Smashing Pumpkins has the best Song Titles

Songwriting comes (at times) pretty easy for me. But naming a song, well that’s another story. I probably put too much thought into it, but a song title is important to me. You want to be creative with it, but you also want people to relate it to (and remember it with) the song. So that way they can find it on the album or on the web, or more importantly request it at a show.

I recently finished compiling our Greatest Hits Album and I noticed a trend. Our songs have usually three word titles. It would have been a little hokey, but I could have made our album songs read like a sentence. For instance here are three titles: “She falls,” “In the Morning,” “On a Train.” You see what I mean?

I thought it would be funny one time to have an album’s track names be numbers… But not just numbers, roman numerals… And not just roman numerals, roman numerals spelled phonetically. Example:

1. Eye

2. Eye Eye

3. Eye Eye Eye

4. Eye Vee

5. Vee

6. Vee Eye

7. Vee Eye Eye

8. Vee Eye Eye Eye

9. Eye Ex

10. Ex

When I think of song titles I have to think of Smashing Pumpkins. A lot of times their titles never appear in the song, but you can still associate the title with the song. For example: “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” and “Thirty-Three.” Both of these titles are not featured anywhere in the song, but still somehow it works perfectly in conjunction with the song.

The newest song I am working that has a title I am most pleased with is “South out of Springfield.” It’s not that creative, I just feel it sounds like there is a story to be told.

The title I am least pleased with is “Your Own Way.” It is the first song I’ve written based (loosely) on fatherhood. The song is about providing the foundation for my children, but ultimately they are going to have to find their own way. There just wasn’t any lines from the song that stood out as great titles, nor were there any ideas for titles not featured within the song. And I feel like “Your Own Way” is just too generic, but it’s the best I have right now.

I have debated changing the name to “Shoots and Ladders” because of the kid’s reference and the fact that each person’s journey is different and filled with ups and downs.

If Billy Corgon were to name this song he would call it “Absolum and Sawdust.” I know because I asked him:)