The hinges on the revolving door of Smashing Pumpkins line-ups were beginning to be put through their paces as the band began 2000. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlin has been sacked and reinstated, just in time to see bassist and founder member D’Arcy Wretzky on her way out to be replaced by former Hole member Melissa Auf Der Maur. Around the same time, Sharon Osbourne had also checked in and checked out as the band’s new manager, memorably declaring, “Unfortunately I must resign due to medical reasons – Billy Corgan was making me sick!”.
Despite the upheaval and turmoil, though, the Pumpkins still managed to creatively rally themselves at points, and nowhere is that more evident than on Stand Inside Your Love. It’s 25 years ago next month since the soaring alt-rock anthem was released as the first cut from the group’s fifth album Machina/The Machines Of God and it remains their last classic single, the final word on their hit-laden imperial phase. It is also, Corgan claimed in an interview filmed for the VH1 show Storytellers, the only time he had ever written a song for his partner.
“Every once in a while a song comes and it comes so fast that you can’t remember how it happened,” said The Bald One of the track’s creation. “You almost feel guilty because you feel like you don’t own the song – of course you still take credit – but this song, Stand Inside Your Love, I had written the music and it was more new wave and when the band first came back together to record the Machina album, I threw this up as an idea I had. We tried to play it the new wave way and it didn’t work. Suddenly it mutated into what I would call “Classic Smashing Pumpkins” in the sense that it sounds like it could come from any album.”
Corgan arrived home from that rehearsal, he recalled, determined to put lyrics and a melody to the blossoming new song and, reading a book the next morning, the line, “Who wouldn’t stand inside your love?” came to him. “I can’t say I really even knew what that meant at that moment,” he continued. “It’s the strangest feeling because all of a sudden it’s like a faucet opens up in my head and suddenly I can understand the whole song. The lyrics were literally written in 10 minutes. It all just came out in this stream of consciousness. It’s probably one of the only love songs I’ve ever written.”
In a very Corgan-esque twist to the tribute, the man who seemingly (at the time) had to have at least one person in the world annoyed with him at any one point added: “I dedicate to my friend and partner Yelena. She doesn’t like me very much right now, it’s true. The reason I say that is when I sing this song it reminds me of how precious love is and how important love is, in all of our lives. Even though I wrote this song for a person, I would say to anyone who likes this song, I also write it for you in the sense that I’m trying to express that feeling when you really try to explain to someone how much you care about them. So maybe she’ll forgive me.”
Released on 21 February 2000, the song became the last thing the Pumpkins could count as a “hit”. Future versions of the group would make some fine records and songs here and there to match some of their original output but the band’s days as a mainstream concern were coming to an end. Just a few months later, they would announce their split.
No-one knows if Yelena Yemchuk ever did forgive Corgan. They eventually split too, with the Ukrainian photographer and painter going on to marry and have a family with The Bear actor Ebon Moss-Bachrach. She’ll always have Stand Inside Your Love if she ever fancies reminiscing about her old flame though:
