I've programmed my stereo to turn on an hour before my first class; it'll begin playing-- with a fade-in-- whatever CD is in the the player. I've recently purchased Adore, by the Smashing Pumpkins, but never listened to it.
"To Sheila" snakes through my subconscious before I'm even aware I'm waking up. I've never felt so alert in my life. Every particle of my being is leaning into the song, and I'm laying flat on my back with my covers pulled up to my chin.
The moment feels holy, consecrated. Every nuance of this song is perfect, from the delicate piano strokes, the sound of the drum machine, to the glorious banjo.
Go ahead, close your eyes. Listen.
(PS couldn't find the song w/out this visual)
(Complete lyrics at bottom of page)
There's a lot going on in this song...and heads-up, I'm about to go all English-majory on you.
While reading through the lyrics on songmeanings.net, I saw that a lot of folks think "To Sheila" is about losing faith, or giving up on someone. After my first encounter with the song, I find that impossible to believe. I think the real heart of this song is about the nature of being human, having to let go of a sense of control, let go of someone loved. It is also about finding grace and freedom in acknowledging our inability to stand alone and our need for connection with others, with the divine.
The sounds of the instruments on this song (including Corgan's voice) remind me of the the first few lines of the song, what the sunset feels like after a long, scorching day.
"Twilight fades
Through blistered Avalon
The sky's cruel torch
On aching autobahn"
The music speaks with a gentleness that seems to contrast the difficult and disconcerting images presented in the lyrics. When the physical is tied to the eternal, "blistered Avalon", the machine contrasted and connected with the body, it is in images of pain or degradation.
"Sheila rides on crashing nightingale
Intake eyes leave passing vapor trails
With blushing brilliance alive"
(In this context it seems fitting to combine real instruments with "fake" ones, like the drum machine that enters the song during this stanza.) The singer is conscious of a link between eternity while trapped in a physical experience. The desire to step into the mysterious, the holy, and a fear of what we are without our bodies, our "selves", becomes apparent.
"Into the uncertain divine
We scream into the last divide"
The first stanza of the song:
"Twilight fades
Through blistered Avalon
The sky's cruel torch
On aching autobahn"
The first stanza transformed:
"A summer storm graces all of me
Highway warm sing silent poetry
I could bring you the light
And take you home into the night"
How does that happen? How does the "aching autobahn" begin to "sing silent poetry"? This stanza stands between the two.
"Lately I just can't seem to believe
Discard my friends to change the scenery
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
But now it's just a matter of grace"
Faith is generated by a human; in this case it's "bruising," a faith that would cause the singer to break friendships, sacrifice the world, fear death. When this faith is relinquished in favor of grace ("the free and unmerited favor of God"- thank you, Webster's), the singer is free to experience a summer storm as gracing in contrast to viewing twilight after a hot day as an "aching", a negative. There is a light shining into the uncertain, the divide is no longer scary, the divide is a destination, a home.
"You make me real
You make me real
Strong as I feel
You make me real"
It takes an outside force, it takes grace, to experience life truly and fully, to be "real". It takes letting go.
The final guitar chord rings on past the careful plucking of the banjo, past the gentle brushes of the drum machine, the other instruments fade, and the singer is like the final notes, unresolved, moving forward into eternity.
* * *
To Sheila
Twilight fades
Through blistered Avalon
The sky's cruel torch
On aching autobahn
Into the uncertain divine
We scream into the last divide
You make me real
You make me real
Strong as I feel
You make me real
Sheila rides on crashing nightingale
Intake eyes leave passing vapor trails
With blushing brilliance alive
Because it's time to arrive
You make me real
You make me real
Strong as I feel
You make me real
Lately I just can't seem to believe
Discard my friends to change the scenery
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
But now it's just a matter of grace
A summer storm graces all of me
Highway warm sing silent poetry
I could bring you the light
And take you home into the night
You make me real
Lately I just can't seem to believe
You make me real
Discard my friends to change the scenery
Strong as I feel
It meant the world to hold a bruising faith
You make me real
But now it's just a matter of grace
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