“Mayonaise”:
No Video,
No Chorus,
No Problem
No Video,
No Chorus,
No Problem
To name one of the most piercing guitar ballads of the ’90s “Mayonaise,” you have to either have a sense of humor — or nerves of steel. Billy Corgan claimed the title came about accidentally, when he was rummaging through the fridge looking for a snack.
Ironically, it was this very non-single track that became a secret fan anthem: in 2012, Rolling Stone readers voted “Mayonaise” the number one Smashing Pumpkins song.
And thirty years later, this thick mixture of noise and emotion hasn’t lost a single drop of its power.
Recording Siamese Dream turned into a psychological thriller
1993. Alternative rock had taken over the mainstream. Grunge-era kings Nirvana and Pearl Jam ruled MTV.
After the successful debut Gish (1991), the Chicago four faced a clear task — to deliver an album that would “blow the world up.”
The Smashing Pumpkins, however, were the black sheep among their peers: too ambitious for the scene’s “punk cred,” they were often accused of excessive pomp and grandiosity.
After the successful debut Gish (1991), the Chicago four faced a clear task — to deliver an album that would “blow the world up.”
Corgan was struggling with depression and creative paralysis; bassist D’arcy and guitarist James Iha went through a breakup; drummer Jimmy Chamberlin would disappear into heroin binges.
Instead of collective therapy came total control by Corgan. He locked himself in the studio for up to 16 hours a day, layering guitar parts until the tape practically melted from overdubs.
The suffering paid off. Siamese Dream became a platinum breakthrough, reached No. 10 on the Billboard charts, and cemented the Pumpkins’ place in the ’90s pantheon.
And while the record produced hits like “Cherub Rock,” “Today,” and “Disarm,” it was the ninth track — a strangely titled semi-ballad with no video — that quietly captured listeners’ hearts.
The suffering paid off. Siamese Dream became a platinum breakthrough, reached No. 10 on the Billboard charts, and cemented the Pumpkins’ place in the ’90s pantheon.
And while the record produced hits like “Cherub Rock,” “Today,” and “Disarm,” it was the ninth track — a strangely titled semi-ballad with no video — that quietly captured listeners’ hearts.
“Mayonaise” is a five-and-a-half-minute masterclass in dynamics and texture.
It begins with a clean, melancholic guitar arpeggio — simple, but instantly gripping. Then the Big Muff pedal kicks in: a warm, thick fuzz wraps the melody like a blanket.
The restrained intro suddenly explodes — Chamberlin launches into a rolling drum pattern, and the guitars crash down in a landslide of massive chords. Here the Pumpkins showcase their signature contrast: quiet versus loud, tenderness versus rage.
It begins with a clean, melancholic guitar arpeggio — simple, but instantly gripping. Then the Big Muff pedal kicks in: a warm, thick fuzz wraps the melody like a blanket.
The restrained intro suddenly explodes — Chamberlin launches into a rolling drum pattern, and the guitars crash down in a landslide of massive chords. Here the Pumpkins showcase their signature contrast: quiet versus loud, tenderness versus rage.
In the pauses between guitar surges, a strange whistle emerges — a high, sustained tone lingering in the background. This “squeal” was accidental. Corgan was playing a cheap $65 guitar, and whenever he let go of the strings, the instrument emitted a piercing whistle.
Instead of fixing it, the band decided to turn the bug into a feature. They built stops into the arrangement specifically to exploit the effect. americansongwriter.com
In the song’s climax, the guitar layers stack into euphoric noise — yet the melody never drowns in the chaos. On the contrary, the distorted, dream-pop-dense guitars give the song a sense of “bittersweet romance.”
The sound of “Mayonaise” both soothes and rages. It’s a wall of sound shot through with rays of longing and hope.
The final touch is a quiet guitar figure fading out, bringing us back to where we started — except now it feels like we’ve been taken on an emotional roller coaster.
Instead of fixing it, the band decided to turn the bug into a feature. They built stops into the arrangement specifically to exploit the effect. americansongwriter.com
In the song’s climax, the guitar layers stack into euphoric noise — yet the melody never drowns in the chaos. On the contrary, the distorted, dream-pop-dense guitars give the song a sense of “bittersweet romance.”
The sound of “Mayonaise” both soothes and rages. It’s a wall of sound shot through with rays of longing and hope.
The final touch is a quiet guitar figure fading out, bringing us back to where we started — except now it feels like we’ve been taken on an emotional roller coaster.
