I’ve never been a great guitar player. In every band I’ve been in, there’s a decent argument to be made that I was the worst guitar player, or at least the second worst. I don’t really have the attention span to learn or practice to get any better than I am, which is passable. I wasn’t very ambitious and was reluctant to try anything I didn’t know I’d be able to do.

I don’t think I realised at the time, but “Today” was the origin of every song I wrote. There were light clean bits that were nice and gentle, and then there were heavily distorted bits and then the best bit would be when you’d play the gentle clean bit with distortion. Mission accomplished. Song written.

“Today” is a great song. The intro is very delicate and then there’s a wall of sound. It’s distorted but sounds hopeful. The choruses are light and abrupt. The verses are heavy and driving. That contrast is also in the lyrics, which range between sarcastically cheery and nonchalantly grim.

Billy Corgan is an odd boy but I could probably put together a considerable greatest hits of songs he’s written that are all among my favourite songs of all time. I try to balance the act of thinking he’s a musical genius and avoiding anything non musical about him and that’s served me well so far.

You can listen to Today by the Smashing Pumpkins here.