Cupid de Locke

"Cupid de Locke" is a song from The Smashing Pumpkins' third studio album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Featuring harp arpeggios, salt shakers, scissors, among other household items, it is an example of the rich diversity of instrumentation used on the album. It is among the furthest departures from the band's typical sound on the album.

I had to challenge myself to veer away from my old standbys - which everybody has - and stretch my creativity. I think that's what helped me embrace the technology and not limit myself to just the drum kit. I used everything from hair spray to a pair of scissors - whatever was laying around - to come up with different sounds. We used a bottle of aspirin as a shaker. We'd just throw it on tape, sample it, and loop it. You can hear that kind of stuff on "Cupid..."

Background
"Cupid de Locke" may refer to Matthew Locke, an English Baroque composer during the 17th century who scored a masque entitled Cupid and Death. In this story, Cupid and Death get their arrows mixed up which caused distress and humor to ensue. Love is held in the ideal, driven up high above a nasty world and held gloriously in places of unshakable faith. In a rare fit of fun we even recorded whisping aerosol cans and haughty, rusted scissor snips to build up an unusual kaleidoscope chorus around the semi-chromatic wheeze of the synth. Not a note is played by a human as it were, each part being fed through a phalanx of mystery boxes, which when twisted and turned just right spit back out a different set of warbles than the funny marbles you’d put in.

In a humble nod to Elvis, there is even a spoken poem of dedication that lilts out on the gallop, for I couldn’t help myself but wrap fully in the cloak of a sincere and innocent lover.