Corgan initially considered the lyrics to “Mayonaise”
a disconnected collection of lines. Written last for the album, the song came together hastily from fragmented images and “weird one-off phrases.”
“Fool enough to almost be it / Cool enough to not quite see it,” he sings — admitting he’s foolish enough to nearly reach something, and detached enough not to recognize it. These seemingly cryptic lines grow out of deep self-doubt.
“No more promise, no more sorrow / No longer will I follow / Can anybody hear me? / I just want to be me” — in the finale, Corgan seems to rip off the mask. He’s tired of chasing other people’s ideals and simply screams into the void: I want to be myself.
a disconnected collection of lines. Written last for the album, the song came together hastily from fragmented images and “weird one-off phrases.”
“Fool enough to almost be it / Cool enough to not quite see it,” he sings — admitting he’s foolish enough to nearly reach something, and detached enough not to recognize it. These seemingly cryptic lines grow out of deep self-doubt.
“No more promise, no more sorrow / No longer will I follow / Can anybody hear me? / I just want to be me” — in the finale, Corgan seems to rip off the mask. He’s tired of chasing other people’s ideals and simply screams into the void: I want to be myself.
Behind the abstractions lies something intensely personal: childhood trauma, depression, a sense of isolation.
“Mother, weep the years I’m missing, all our time can’t be given back,” the narrator addresses his mother, mourning lost time and inflicted pain. The lines carry bitter remorse and the loneliness of someone who felt “too old on the inside” from a young age.
Themes of introspection, isolation, and longing for authenticity run through the lyrics.
Notably, Corgan later admitted he didn’t immediately understand what the song was about himself:
“I just threw together a bunch of disconnected lines… And now, when I sing ‘Mayonaise,’ it shocks me how accurately it reflects what I was feeling back then — even though I didn’t realize it at the time.”
It became an unintentional sonic self-portrait. Perhaps that naked emotional honesty is exactly why the song resonates so deeply with fans — everyone hears their own private sorrows and hopes in it, the ones that are hardest to say out loud.
When Siamese Dream hit, critics realized that alt-rock could be more than raw and feral — it could also be epic and multilayered.
The Pumpkins raised the bar for their peers. From that point on, noisy guitars were allowed to shine like pop hooks. Without “Mayonaise,” there might not have been half of the atmospheric rock anthems that followed in the ’90s and 2000s.
That famous “wall of heavenly guitar fireworks” became a template for an entire wave of bands.
Its legacy is clearly audible in today’s nu-gaze acts rediscovering lush, overdriven dream-guitar textures.
Siamese Dream has long been a fixture on lists of the greatest albums of the ’90s.
“Mayonaise” consistently ranks among fans’ favorite tracks: it won Rolling Stone’s 2012 reader poll by a noticeable margin, beating even massive hits like “1979” and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”
In 2021, Kerrang! placed it at No. 4 among the band’s best songs. Not bad for a track that was never officially released as a single.
Beyond charts and rankings, the song’s influence showed up in subtler ways. Its bold fusion of fragility and loudness inspired a generation of alternative musicians to search for beauty in noise.
Indie rockers Silversun Pickups, for example, clearly borrowed from the Pumpkins’ recipe in the 2000s — their hit “Lazy Eye” was often compared to Corgan’s work for its mix of gentle melody and explosive guitar surges.
Even in heavier scenes, echoes of a Mayonaise-like atmosphere can be heard. From emotive post-hardcore to the “sweet” strain of late-’90s nu-metal, many artists weren’t afraid to inject sentimentality and dreamlike gloss into heavy music after seeing the Pumpkins do it first.
The song also experienced surprising resurgences years later. In 2023, “Mayonaise” suddenly appeared in the finale of Netflix’s hit series BEEF, marking the emotional climax of the story.
A new audience — far removed from the ’90s — found itself stunned by how perfectly an old indie anthem underscored modern drama.
The Pumpkins themselves acknowledge the song’s longevity. For the album’s 30th anniversary, they even released “Mayonaise” as a standalone vinyl single in 2023.
The journey from deep album cut to anniversary vinyl is yet another sign of the song’s place in rock culture.
Of course, with cult status came skeptics. During the Pumpkins’ rise, underground scenes mocked them for having “not a drop of punk — just pure stadium bombast.”
Steve Albini sneered that they were “the new REO Speedwagon,” implying that beneath the alternative noise lurked plain arena rock.
Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth was even more blunt, saying the Pumpkins were “not punk at all.”
