"HERE IS NO WHY"
Supposedly, Here Is No Why is not a holocaust song.
"It's kind of a basic ode to the death rock me," said Billy. "The me that existed at eighteen. The black haired mysanthrope."
On the surface, the lyrics bear out this interpretation:
the useless drag of another day
the endless drags of a death rock boy
mascara sure and lipstick lost
glitter burned by restless thoughts
of being forgotten
But then there's the holocaust reference.
"Heir ist kein warum."
It's a connection that seems bizarre enough without the controversy that surrounded the subject from 1997 and 1998. Members of the Listessa Message Board alleged links between the writings of Elie Weisel and the album. While these were demonstrated to be false, there were nevertheless some uncanny connections between the music and holocaust imagery, as reported by Rolling Stone magazine. Since 1976, Elie Weisel has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at Boston University. His books include Dawn, Dusk, and Twilight. Incidentally, "Mellon" is not a word (vs. "melon," as in "watermelon.") Statistically, it is reasonable to suspect that this is, after all, just a coincidence.
Did it just get mixed up in the transcriptions?1
Or more importantly, does happenstance impede meaningful interpretation?
Billy Corgan was offended at the accusations of "lyrical plagiarism," and the conversation died.
1
How might we interpret "restless thoughts of being forgotten" through the lens of the holocaust? What are the "lonely towers of long mistakes"?
