Wiki
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Length
9:11
The elusive lover, Porcelina, beckons the subject to the edge of belief and beyond. His belief system changes as he gives into Porcelina and gazes past “The realm of soft delusions.”
Ordinarily we put up mental blocks as a defense mechanism in order to stay within the fragile framework that supports our belief system. Corgan refers to this defense mechanism as “the thought police” in these lyrics and suggests that the power of Porcelina is causing them to shut down.
Porcelina is now free to take the narrator as far as she wishes, past his preconceived notions and into a deeper realm of thought.
"On our first two albums we’d grown accustomed to the benefit of playing many of the songs live long before they’d been crystallized on tape. Once stuck in the glut of so many ideas, I suggested we consider playing a few hometown shows to hammer out some kinks, as well as force the dubious pretenders among us out into the light.
This made plenty of sense to everyone save for the fact that very few of the 50 plus songs we were working on at any given time had any true lyrics by which I might sing a show. Only 72 hours before the first of 4 planned such dates I found myself with about 400 lines to fill and very little idea of what I might want to say if indeed I wanted to say anything at all. I raced my way through various spiraled notebooks, compiling a sort of master syllabus of lines and fragmented poems that I’d jotted down along my travails.
What came out in haste was a sort of running screed, where common ideas spilled over one another until I wasn’t sure what any of the songs were really about. I ended keeping most of what I’d scrawled out in that moment of compression and pressure, and you can see that most clearly in a song like Porcelina, where vague allusions to mythic tides and sinking ships seemed only to enhance the unconscious feelings within. Carl Jung would be proud!
As much as I want every line of every song to be perfect, there is something perfect about not fussing over anything too much; letting synchronicity be a teacher and guide to the stars."
- Billy Corgan, 2012 Reissue Liner Notes
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