [Billy] Corgan. In the year 1979, Corgan turned twelve, and this is what he considered his transition into adolescence.” With bittersweet sentiment, lyrics from the track include:

[Verse 3]

Double-cross the vacant and the bored

They’re not sure just what we have in store

Morphine city slippin’ dues, down to see

[Chorus]

That we don’t even care

As restless as we are

We feel the pull

In the land of a thousand guilts

And poured cement

[Bridge]

Lamented and assured

To the lights and towns below

Faster than the speed of sound

Faster than we thought we’d go

Beneath the sound of hope

When contemplating the perceived meaning of these lyrics, as they subjectively apply to my own life, I think back 30 years ago when the album was released. The “vacant and the bored” of Bomb City likely didn’t know what my knucklehead friends and I had in store.

Although we had more soil-laden farm fields than “poured cement” in Amarillo, Texas, my friends and I didn’t seem to care about the consequences of our actions, as “restless” as we were. While guilt was in no short supply back then, I doubt my friends and I experienced much of it.

Also, that which is “lamented” is mourned for. That which is “assured” is characterized by certainty or security. With my youthful ignorance, I was “lamented and assured” as time transitioned from days to years, and into decades.

Although I understood that life was impermanent and uncertain from a relatively young age, I couldn’t have possibly comprehended the action-consequence connection of my behavior as well as I currently can. Now, the wisdom of middle age seems wasted on the passage of time.

Such is the paradox of growing older. Time seems to have moved “faster than the speed of sound, faster than [my friends and I] thought we’d go beneath the sound of hope.” Wistful ambitions to leave Bomb City resulted in most of my friends and me inevitably parting ways.

That’s with an exception regarding a friend with whom I attended The Survivors Tour (“Moby”). We’ve stayed in touch (on and off) since meeting in our sophomore year of high school. Also, when watching the video for “1979”, I’m reminded of the shenanigans in which we engaged.

Still, when viewed through the proverbial lens of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), I understand that retrospective consideration – when seen through the error-correcting glasses of nostalgia – require thinking which is rational (in accordance with both logic and reason).

Were matters with Moby and I ever perfect (being entirely without fault or defect)? Of course not! For instance, consider what I stated in a blogpost entitled Nobody’s Perfect:

[Consider unconditional other-acceptance] UOA which posits that just as I’m a fallible individual, others are also flawed people. […] Placing an individual on a pedestal of perfection isn’t a method of rational living.

Both Moby and I have been imperfect since the days on which we entered this world, which just so happens to be on the same month. Moreover, the world into which we were born is flawed. Regarding this matter, I stated in a blogpost entitled We Live In an Imperfect World:

[T]he technique of unconditional life-acceptance [ULA] acknowledges inherent imperfection in the world. Although one may unhelpfully believe that life ideally should, must, or ought to conform to perfect standards, we live in an imperfect world. Life isn’t flawless, nor will it ever be.

Given the rational perspective of UOA and ULA, I acknowledge that the irrational error-correcting glasses of nostalgia aren’t entirely helpful. Further contemplating this matter, I’m reminded of another song by the Smashing Pumpkins.

On the band’s fourth studio album, Adore (1998), is the song “Perfect” which addresses Corgan’s sentiment concerning an intimate partner. Rather than relating to a romantic interest, I consider the friendship between Moby and me when thinking of the following lyrics:

[Verse 2]

We are reasons so unreal

We can’t help but feel

That something has been lost

[Pre-Chorus]

But please, you know you’re just like me

Next time (Time), I promise we’ll be

[Chorus]

Perfect

Perfect

Perfect strangers down the line

[Friends] out of time

Memories unwind

[Post-Chorus]

So far, I still know who you are

But now (Now), I wonder who I was

Recently, matters with Moby have been shaky (at best). As stated by Corgan, “something has been lost,” even if two old friends from Bomb City maintain that they are a lot like one another. When “memories unwind,” I still know who Moby is; yet, “I wonder who I was” when we met.

I’m not the same person anymore. Even though nostalgia creates a distorted picture of the past, I’m not entirely certain that Moby and I won’t be “strangers down the line” – albeit imperfect rather than perfect. After all, isn’t this the way of an impermanent and uncertain life?

Personally, “Perfect” is every bit as bittersweet to me as “1979”. When further exploring this concept, I think about one source that addresses videos regarding both tracks and which states:

To expand on the similarities between “Perfect” and “1979”, the band released a music video that continued the story of the characters in “1979”. They were able to find and use four out of the five original actors from the “1979” video, including Giuseppe Andrews.

The fifth was in jail. The same directors were hired, husband-and-wife team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. It was the fifth and final collaboration between them and the Smashing Pumpkins.

The conclusion of the video, in which a tape falls off a car and is crushed, is probably a reference to the fate of the first tapes of the “1979” music video, which had to be re-taped because they were left on the roof of a car and destroyed when the car drove off.

The metaphor of those crushed tapes is how I rationally view the past. Whoever I was in high school, the boy who Moby met, has been crumpled by decades which elapsed since then. The vehicle of life “dove off” and what remains is a recreation reflecting the shadow of old tapes.

Perhaps some people would be self-disturbed or even self-distressed by beliefs about this realization. Yet, I’m not. Besides, who’s to say that I didn’t intentionally leave tapes of my past on the roof of a car so they could deliberately be crushed and later reconstructed?

To have remained as the same person, doing the same things would’ve been a genuine disappointment, as far as I’m concerned. While I’m not as ecstatic about change as I was to have seen the Smashing Pumpkins before my time to check out arrives, I unconditionally accept life.

In conclusion, I realize that “1979” wasn’t “Perfect”. Similarly, nor are Moby and I. For that matter, nor is life! Thus, I remain grateful for what simply is – crushed tapes and all. And truly, it’s my hope for anyone who reads this to experience a similar form of tranquility. One.

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW

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