“Disarm” is a song by American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins. It was the third single from their second album, Siamese Dream. “Disarm” was written by Billy Corgan (and produced by Butch Vig) and is one of the band’s most highly regarded songs. Corgan considers it the most personally important song on the album.
The BBC banned the song from appearing on Top of the Pops, because of the lyric “cut that little child”, and it received little radio airplay in the UK. That lyric along with lyrics like “what I choose is my choice” and “the killer in me is the killer in you” has also led to some controversy, as some inexplicably read it as a reference to abortion. Corgan has stated that the song reflects the shaky relationship he had with his parents while growing up. However, even with the ban and the limited radio time, it still peaked at number eleven on the UK Singles Chart..
The music video, directed by Jake Scott (Ridley Scott’s son, Tony Scott’s nephew and the director of the ‘Ménage à trois‘ episode of The Hunger TV series) is black and white and shows the members of the band floating over images of an old gothic house, an old man walking through an underpass while home movie-esque, color footage shows a young boy (Sean Adams) playing outside. Billy Corgan has said that he didn’t want the old man in the video, but Scott insisted. The video premiered on MTV in late 1993 and was immediately placed into heavy rotation. It has since become a perennial on channels such as Kerrang!