Even the title “Mayonaise” confused some listeners. How seriously could you take a “mayonnaise song”?
Critics pointed to the performative melancholy and over-designed sound, which clashed with grunge’s dirty, anti-polished ethos.
Time, however, sorted everything out. A trillion guitar overdubs didn’t stop “Mayonaise” from being painfully sincere.
Those who accused Corgan of excessive seriousness may simply not have been used to a rock frontman being this vulnerable and romantic — without a hint of irony.
You can argue endlessly that fans overrated the song (even Rolling Stone readers questioned the No. 1 choice).
But the fact remains: “Mayonaise” has aged better than many ’90s hits.
As for its “un-punk” scope — sorry, but is it really a crime for an alt-rock band to care about sonic beauty without losing emotional depth? If that breaks punk rules, then maybe the rules were the problem.
Why should a 20-year-old listener in 2025 care about a track from 1993? Because some things exist outside of time — and “Mayonaise” is one of them.
Its themes — feeling incomplete, searching for identity, grieving lost connections — resonate with every generation.
Gen Z may not know what it was like to wait for a music video premiere on MTV, but loneliness in a social-media world is painfully familiar.
“Can anybody hear me? I just want to be me” — is there a more universal cry?
In an era where life is filtered into glossy perfection on Instagram and TikTok, Corgan’s raw emotional intensity feels almost radical.
There’s also the purely musical angle. At a time when many indie artists rely on soft synths and loops, the living, breathing chaos of “Mayonaise” — its warm analog distortion and wild dynamics — delivers a completely different listening experience.
It reminds us that music isn’t just clean presets, but risk, spontaneity, and the energy exchange of real people in a room.
No wonder new bands keep reaching back to the ’90s, trying to recapture that spark.
“Mayonaise” has survived shifts in centuries, formats, and trends because its DNA contains something more permanent: sincerity and passion. And those ingredients never expire.
You can smile at the absurdity of the title or argue about the Smashing Pumpkins’ place in history, but the fact remains: “Mayonaise” still paints what’s happening inside us with strokes of guitar noise.
And if a song named after a sandwich condiment makes you feel a little less alone — rock ’n’ roll did its job.
Listen further:
Copyright Disclaimer:
All images and media used in this publication are for cultural, journalistic, and educational purposes only. We do not claim ownership of these materials. All rights belong to their respective owners.
If you are a copyright holder and believe your work has been used unfairly, please contact us at we@the-oto.com — we will provide full credit or remove the image immediately.
“Mother, weep the years I’m missing, all our time can’t be given back,” the narrator addresses his mother, mourning lost time and inflicted pain. The lines carry bitter remorse and the loneliness of someone who felt “too old on the inside” from a young age.
Themes of introspection, isolation, and longing for authenticity run through the lyrics.
Notably, Corgan later admitted he didn’t immediately understand what the song was about himself:
“I just threw together a bunch of disconnected lines… And now, when I sing ‘Mayonaise,’ it shocks me how accurately it reflects what I was feeling back then — even though I didn’t realize it at the time.”
It became an unintentional sonic self-portrait. Perhaps that naked emotional honesty is exactly why the song resonates so deeply with fans — everyone hears their own private sorrows and hopes in it, the ones that are hardest to say out loud.
When Siamese Dream hit, critics realized that alt-rock could be more than raw and feral — it could also be epic and multilayered.
The Pumpkins raised the bar for their peers. From that point on, noisy guitars were allowed to shine like pop hooks. Without “Mayonaise,” there might not have been half of the atmospheric rock anthems that followed in the ’90s and 2000s.
That famous “wall of heavenly guitar fireworks” became a template for an entire wave of bands.
Its legacy is clearly audible in today’s nu-gaze acts rediscovering lush, overdriven dream-guitar textures.
Siamese Dream has long been a fixture on lists of the greatest albums of the ’90s.
“Mayonaise” consistently ranks among fans’ favorite tracks: it won Rolling Stone’s 2012 reader poll by a noticeable margin, beating even massive hits like “1979” and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”
In 2021, Kerrang! placed it at No. 4 among the band’s best songs. Not bad for a track that was never officially released as a single.
Beyond charts and rankings, the song’s influence showed up in subtler ways. Its bold fusion of fragility and loudness inspired a generation of alternative musicians to search for beauty in noise.
Indie rockers Silversun Pickups, for example, clearly borrowed from the Pumpkins’ recipe in the 2000s — their hit “Lazy Eye” was often compared to Corgan’s work for its mix of gentle melody and explosive guitar surges.
