The Smashing Pumpkins’ “To Sheila” Lyrics Meaning

In this song we find the vocalist celebrating his relationship with “Sheila” who, it should be pointed out from the jump, is not an actual person but a personification or abstraction.  And what it is that she or her relationship with Billy represents is, according to Corgan himself, The Smashing Pumpkins at the time being a point in their trajectory where their outlook, if you will, changed for good.

Some of the factors which prompted this change in perspective and style were forced on the band, in a manner of speaking. For instance, shortly before this track was dropped Jimmy Chamberlin, one of the co-founders of The Smashing Pumpkins, was sacked from the group due to his distracting drug addiction. 

The incident which brought his problem into the limelight, a heroin-overdosing episode that occurred during the summer of 1996, also resulted in one of the band’s touring members, one Jonathan Melvoin, actually dying at the age of 34.

“To Sheila” represents a Turning Point

So as Billy Corgan has described “To Sheila”, the opening track on their album “Adore”, it “represents a turning point in the band’s history”, prompted primarily by the departure of Chamberlin (who, just to note, did rejoin the crew some years down the line). 

Furthermore, beyond being “a veiled love song”, this track is also meant to speak to how “all we really seek in life is to truly feel alive”.

That said, the piece is highly poetic. But what appears to be going down is the vocalist being in some type less-than-ideal state. This state is prompting him to adopt a major change in life, such as ‘discarding his friends’ and seeking out a new place to call home. 

And by the looks of things, it is his relationship with Sheila that goes about enabling him to achieve that goal, or something to that effect. So now, Billy and the gang are internally empowered to face the world with a newfound sense of “faith” and “grace”.

So what can be ascertained here is that having recently endured a couple of tragedies, including parting ways with a founding and extremely influential bandmate, didn’t actually deter The Smashing Pumpkins. 

At the end of the day, it can be taken that Corgan and co. did need some time to step back and reevaluate things and were forced to modify their original plan/trajectory. But being empowered by “Sheila” – or let’s say a desire to continue to seek ways to live life to the fullest – they were able to do so with confidence instead of fear and apprehension.

When was “To Sheila” released?

This track is from “Adore”, The Smashing Pumpkins’ fourth studio album. The entire “Adore” project came out through Virgin Records on 2 June 1998.

“To Sheila” was the first track the band recorded for the album.

Apparently Virgin Records and co. were originally intent on issuing “To Sheila” as a single. However, after doing so promo wise (i.e. playing the song on the radio) it did not catch on. They therefore scratched the plan.

Credits

Corgan is this song’s writer. He also had a hand in producing this song alongside Brad Wood. According to Corgan, he wrote this song in Poland.