X.Y.U.

"X.Y.U." is a song from The Smashing Pumpkins' third studio album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It is one of the heaviest songs on the album along with "Fuck You (An Ode To No One)" and "Tales of a Scorched Earth". The song was recorded live for the record with drum and vocal overdubs added later.

The title means "Ex, Why You?", perhaps implying everything ends with YOU, not the letter Z as you would expect to follow X and Y. It is also believed to be a play on the spelling of Russian obscene word "хуй" (pronounced "hu:i") that is translated as "penis".

Background
The song originated from jamming, so like "Silverfuck" it evolved in several forms over the years. An alternate version dubbed "X.Y.U. (Take II)" was included on the 2012 reissue of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and featured different lyrics. Another alternate version called "X.Y.U. Medley" was recorded live at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles on October 31, 1998. It bundled a variation of the song with teasers of "The Ethers Tragic", "Where Boys Fear to Tread" and "Never Say Never" (by Romeo Void). The recording was included on the 2014 reissue of Adore.

The song was deliberately recorded in a series of live takes, rather than recording and engineering parts separately as was done with many other Mellon Collie tracks. Billy Corgan had apparently been recovering from a cold, and "had trouble keeping my voice fresh, but the garble only added to my sense of desperation that we’d never get that ‘definitive’ take." With each take being a bit faster than the previous, he added that producer Alan Moulder would later consider the final take "the single most exciting moment he’d ever had in a studio." In the end, some bits of an earlier take were included in the final recording.

James Iha told TGM Magazine that he found the song "disturbing," describing it as the "the monster inside of the band trying to get out! … A touch of punk rock from the least punk rock band in the post-Nirvana stadium/alternative spectrum."