Tales of a Scorched Earth

"Tales of a Scorched Earth" is a song from The Smashing Pumpkins' third studio album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It's one of the most experimental tracks on the album, and almost didn't make the cut.

I just took a driving trip, and listened to the whole album for the first time in a couple of months, and stuff jumped out at me that's hadn't before. Like "Tales of a Scorched Earth," which is just a bit about teenage nihilism. When I recorded the song, I had mixed feelings about putting it on the album, but when I just got away from the intellectualizing and just listened to it, I enjoyed it. It's total bombast. Within the context of the whole record, it fits nicely. It's a nice opposing ice cream flavor.

Equipment
Corgan overdubbed an unusually tuned guitar part over the chorus. The G string is tuned up one half step to G#, while the high E strings was tuned up one whole step to F#. Effectively, all pitches actually sound on half step lower configuration, as all the guitars are tuned down one half step. From there, the guitar goes through an envelope filter that "sounds strange".

The bridge of the song features a regular bass, along with a Fender P-bass played with a pick making it sound more like a six-string bass. In addition are a few guitars that were played through envelopes, including one "real scratchy guitar". There are roughly six or seven different instruments being used in this portion of the song alone.