Butterfly Suite

"Butterfly Suite" is the second song from Act I of the The Smashing Pumpkins' twelfth studio album, ATUM: A Rock Opera in Three Acts. It is the first song containing action of the ATUM story.

Synopsis
In the second episode of the Thirty-Three with William Patrick Corgan podcast, Billy Corgan explained the story being told in the song. The scene opens up with a view of two vastly separated spaceships, one to the left, and one to the right. The left spaceship contains the main character, Shiny, whom due to being deemed as a danger to Earth, had been exiled into space. In the right spaceship contains June, a girl who unbeknownst to Shiny is deeply in love with him and has been most of her adult life. Unlike Shiny who was exiled, June willingly bribed her way to go into one of the spaceships so that she could be near Shiny. By this time, both had been in space for roughly 20 years. Every morning, June wakes up and sings her love song to Shiny (which is meant figuratively; space is in a vacuum so sound wouldn't really travel). "Butterfly Suite" is the love song she sings, addressing how June has sacrificed most of her adult life to be near Shiny.

In the middle of the song during the breakdown, Shiny punches in a code into his spaceship which launches him towards the Sun. Everyone who has been exiled into space is given a code. Breaking orbit and heading toward the Sun is a form of "honorable suicide", especially given the overpopulation of Earth in this story. This journey to the Sun called "The March of Life." After two decades, and not knowing of June's existence at all, Shiny has had enough and decides to take his March of Life. June watches helplessly, recognizing that this is the brutal end of her love affair. The last portion of the song addresses how June has come to the realization that her worst fears have come true, but yet because of her destiny she must do something. As Corgan explained it, "Shiny is her butterfly that she's chased into the heavens."