To Sheila

"To Sheila" is a song from The Smashing Pumpkins' fourth studio album, Adore. It was released again as a promotional single in 1999. The song features backing vocals by Dennis and Jimmy Flemion of The Frogs, who were close friends with The Smashing Pumpkins.

Background
The song was written while the band was on tour in Poland. Billy Corgan has said the lyrics came to him as they were driving down a country road in their van. He later wrote the music around the lyrics. He also explained that the song was not written about a real person: Written in Poland, the lyrics coming to me as I rode with our band party down a non-descript county road. The first take on the first day of the album, and the song that trumpeted in softly a new era; or what was the final era; or the end of the only era; or the beginning of this era. Either way, the melody and simplicity of chords presented is both a coming and going; or better said, a door in and out. There was no Sheila, but if she does exist somewhere beyond the limits of my imagination I imagine her to be Gaelic. One other impression: the line, 'you make me real,' strikes me as odd as its intention would be that up until this point I wasn't; or that your narrator never was. For that which is struck into negation still exists, and is a law of love that tyrants can never understand. On the Thirty-Three podcast, Corgan detailed how terrifying it was to sing the song in the studio. On previous albums, there was pressure from the producers to record many vocal takes, but on this track – the first one recorded for Adore – the acoustic guitar and vocals were recorded live in a single take.