Galapogos

"Galapogos"
Song by The Smashing Pumpkins
Album Lyrics Tabs Spotify
Released	October 23, 1995
Studio sessions	March 15-16 1994 – Gravity Studios Fall-Winter 1994 – Sadlands March-August 1995 – Pumpkinland and Chicago Recording Company May 31, 1995 – Chicago Recording Company July 25, 1995 – Chicago Recording Company August 1995 – The Village Recorder
Length	4:47
Songwriter(s)	Billy Corgan
Producer(s)	Flood, Alan Moulder, Billy Corgan
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness Tonight, Tonight Jellybelly Zero Here Is No Why Bullet with Butterfly Wings To Forgive Fuck You Love Cupid de Locke Galapogos Muzzle Porcelina of the Vast Oceans Take Me Down Where Boys Fear to Tread Bodies Thirty-Three In the Arms of Sleep 1979 Tales of a Scorched Earth Thru the Eyes of Ruby Stumbleine X.Y.U. We Only Come Out at Night Beautiful Lily (My One and Only) By Starlight Farewell and Goodnight

"Galapogos" is a song from The Smashing Pumpkins' third studio album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. On Billy's Gravity Demos I it is titled "The Innocents".

The title is a reference to the Galápagos Islands (intentionally misspelled), made famous by Charles Darwin. Lyrically the song compares the isolation Billy Corgan felt with his marriage to that of the islands which inspired the theory of evolution.

“ I cannot recall what it was about Darwin’s fabled set of islands that led me to associate my crumbling marriage to them. Perhaps I was wondering if in the lure of a total and disconnected isolation we might better survive the onslaught of life’s ceaseless progress. Idealizing a failed romance can only get you so far, and once engaged I found that somewhere between my idealism and natural compassion for an identified other there lived a truth I was not yet willing to swallow about myself. Cue up my admitting here that one of us was about to be abandoned, never realizing that the desertion would flow both ways. ‘Galapogos’ stands up over time as a remnant of grace that I lost as I wrote it. ” — Billy Corgan, 2012 reissue liner notes

Lyrics

ain't it funny how we pretend we're still a child
softly stolen under our blanket skies
and rescue me from me, and all that i believe
i won't deny the pain
i won't deny the change
and should i fall from grace here with you
will you leave me too?
carve out your heart for keeps in an old oak tree
and hold me for goodbyes-and-whispered lullabyes
and tell me i am still
the man i'm supposed to be
i won't deny the pain
i won't deny the change
and should i fall from grace here with you
will you leave me too?
too late to turn back now, i'm running out of sound
and i am changing, changing
and if we died right now, this fool you love somehow
is here with you
i won't deny the pain
i won't deny the change
and should i fall from grace here with you
would you leave me too?

Availability

Title	Notes	Type
Chicago Tapes and Unreleased Demos		Bootleg
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness	Disc one – Dawn to Dusk	Studio
MCIS Demos I		Bootleg
The Aeroplane Flies High	2013 Reissue CD 3: Zero	Box set
Billy's Gravity Demos I		Bootleg
Celebrating *20* Years of Sadness		Live
Thirty Days		Video
MCIS Demos III

Tour stats

• Total plays: 55 plays (53 full, 1 tease, 1 abandoned, 1 soundcheck), 21 acoustic, 2 artists
• First performance: The Smashing Pumpkins 1993-08-14 at Metro, Chicago, IL, US (soundcheck)
• First full performance: The Smashing Pumpkins 1995-02-20 at Double Door, Chicago, IL, US
• Last performance: Billy Corgan 2017-11-11 at Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles, CA, US

Personnel

• Billy Corgan – guitar, vocals, production, recording, mixing
• James Iha – guitar, recording
• D'arcy Wretzky – bass
• Jimmy Chamberlin – drums
• Flood – production, recording, mixing
• Alan Moulder – production, recording, mixing
• Chris Shepard – recording
• Barry Goldberg – recording, mixing assistance
• Dave Kresl – recording assistance
• Claudine Pontier – recording assistance
• Howie Weinberg – mastering

External links

• "Galapogos" at SPFC