Lyric discussion by cape town1 

Cover art for 17 lyrics by Smashing Pumpkins, The

I just wanted to add to the voices that have mentioned 'Blissed and Gone'. Anyone who has mentioned this has been downvoted but there really does seem to be a connection there. The melody in 17 follows Corgan's vocal line in Blissed and Gone. It would match with the opening lyrics:

"The sun has blessed The rays are gone And all the kids have left their tears and gone home"

Also, the next line is "sweet 17"

I always felt like maybe this way of kind of including Blissed and Gone on the album. It seems like a very personal song to him, so although it didn't fit (perhaps literally, seeing as Adore is already a long album) he wanted some kind of a nod to it at the end.

Then again, was Blissed written before or after the Adore album? Another explanation is that 17 came first and he liked the melody so much that he reused it.