Machina/The Machines Of God

1. The Everlasting Gaze
2. Raindrops + SunShowers
3. Stand Inside Your Love
4. I of the Mourning
5. The Sacred and Profane
6. Try, Try, Try
7. Heavy Metal Machine
8. This Time
9. The Imploding Voice
10. Glass and the Ghost Children
11. Wound
12. The Crying Tree of Mercury
13. With Every Light
14. Blue Skies Bring Tears
15. Age of Innocence

excerpt from Glass and the Machines of God
Š1999 Billy Corgan

and as it was with all things, we spoke in rhyme and riddle...not for fear of detection, for that had happened very long time ago, but rather that those who had secretly wished to be spoken to were...

to know that these words were intended for them and theirs only...for lonely isles and windswept curses held the symbols transmuted and divined to hold within, to keep forever... only a warm heart and a knowing smile granting entrance to this mystery...for every age held it's oracles and truth tellers, it's false bell ringers of alarm, and of course the hollow spectres of complacency...so in this we sing the true echoes sown of old cloth, born to stare so ravaged by all they see...because truth is madness and madness truth truly revealed, and to see is to always see too much...to bear witness to the false and right and relay backwards and forwards that which you know...love the constant signal that heals and promotes as our truth teller sleeps inside furious walls, thrice blessed and crimson cursed...his story is the same story, and as with all without ending...a boy and a girl, simple yes but eternal always...glass plays, the machines shakes voltage, and the gaze is drawn again and again in uncertain lines...one ray catches a june eye, our angel who has waited so long...frozen to witness, we can walk around and survey this moment as close to perfection as any that have ever been, to see the joy, the exalt, the arrogance...with it's sheer violence of embrace and release slowly offering teeth gritting awareness, the song ends, the lovers arc, and in this bliss there is hope, expectation, and yes, pure and indivisible love...the girl, his love, the light that would transform any story into the moon and it's sister stars...she had no faith but that which destroys, and had only known herself in coarse mirrors, giving over and unto whatever moved her...opium eyed and gouge mouthed, she stalked a barren trail because she believed that all that was good had died long before she was named...she the reflection in glass, he in her that which he could not claim, her in him that which she so desperately needed, forever breaking...she had chased black holes of silence to find peace, and in turn that darkness swept into her a fever that was unshakable...their fates had intertwined long before they were lovers, their moment extending back before a time their eyes first met, and that bond was eternal, thru fire and chard to meet again and again until this moment, our apex and conclusion...

these lights rise to search the heavens, straining to be recognized in sanctity, purity, and insolence...to hopefully catch the gaze of a supreme intelligence, watching us quietly and nodding a silent approval...because it is with faith and faith only that one justifies the reach, with little to confirm but glimmer and awe, ritual and circumstance alike...in dreams and visions alike, so real and unreal to be imagined again and again in a reverse mindscape, was video fodder to soak in..he had his voice, disembodied with no claim...but were the sounds his? could he own these thought if they could be sold? thumbtacked to ceilings all over the world lay his schemes and praton wishes, cold flung to white light, like scrapnel of a teenage atom bomb...the kids waited their turn for their piece, and the eyes watched you everywhere...amongst these ruins our hero dies zero and finds a dead station moving static code...thru the channels and medium still he spoke only to find out he wasn't speaking at all, just humming someone elses favourite song...the voice says you are one of many more to come...in sadness and in love, in faith and movement alive

Glass and the Machines of God, Part II (sur le vinyl)

Eyes were being scratched still ant tattoes applied, but no one could or would ever hear the full secrets of glass … he was rewriting his story everyday, moving the fixed destiny point with every triumph and mistake … every kiss held new promise, every song a new disaster … all were sung to the ghost children, the synthetic flesh flash of ideal and glitter gash … in their dreams they saw him surreal, but he was as real as they needed him to be … discarded until he roared back into their visions, within blood and sound, once invested there was no turning back for anyone … plastic playmates and wooden rock rat haunted their hari kari plots and glass ‘ obvious play s for sympathy, or was it the other may around … he was a general leading them all into a war that he and they knew they could never win … but still they fought … to love and always die standing … moving in night funerals because all the others had perished , he caught glimpses of their faces every once in a while in rubble and wreckage strewn … he had fought way too long, jam wired shut … and now he held too long … past sleeping futures and endless newscasts, seeking shelter and a place to once again call home … in the dark he would fumble with food and foe, seeking contact and knowing confirmation … cells sighing agreement over concrete cold, always remembering … and as if drawn he would lumber on, gun in hand and tears in heart … he tried to keep a journal and kept losing the pages … pictures of trees ans dates taped to his chest … he had gone mad but there was no longer anyone he heard or he respected to tell him so … the grass grew very fast and it seemed he had to cut it every 4 or 5 days … on radio static he waited for an order that may never come … he had wanted to be outside in the direct sun, but the trees sang him to sleep … the weeping willow out back seemed to hang it’s hurt so obvious and no one seemed to mind … out the window he stared, seeking her and them … a day would come his mind would drone but there was no one there to agree … in fact the entire weight of his surroundinds seemed to indicate the exact opposite … but like a dumb fish he kepts swimming upstream … there was little of beauty to guide except the sun and moon, his constant companions … in majesty full the night came … the daylight only providing protection for the scars laid bare the night before … the pills seemed to have fallen on the floor everywhere, and no matter how hard one scrubbed the dirt was always there … even the neighbors smelled the garbage and impolite realities piled high and often, spilling over the redwood fence into their perfect yards … in the morning the grass shone dew prisms … on the midday sun it burned scorched brown thirst … and at night held cool moondust and starlight … out here the universe was vast, only in distance … it was never meant to be held there, it cried a mystery i am … and you must find me first if the game is ever to begin … in faith there is all power, in love all faith … every action a pebble dropped into the clear pool of humanity, rippling forever on until the waves becom indecipherable and unseen …. what seems like confusion becomes order of the highest magnitude … glass had so long ago reasoned himself out of reason … anxious but not afraid, he told himself that this meant something over and over until he began to believe it … the mask came off and he beheld yet another mask … like all modern men we could claim mastery over all, but it was a paper truth and he knew it …

All songs written by Billy Corgan
Produced by Flodd and Billy Corgan
Recorded at Pumpkinland by Howard Willing and Bjorn Thorsrud
except 'Age' recored at the Village Recorder
Mixed by Alan Moulder, Flood and Billy Corgan at Chicago Recording Studio
except 'Sacred', 'Glass', 'Light' and Skies' mixed by Flood and Billy Corgan, Howard Willing and Bjorn Thorsrud at Pumpkinland
'Age' Mixed by Alan Moulder, Flood and Billy Corgan at Whitfield Street Studio
Mix Assisted by Bill Douglas at CRC, Mike Zainer at Village Recorder,
Jef Moll and Erin Piepergerbes at CRC, and Andrew Nichollas at Whitfield Street Sudion

Mastered By Howie Weinburg at Masterdisk
Digital editing, compilation and additional programming by Bjorn Thorsrud
Technical Assistance to the Pumpkins by Tim "Gooch" Lougee, Scott Schimpff and Tommy Lipnick
All noise made by The Smashing Pumpkins except Piano on Light by Mike Garson

Art Direction by Gregory Sylvester and Thomas Wolfe of VSA Pertners, Billy Corgan and Yelena Yenchuck, Paintings and Etchings by Vasily Kafanov

Special thanks to Melissa Matuzak and Susie Forzano for all their assistance in mkaing this album possible.

All Songs Š 1999 Faust's Haus Music / Universal Publishing
The Story of MACHINA/the machines of God
Š 1999 Billy Corgan