Dylan Klebold and Zero

acinnamon-girl:

So… Who’s ready for another deep dive into the musical tastes of one Dylan Klebold? Press play below and let’s go 🌞

Because we only have a select amount of writing left behind by Dylan – and because there were likely so many thoughtz and ideas that he never even got around to writing down at all – we’re limited to deciphering the same crumbs over and over again. But sometimes there are clues in between the lines that can lead to possible new insights.

We all know Dylan was a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins (or Gnashing Bumpkins, as they’ve been called by, ahem, some). A cursory flick through his day planner reveals his elaborate etchings of the lyrics to ‘Beautiful’, and his plans for the website-that-never-was indicate he intended to use ‘Disarm’ as the soundtrack to his shared thoughtz on religion and philosophy.

It’s easy to understand why these particular tracks resonated with him: ‘Beautiful’ describes the swooning kind of romantic love he dreamed of finding, while ‘Disarm’’s message of lost innocence and bitter solitude could have been written for him especially (though it was actually about the childhood abuse suffered by Billy Corgan).

But this post is about another Smashing Pumpkins song that probably impacted Dylan, and some interesting associated synchronicities.

Among the papers police took from the Klebold residence was this extremely detailed drawing by Dylan:

((Sidenote: was this a sketch and description for an outfit to wear while completing missions? All black, to blend in at night? A duffel bag with flashlights and duct tape rolled in blankets to muffle the noise, and milk bones to distract potential guard dogs? Or just an innovative halloween costume?))

Note the ‘Zero’ shirt with a star (‘newly washed, no cat hairs’).

This t-shirt design was first associated with the Smashing Pumpkins in 1995, when frontman Billy Corgan wore it in the music video for ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’. 

He continued wearing the shirt extensively the following year during the band’s world tour for Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. It wasn’t part of the band’s official merch – it was actually a design by skate company Zero Skateboards – but the band’s fans loved the look and bought versions of the shirt for themselves (later on, the band bought the rights to the shirt and it’s still an iconic piece of Pumpkinhead merchandise today (pictured below)).

Corgan might have started wearing the shirt because it fit well with a new song he’d written, and a mythology he was quietly putting together. ‘Zero’ was the third single from Mellon Collie, and was released on April 23, 1996 – almost exactly three years prior to the attack on Columbine High School. It has a different vibe to the more melancholic ‘Beautiful’; it’s angrier, with jagged riffs and a heavier beat and bassline.

Originally released as an EP, ‘Zero’ was accompanied by the songs ‘God’, and a 23-minute medley of Mellon Collie offcuts called ‘Pastiche Medley’, which included a riff called ‘Rachel’ (make of those coincidences what you will).

While we don’t have any notes of Dylan’s that explicitly reference ‘Zero’, we know he owned a Zero shirt and that he listened to the album it appeared on. Its aggressive, biting attitude probably appealed to the boy who kept his fury wrapt up tight inside. Moreover, the song’s lyrics have some undeniably Dylan themes:

My reflection dirty mirror
There’s no connection to myself
I’m your lover I’m your zero
I’m the face in your dreams of glass
So save your prayers
For when you’re really gonna need ‘em
Throw out your cares and fly
Want to go for a ride?

She’s the one for me
She’s all I really need, oh yeah
She’s the one for me

Emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness
And cleanliness is godliness, and God is empty just like me
Intoxicated with the madness, I’m in love with my sadness
Bullshit fakers, enchanted kingdoms
The fashion victims chew their charcoal teeth

I never let on, that I was on a sinking ship
I never let on that I was down
You blame yourself, for what you can’t ignore
You blame yourself for wanting more

She’s the one for me
She’s all I really need, oh yeah
She’s the one for me
She’s my one and only

‘Zero’ is actually about Corgan’s own identity as a rock star, but it’s unlikely Dylan thought – or cared – about that. Devon Adams has said Dylan preferred to come up with his own meanings and interpretations of music. A number of ‘Zero’’s lyrics echo or mirror Dylan’s own writings, and he most likely noticed these similarities.

The chorus evokes the idea of a one and only lover, all that the narrator needs to exist. The verses are darker, exploring disconnection from self, a twisted affection for one’s own sorrow, emptiness within despite being akin to God and godliness – all classic Dylan motifs. ‘Bullshit fakers, enchanted kingdoms’ – what could be more Dylan than that? He of the Halcyons and disdain for ‘suburbanite a$$holes’. 

And someone ‘never letting on’ that they were sinking – in a way, this has come to define Dylan for his friends and family, particularly his mother Sue, who often speaks of her despair at the signs she missed and his determination to deal with his depression privately and without assistance.

Back to Corgan’s own notion of Zero: ten months after the Columbine massacre, the Smashing Pumpkins released Machina/The Machines of God, which centres around a rock star called Zero (based on Corgan), whose band was The Machines of God. Zero heard the voice of God  and renamed himself Glass (it’s worth reading the entire article linked above for further insights).

Though this mythology was shared well after Dylan’s death, there are curious parallels. In his own mind, Dyl was something of a ‘zero’ – separate from others, isolated and alone, yet superior as well. He wrote a lot about God, as a force for good and a force that was punishing him. And he didn’t just hear or feel God, he WAS a god. Dylan described himself variously as ‘a true god’, ‘the god of sadness’ and ‘the god of the everything’. Dylan also described some friends and his ‘true love’ as gods as well. God wasn’t a religious figure, but a state of awareness and ‘a true controller of existence’.

If we want to get really kooky with it, we could consider how Zero’s awareness turned him into Glass. Dylan’s rebranding was in the form of another clear substance: VoDkA.

He might never have known the fictional tale behind the track, but what a neat little coincidence that Dylan, like Corgan, had an alter ego and his very own Zero outfit to go with it. Perhaps the song worked as a private symbol of his own secret identity, and the ordinary band shirt he wore, a clandestine nod to this other self.

What a great read!   And I really like your speculation that his Zero garb sketch was for late night sneaking around on Rebel Missions.  Well, that would definitely explain his stashing some Milk-Bone dog biscuits on hand incase of encountering alerted dogs in the neighborhood.   Niiice. 🙂  But then you have to wonder what is with all the ducted tape and surgical gloves bound on him.

Hmm…  Questions make answers, answers conceive questions, and at long
last, we are never content 😉

p.s. I love how some of the Zero shirts have the SP-Dyl style metaphorical ‘heart on the sleeve’.  Not all of the Zero shirts have that either.