Even in heavier scenes, echoes of a Mayonaise-like atmosphere can be heard. From emotive post-hardcore to the “sweet” strain of late-’90s nu-metal, many artists weren’t afraid to inject sentimentality and dreamlike gloss into heavy music after seeing the Pumpkins do it first.
The song also experienced surprising resurgences years later. In 2023, “Mayonaise” suddenly appeared in the finale of Netflix’s hit series BEEF, marking the emotional climax of the story.
A new audience — far removed from the ’90s — found itself stunned by how perfectly an old indie anthem underscored modern drama.
The Pumpkins themselves acknowledge the song’s longevity. For the album’s 30th anniversary, they even released “Mayonaise” as a standalone vinyl single in 2023.
The journey from deep album cut to anniversary vinyl is yet another sign of the song’s place in rock culture.
Of course, with cult status came skeptics. During the Pumpkins’ rise, underground scenes mocked them for having “not a drop of punk — just pure stadium bombast.”
Steve Albini sneered that they were “the new REO Speedwagon,” implying that beneath the alternative noise lurked plain arena rock.
Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth was even more blunt, saying the Pumpkins were “not punk at all.”
Even the title “Mayonaise” confused some listeners. How seriously could you take a “mayonnaise song”?
Critics pointed to the performative melancholy and over-designed sound, which clashed with grunge’s dirty, anti-polished ethos.
Time, however, sorted everything out. A trillion guitar overdubs didn’t stop “Mayonaise” from being painfully sincere.
Those who accused Corgan of excessive seriousness may simply not have been used to a rock frontman being this vulnerable and romantic — without a hint of irony.
You can argue endlessly that fans overrated the song (even Rolling Stone readers questioned the No. 1 choice).
But the fact remains: “Mayonaise” has aged better than many ’90s hits.
As for its “un-punk” scope — sorry, but is it really a crime for an alt-rock band to care about sonic beauty without losing emotional depth? If that breaks punk rules, then maybe the rules were the problem.
Why should a 20-year-old listener in 2025 care about a track from 1993? Because some things exist outside of time — and “Mayonaise” is one of them.
Its themes — feeling incomplete, searching for identity, grieving lost connections — resonate with every generation.
Gen Z may not know what it was like to wait for a music video premiere on MTV, but loneliness in a social-media world is painfully familiar.
“Can anybody hear me? I just want to be me” — is there a more universal cry?
In an era where life is filtered into glossy perfection on Instagram and TikTok, Corgan’s raw emotional intensity feels almost radical.
There’s also the purely musical angle. At a time when many indie artists rely on soft synths and loops, the living, breathing chaos of “Mayonaise” — its warm analog distortion and wild dynamics — delivers a completely different listening experience.
It reminds us that music isn’t just clean presets, but risk, spontaneity, and the energy exchange of real people in a room.
No wonder new bands keep reaching back to the ’90s, trying to recapture that spark.
“Mayonaise” has survived shifts in centuries, formats, and trends because its DNA contains something more permanent: sincerity and passion. And those ingredients never expire.
You can smile at the absurdity of the title or argue about the Smashing Pumpkins’ place in history, but the fact remains: “Mayonaise” still paints what’s happening inside us with strokes of guitar noise.
And if a song named after a sandwich condiment makes you feel a little less alone — rock ’n’ roll did its job.
Listen further:
- The Smashing Pumpkins — “Soma” (1993) — Another epic Siamese Dream track where a quiet intro blooms into a full-blown guitar storm.
- The Smashing Pumpkins — “Drown” (1992) — An atmospheric masterpiece from the Singles soundtrack — nearly eight minutes of grunge dreaminess and signature guitar feedback at the finale.
- My Bloody Valentine — “Only Shallow” (1991) — The opening track of Loveless, a benchmark of noisy, shimmering guitar sound that inspired Corgan’s sonic experiments.
- Silversun Pickups — “Lazy Eye” (2006) — A 2000s indie hit steeped in the Pumpkins’ spirit: gentle verses, explosive choruses, and a dense layer of guitars soaked in sweet melancholy.
Copyright Disclaimer:
All images and media used in this publication are for cultural, journalistic, and educational purposes only. We do not claim ownership of these materials. All rights belong to their respective owners.
If you are a copyright holder and believe your work has been used unfairly, please contact us at we@the-oto.com — we will provide full credit or remove the image immediately.
