Violet Rays

"Violet Rays" is a song by The Smashing Pumpkins off of their 2012 studio album, Oceania. Although not released as a single, it charted on the Billboard Hot 100 due to online sales, peaking at #27.

This song, in particular, really shows what the band is bringing to the table. There's a certain vibe and ambience that's very much them. There's a lot of parts to it. We're rehearsing it right now for the tour, and we're like, 'What the fuck is going on?' [laughs]

It was written as a straight acoustic song, starting with just the ascending figure. After months of hearing the basic demo, Corgan broke down the song into chords without any rhythm, wrote the song melodically and reverse-engineered it back into the riffs.

The arpeggios heard in the recording are a Moog 55 keyboard.