Jimmy Chamberlain [sic] was on drugs; D'arcy Wretzky and James Iha had just split up; Billy Corgan was depressed and fat: In short, the perfect combination of the Smashing Pumpkins' early-'90s anthem to doomed youth.

No less an authority than Billy Corgan once dismissed "Today" as a "cheesy pop song," yet without ever seriously denting the charts, it has achieved a remarkable status as one of the defining songs of its generation, perfectly mirroring the fractured alienation of the American youth in the 1990s.

Its journey from "cheesey pop" to iconic anthem is understandable, though, given that all was not well in Pumpkin Central when the band demoed the track in their hometown, Chicago, in autumn 1992. "Before and during the recording of Siamese Dream, and during the writing process, things were kind of fucked up," bassist D'arcy Wretzky recalls. "I think we weren't mature enough not to take it out on each other."

Wretzky and James Iha, who had been dating, were breaking up, and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain was beginning to have serious drug problems. Corgan, the band's leader, was in no position to keep the Pumpkins on track, having just lost his apartment in a split with his long-term girlfriend, Chris Fabian. Prone to alarming mood swings and paralyzed by the pressure of having his band tagged "the next Nirvana" by critics, Corgan was undergoing therapy and suffering writer's block.

"I lost the ability to function," Corgan remembers. "I didn't want to go outside. I was eating like a pig and gaining weight. I couldn't write songs." Despite all this, "Today" popped out of Corgan's cranium among the late-'92 demos at a time when "I was really suicidal. I just thought it was funny to write a song that said today is the greatest day of your life because it can't get any worse."

Although he had only five songs close to completion, the pressure to record the band's second album was intense, so in December 1992, Corgan entered Triclops Sound Studios in Atlanta -- a location chosen in part to keep Chamberlain's drug buddies out of the picture.

The first ray of light came when Corgan played his "Today" demo for producer Butch Vig and the band, because their reaction was as good as the overall situation was bad. The Pumpkins' label, Virgin Records, had heard rumors of the band's problems and dispatched executives to Atlanta to monitor their progress. Upon hearing "Today," they too were bowled over.

Corgan was initally delighted, but his moon soon changed. He convinced himself that the pressure now was really on, because Virgin would expect an album packed with songs that were as commercial as "Today," and he felt driven to supply them. "I heard that little voice in my head plenty of times: 'Just write that one fucking world hit!'" Corgan recalls. "But I thought it was foolish. I tried it for a while, but I gave up quick enough."

Even so, to maintain quality, he insisted on playing virtually every instrument -- not just on "Today," but on almost every track of the album. Corgan the control freak was back.

"He is a great musician," Wretzky reasons, "and when you're in the studio being charged thousands of dollars a day, if he can do something in three takes where it would maybe take me 20..."

A more practical reason for Corgan's strict control was that Chamberlain, despite his distance from Chicago, was showing up either too wasted to play or wasn't showing up at all. Only Butch Vig was able to see an upside to this: "The tension within the band was what gave them an edge. It's this volatile thing where they could explode at any minute."

While waiting for the explosion, the Pumpkins still had to complete "Today." Although Corgan had finished the tune and the chord structure, he felt it still lacked a powerful opening hook. "At that point, we just started the song with the verse-chord progression, which itself is pretty catchy because of the melody," wrote Corgan in a feature for Guitar World. "I knew I had to come up with some sort of opening riff. Then, out of the blue, I heard the opening lick note for note in my head." That gently chiming introductory sequence proved to be the turning point for the track: "Suddenly, I had a song that was starting out quiet and then got very loud. I could hear the shifts in the song as it progressed."

The Pumpkins' progress in the studio, however, was slow. The album sessions continued four months beyond deadline and soared to $250,000 -- considerably over budget. Corgan got the version of Siamese Dream that he wanted, though, and felt that it included an obvious first single. Unfortunately, it wasn't "Today."

Corgan immediately found himself head to head with the label bosses at Virgin Records. "I wanted 'Cherub Rock' as the first single; they wanted 'Today.' I mean, I created a monstrous, emotional piece of art an hour long, and the only thing people wanted to talk about was a song I wrote in 10 minutes."

It was a battle neither side conclusively won. In July 1993, "Cherub Rock" became the first single from Siamese Dream, but only in the United Kingdom, and it didn't get an American release until that October, when it flopped.

"Today," meanwhile, entered the Billboard chart on Christmas Day 1993, primarily because of repeated radio play. The key factor was MTV, which repeatedly screened the band's innovative ice-cream-truck-in-the-desert video, effectively breaking the Pumpkins big.

"It was definitely a turning point," Corgan recalls.

For the group's mercurial and impulsive leader, even "Today's" subsequent success as an anthem for disaffected youth served only to pile on additional angst. "Sometimes when we played," he grouses, "I felt that people were there only to hear 'Disarm' or 'Today,' and they didn't give a fuck about the rest of the show -- or who were were as people." Aw, shucks. Ain't life a bitch?