Let Me Give the World to You

"Let Me Give the World to You"
Song by The Smashing Pumpkins
Album Lyrics Tabs Spotify
Released	2000 (alt version on Machina II) 2014 (original version, Adore reissue)
Studio sessions	Late 1998 – Sadlands, Chicago March 1998 – Sound City November 1998-September 1999 – Pumpkinland
Genre	Alternative rock, electronic rock
Length	3:26
Songwriter(s)	Billy Corgan
Producer(s)	Billy Corgan, Rick Rubin
Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music Glass' Theme Cash Car Star Dross Real Love Go Let Me Give the World to You Innosense Home Blue Skies Bring Tears White Spyder In My Body If There Is a God Le Deux Machina Here's to the Atom Bomb

"Let Me Give the World to You" is a song by The Smashing Pumpkins. The song, produced with Rick Rubin in March 1998 during the sessions for Adore album, was removed from the album at the last second by Billy Corgan, who did so as a last-ditch effort to keep the record company from releasing it as a single against his wishes. A heavily reworked version was recorded for their 2000 album Machina II without Rubin's help, but the song would go unreleased for sixteen years until being put on the extended re-issue of Adore in 2014.

Background and recording

The band's record label and management, growing concerned with Adore's direction, decided to send influential music producer Rick Rubin to assist Corgan in the studio. Corgan agreed to work with him on a song, the result being "Let Me Give the World to You". Corgan enjoyed working with Rubin on the track, but felt creative control slipping away, and limited his input to the one song. The track was considered to be on the album until just before the release of the album - it was completely mixed and mastered with the rest of the album, with it being planned as the album closer. Corgan felt that while it didn't really fit well Adore's artistic direction, putting it at the end of the album helped it stand out less, and would serve as his backup plan as a future single if the album's new direction wasn't well received. Plans changed when Corgan learned at the last second that his record label was insisting that it instead be the album's lead single. Corgan felt that the poppy, upbeat sound misrepresented the album's more somber and introspective direction. Corgan explained:

And the true story is, I handed in the record to the record company. And I get the call, they want to make ‘Let Me Give the World to You’ the first single. And I was like, ‘Hell, no.’ And the only way I could stop them was to take it off the record. Someone asked me about this, ‘It sounds like it could have been a hit song at that time, so why take it off the record?’ And I said, ‘Because I spent a whole f—ing year trying to make this avant-garde thing.’ ‘Perfect’ or ‘Ava Adore’ were more representative [of the album], and now we’re gonna release the song with the dry, milquetoast production. And it isn’t even as avant-garde as the stuff on Mellon Collie, much less Adore! I didn’t want to step back to simple pop [on the single], and then try to sell this avant-garde record! It wasn’t that I hated it, or even that I hated what Rick had done. He did a great job. It was more that I didn’t want to blow up everything I’d done for this one song. So the song had to go. And in the basement it went, for sixteen or eighteen years.

Release and promotion

While the song was withheld from the final version of Adore original release in 1998, a different, alternate version of the song was recorded and released on Machina II/The Friends and Enemies of Modern Music in 2000. The original Adore version was finally released in 2014, on the extended re-issue of Adore, sixteen years after its initial planned release on Adore. The song was debuted by the band putting it up for streaming on YouTube in August, followed by its official release on the Adore reissue in September.

Lyrics

last chance to make believe in always and all it seems
train wrecks hide underneath your umbrella
set the frame destiny on this first name soliloquy
tired symphonies play downward

let me give the world to you my love
let me give the world to you my love
let me show you what i'm thinking of
let me give the world to you my love

so far
so far
so far

lovers form dead excuse
and blur the line with soul abuse
my lonesome lines just have no use around here

new skin may hold you in
but the old skin still turns us on
flicker fades the nitrate dawn to wear

let me give the world to you my love
let me show you what i'm thinking of
times are hard and we're the last in line
'cause in my grief i'd forgotten what was mine

no i wouldn't change a thing
no i, no
no i wouldn't change a thing about the way you are
the distance here, the speed so far
so far
so far
so far

let me give the world to you my love
let me give the world to you my love
let me give the world to you
let me give the world to you
let me give the world to you
let me give the world to you
let me give the world to you my love

so far
so far
so far

Reception

Reception for the Adore version of the song was generally positive, with many journalists noting that it would have fit well into the rest of the band's catalog of songs in the 1990s. Rolling Stone praised the song for being more "upbeat" and "straightforward" than their 1998 singles for Adore, concluding that "It's got all the marks of the Pumpkins' big hits." Both Colin Joyce of Spin and Michael Nelson of Stereogum asserted that it sounded like it belonged on Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, the former calling it "essential listening" and the latter calling it "a really good song". Exclaim! praised the song as well, calling it "immaculately produced" and disagreeing with Corgan's notion that it wouldn't have fit on Adore's original release.

The Machina II version of the song generally received less attention, due to the album being released for free on the internet just before the band's 2000 breakup, but still received positive marks from critics. Joshua Klein of The A.V. Club referred to the track as the most "shocking" of the album, referring to it as "prettier and more accessible than virtually anything the band has done".

Availability

Title	Notes	Type
Machina Acoustic Demos		Demo • Bootleg
Adore Demos II		Bootleg
Adore	2014 Reissue CD 5: Malice, Callous and Fools	Studio
Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music	Two-LP set (CR-04)	Studio
Live at the Viper Room 1.15.98	Billy Corgan acoustic set	Live

Tour stats

• Total plays: 32 plays (30 full, 1 tease, 1 abandoned, 6 soundcheck), 14 acoustic, 2 artists
• First performance: Billy Corgan 1998-01-15 at The Viper Room, West Hollywood, CA, US
• Last performance: Billy Corgan 2017-11-11 at Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA, US

External links

• "Let Me Give the World to You" at SPFC