One Diamond, One Heart

Album: Oceania (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • This synth-driven track started off as an acoustic number, and it was Smashing Pumpkins bassist Nicole Fiorentino who transformed it into the finished song. "We tried it as an acoustic song, but it sounded like a nice but unremarkable kind of K-Rock ballad," explained Billy Corgan to Music Radar. So we started throwing stuff at the wall to find some energy. I really liked the track," he continued, "but I think at one point it was very keyboard-heavy, and it was only going so far in my mind, so I went to Nicole and said, 'You've really got to pull a rabbit out of the hat. You've got to make something happen.' She sat down, and in two hours' time she wrote the bass part. That, to me, was the turning point.

    In terms of unexplored territory for me as a writer, someone like Nicole can bring this different melodicism and approach where you can play something simple, and you don't have to rely on strings or guitars to get it past. You've got another voiced instrument. If you played her lines on a piano, they'd be very beautiful, but there's something about a stringed instrument – an expressiveness.

    That's why it's such a good band record, because it's not just me creating the majority of the picture. It's a wider set of influences, a wider palette."

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