From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Everlasting Gaze"
Single by The Smashing Pumpkins
from the album Machina/The Machines of God
Released	9 December 1999
Format	CD
Recorded	November 1998-October 1999
Genre	Alternative Rock
Length	4:01
Label	Virgin Records
Writer(s)	Billy Corgan
Producer(s)	Flood and Billy Corgan
Chart positions
#4 (US Modern Rock Tracks) #14 (US Mainstream Rock Tracks)
The Smashing Pumpkins singles chronology
"Machina/Machines of God (promo)" (1999)	"The Everlasting Gaze" (1999)	"The Smashing Pumpkins 1991-1998" (2000)
Machina/The Machines of God track listing
	"The Everlasting Gaze" (1)	"Raindrops + Sunshowers" (2)

"The Everlasting Gaze" is a song by The Smashing Pumpkins. It was the first promotional single on their fifth album, Machina/The Machines of God. Although "The Everlasting Gaze" was never officially released as a single, many consider it to be the first taste of what would be the band's final studio release. One of the song's most poignant lyrics, "you know I'm not dead" is believed to be a reference to the band's energy and return to a heavier style of music after their previous, more subdued album, Adore. Others consider it a clear reference to the famous quote of Friedrich Nietzsche, "Gott ist tot," or, in English, "God is dead."

The music video for "The Everlasting Gaze".

Written by Billy Corgan, this song features an a capella section. The music video was directed by Jonas Åkerlund and is a performance based music video, the first to feature Melissa auf der Maur, playing bass with the band after the departure of D'Arcy Wretzky. Originally, the band had considered Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris to direct the video.

During the recording of Machina/The Machines of God, an early version of this song with very different lyrics had the working title of "Disco King". The song’s roots are still present, however, in Chamberlin's consistent use of offbeat hi-hat beats very characteristic of disco music. One of the striking differences between the two is at the end of the instrumental section, instead of finishing, the song goes through another chorus.

Billy Corgan in an interview with the Chicago-Sun Times in April 2000, says that this song "has a lot to do with spirituality and trying to find my place in the universe and sort of humbly accepting limitations and the things I've been graced with. It's more of a humanistic world view. I'm not writing anymore for the tortured teen--both me and whoever was listening. I'm writing with the idea that everybody's experiencing these things all the time, and even if they're not experiencing them personally, they're affected by them. You can live in the street and write about the garbage, or you can try to get up a little higher and look down and try to see the bigger picture".