The Everlasting Gaze

ATN: This album opens with the line "You know I'm not dead." That seems like sort of a bold statement coming from you, don't you think? A bit loaded?

[laughter]

Corgan: The irony wasn't lost on us, but it was nothing that was intentional.

ATN: It's one of those classic Pumpkins rock tunes, a return to that hard sound. Was it meant to signify some kind of resurgence?

Corgan: The cerebral part of it kicks in when the album's done, but when we're doing it we don't really think in those terms. We insulate ourselves, we don't really have a posse of friends, so we get in our hermetically sealed world. In a metaphysical sense, having "I'm not dead" — it has a great irony to us as the first line. We chose that song first because it just seemed to kick the door open, and for us — every album that we've done with [drummer] Jimmy [Chamberlin], it's always been trying to top ourselves. Not just in terms of a rock dynamic, but in terms of finding something new, because we're such fucking over-the-top music fans that we can't — it's so postmodern — we can't escape our own influence ... I don't mean influence, but awareness of influence. So if it doesn't have anything new, we get, like, 'This sucks.' It had more to do with the riff. The riff says "I'm not dead" more than me saying it

ATN: You can imagine that people are going to read into it ...

Corgan: That's become like a game now, at this point.

ATN: What about this line, "The fickle fascination of an everlasting god" from that song? What have you seen in your life over these past few years that led you to write a line like that? It has this feeling of divine randomness.

Corgan: I'm speaking more to human nature. I use my life as a paradigm by which to stream information, but ultimately it's inconsequential. Oftentimes I assume — I wouldn't go so far [as how David] Bowie says he'll take on a character — but I assume an emotion that is not something you could hold onto for a week, but you could hold onto for an hour.

3/00 -ATN

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The first single from MACHINA, "The Everlasting Gaze' is played in what Corgan calls "C tuning," which is standard tuning transposed down two whole steps (low to high: C F Bb Eb G C). "That's the best key for that song," says Corgan. "Detuning the strings definitely adds to the dark quality of the riff." Corgan is referring to the song's opening instrumental hook, which is based on the inherently dar-sounding E Phrygian mode (E F G A B C D). He adds, "Even when we tune down, we still refer to the notes and chord shapes by their regular names, no matter what key we're actually in."

In measures 6 and 8 of the transcription, notice how the part played by guitar 2 doubles the rumbling bass line (the bass is also tuned down two whole steps), while guitar 1 strums unison high E notes. The open E provides the sonic bite, while the fretted E on the second string is treated with a furious hand vibrato that leands aggression to the riff and creates a hair-raising, natural chorusing effect as its pitch rises above that of the open string.

The song's pre-chorus features another cool single-note riff that's doubled an octave lower by bass. Note the effective use of rhythmic syncopation here, as several notes falling on the eighth-note upbeats are accented and held over the following downbeats. Also notice how this riff implies the chord progression E5 A5 G5 F, even though none of the notes ring together.

For the chorus section Corgan and guitarist James Iha create a roaring "wash" of harmony behind the vocal melody by strumming ringing, open chords in steady eighth notes all using downstrokes. Rather than use garden-variety major and minor chords for this part, the guitarists employ "sus2" and "add6" voicings that include more open strings. These open notes generate harmonics that interact better with the other notes of each chord when played with distortion, creating overtones that are less harsh than those that would result from strumming regular major and minor chords. They also help improve the sonic clarity of these unusually low-tuned voicings, and provide enough "cut" to keep them from sounding muddy.

Substituting open strings for fretted notes in chords like these can also help mitigate intonation problems that may result from pressing down too hard or unevenly on the strings when they're slackened to such an extent. "The only downside to tuning a guitar that low is that the intonation's a fucking nightmare!" says Corgan. "The thing swims like crazy. you really have to tune the guitar carefully and play with a lighter touch than you normally would. It's one thing when you're playing live, because the sound tends to be all over the place anyway. But when you're recording, your intonation has to be good." To help reduce intonation instability when tuning their guitars down this low, Corgan and Iha use thicker strings (.11 - or.12-gauge sets). I can't remember the exact gauges we used," says Corgan, "but i know they were a lot heavier than normal."

The outro vamp to "The Everlasting Gaze" is built upon a simple open 6th-string motif that develops into a full-blown riff. The section begins with a catchy, syncopated rhythm figure pounded out on the open low E string that sets up a huge-sounding, 1st-position riff in E Phrygian. "The tone of an open string is one thing we'll never grow tired of." says Corgan

-Guitar World 4/2000