Tonight, Tonight is a song by the Smashing Pumpkins, written by the band’s frontman, Billy Corgan. It was the fourth single and second track on the their third album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, and was released in May 6, 1996 in Europe. Tonight, Tonight was critically acclaimed and commercially well-received upon its release, reaching number one in Iceland, number two in New Zealand, number seven in the United Kingdom and number 36 on the US Billboard Hot 100. The music video accompanying the song was also successful and won several awards.
A shorter acoustic version of the song, “Tonite Reprise”, was included as a B-side to the single and on the triple LP version of Mellon Collie. This single also later appeared in an extended form on the box set The Aeroplane Flies High. Additionally, the song appears on the band’s greatest hits release, Rotten Apples. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) used the song in their closing montage for the 2010 Stanley Cup Playoffs and ITV used the song in their montage for the 2012 Euros.
Billy Corgan began writing for the follow-up to Siamese Dream after the tour in support of that album; however, the recording of Tonight, Tonight first began while the Pumpkins were still on the Siamese Dream tour when Corgan booked the band into a local Chicago studio to record all of their song ideas on tape.
On The Howard Stern Show, Corgan has said that the song pays homage to Cheap Trick, with its black humoresque lyrics and theme, and that the song is addressed to himself, who escaped from an abusive childhood against all odds, so as to keep him believing in himself.
Tonight, Tonight is written in the key of G, performed on instruments tuned down a half-step so the actual pitch is G♭/F #. In the original recording sessions, Tonight, Tonight was initially written in the key of C instead of G. However, since Corgan was unable to sing the song in C, he wrote a version during the Mellon Collie recording sessions to suit his range. The strings for the song were arranged by Billy Corgan and Audrey Riley, and recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Corgan said that recording with a 30 piece string section for the song “was probably one of the most exciting recording experiences I have ever had.”
Lyrically, Tonight, Tonight hangs together with the rest of the Mellon Collie. The lyrics of the song have been compared to Robert Herrick‘s poem “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time“.
Tracklist:
- Tonight, Tonight
- Meladori Magpie
- Rotten Apples
- Jupiter’s Lament
- Medellia of the Gray Skies
- Blank
- Tonite Reprise
The music video, was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, starred Tom Kenny and Jill Talley, a married couple who were, at the time, cast members on the sketch comedy program Mr. Show with Bob and David and would later gain international fame for their voicework on SpongeBob SquarePants. The original idea for the music video was for a Busby Berkeley-style video, complete with “people diving into champagne glasses”. The band was set to begin production on the video when they discovered that the Red Hot Chili Peppers had done a similarly styled video for their song Aeroplane, which was almost identical to what they had wanted to do. The second idea for the video was that as the band played on a surreal stage, the camera would go into audience members’ eyes and the viewer would see that person’s vision of the song. The third and final concept, inspired by Georges Méliès‘s silent film A Trip to the Moon, came from directors Dayton and Faris, whose inspiration for the video came from the album cover for Mellon Collie, which reminded them of early silent films. Hence, the video was filmed much like a turn-of-the-century silent film using theater-style backdrops and primitive special effects, with most of the backdrops and puppetwork created by artist Wayne White.
Dayton and the production crew initially had problems locating costumes for the video because the movie Titanic was being shot at the same time in Los Angeles. Titanic director James Cameron rented nearly every turn-of-the-century prop and costume in the city, leaving the Tonight, Tonight production crew little to work with. Dayton and Faris compromised by renting the leftover costumes and hiring designers to remake them into the elaborate period clothing seen in the video, which took three days to shoot.
In addition to being heavily aired on MTV, the video received positive reviews and won several awards. Corgan remarked that :
“I don’t think we’ve ever had people react (like this)…it just seemed to touch a nerve.”
It won six awards at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards: Video of the Year, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction in a Video (Directors: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris), Best Special Effects in a Video (Special Effects: Chris Staves), Best Art Direction in a Video (Art Director: K. K. Barrett and Wayne White) and Best Cinematography in a Video (Director of Photography: Declan Quinn). Tonight, Tonight was nominated for Best Editing in a Video (Editor: Eric Zumbrunnen) and Viewer’s Choice, and was also nominated for Best Music Video, Short Form at the 39th Annual Grammy Awards. It is still considered one of the greatest music videos of all time.
The Smashing Pumpkins
Jimmy Chamberlin: drums
Billy Corgan: lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar
James Iha: rhythm and lead guitar
D’arcy Wretzky: bass guitar
