Dross

Dross means waste or the byproduct of smelting. This song is full of opposites in the verses, it's almost like he's gloating over a meaningless victory over something that, with all his faults, he is still better than.

To restate DRybes; dross is all the imperfections of molten metal. Dross is about other musicians who basically have out lived their "hey-day", and are jsut around to suck ass, sit in a rocking chair and say "Remember back in the day? I was somebody.... they called me Chinggy. I was KING!!" [inside joke, sorry about the poor use of a "rock star".] The whole song revolves around the idea of what "metal" is in it's purest form; molten; liquid; burning; everything that we the people envision it to be. It's hot, it's right now, it's in your face, and you can feel the heat as it comes up to you, asks you the question, and waits for your answer. It goes into my theory that the Smashing Pumpkins broke up BECAUSE of the sucess they had on Mellon Collie and the Infinte Sadness; the could never top it as far as alterno-indie-rock goes, and they did not want to forever be remembered by "Bullet With Butterfly Wings". I remember hearing Dross as a live track from the Adore tour, and waiting for Adore to come out, being denied, and then waiting for Machina to come out, again being denied. Finally Machina II comes out, [for free, i might add, which is perhaps the single coolest thing a rock group has ever done for me], and I had my copy of this idea that has been passed around, and from the looks of it, been missed. Some days I really wish Billy Corgan was reading these just to get back to everyone. Sorry if I sound harsh.

This is just another hater song. Billy unleashed his anger one more time before thge pumpkins splitted up!

One of, it not my most favorite Pumpkin's song.

I think it's about the envy some people feel for stars.

I'm pretty sure the words go "you say I'm lucky/we all know it's in the cards" which means the speaker is saying he was really destined for success.

I thought he was saying "bring it jimmy" rather than "bring it down". Isn't this song talking abotu how Chamberlin lost control from his drug addiction and was kicked out of the band for a while? There is no genuine recording artists, so i am not sure if jimmy plays on this track or not, but Isnt Corgan talking about how Chamebrlin lost control adn got kicked out and was jealous etc.? "get out, you've lost control"? "we all know im full of shit" "knocked out, sky high, floating"? That is my interpretation of it anyways. Awesome song!

I'm not gonna hazard a guess at the meaning - I'm just gonna say:

WHAT FUCKING RIFFAGE!!