Take Me Down
Produced by
Take Me Down Lyrics
And take me down, to the underground
Won't you take me down, to the underground
Why oh why, there is no light
And if I can't sleep, can you hold my life?
And all I see is you
[Verse 2: James Iha]
And take my hand, I lost where I began
In my heart I know all of my faults, will you help me understand?
And I believe in you, you're the other half of me
Soothe and heal, when you sleep, when you dream
I'll be there if you need me, whenever I hear you sing
[Outro: James Iha]
There is a sun
It'll come, the sun
Hear them call me down
I held you once, a love that once, and life had just begun
And you're all I see
And trumpets blew, and angels flew on the other side, dear
And you're all I see, and you're all I'll need
There's a love that God puts in your heart
About
The final track of the first half of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Dawn to Dusk), “Take Me Down” features guitarist James Iha on vocals instead of Billy Corgan.
The meaning of the song can be interpreted in a couple different ways. The narrator may be beckoning another to join them in their life. Other lyrics suggest they may be returning to a familiar and comfortable place after being exposed to the blistering weather of the world.
This particular song plays a large part in Pumpkins history. As described in Billy Corgan’s liner notes found below, James Iha’s involvement with this album and his relationship with the band itself found a turning point in the development of this track.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
With 7 years in on the band, James had expressed interest in singing his own songs rather than to just contribute to ideas which I might develop into my own. There was real enthusiasm and support around him in the hopes he might chart his own path as a singer-songwriter; as long as what he brought to the band was strong.
‘Take Me Down’ was a tune I personally felt worthy of inclusion from the start, but in the process of fleshing out its varying ideas the rest of us became moribund on a dreary isle. It is fair to say that there are many songs on Mellon Collie that are not band efforts per se, where in pursuing a particular feeling I wanted my singular ideas included as part of the work as a greater whole. In the end ‘Take Me Down’ became a different kind of solo effort, because James would not allow his song to be transmuted from its primary colors by the band; and we did work on it endlessly as a group, perhaps spending more time on this than any other in the studio.
As such when we finished the album I sequenced it towards the end of record #1, because thematically it fit in nowhere I could find; although sonically its drowsiness had echoes elsewhere. James saw the demotion of his favored song to the back of the line as an unforgivable slight, killing his desire to contribute to the band as a writer of note from that moment on.
- 3.Jellybelly
- 4.Zero
- 7.To Forgive
- 9.Love
- 10.Cupid de Locke
- 11.Galapogos
- 12.Muzzle
- 14.Take Me Down
- 16.Bodies
- 17.Thirty-Three
- 19.1979
- 22.Stumbleine
- 23.X.Y.U.
- 25.Beautiful
- 27.By Starlight
