The Parents’ Music Resource Center Returns with an Urgent Message: Beware of Billy Corgan This Halloween and Protect Your Pumpkins!

Boo!

Hello, America. It’s us, the Parents’ Music Resource Center. We’re back with an urgent Halloween PSA.

As we outfit our homes and yards with spooky—yet tasteful!—decorations, we encourage everyone to keep an eye out for any funny business. In the year of our Lord 2023, it’s not only the risk of razor blades in apples that still demands our vigilance. It’s also a musician named Billy Corgan who undoubtedly has violent intentions for any and all pumpkins he comes across.

“Why has it taken you so long to speak out about this?” you may wonder. Well, after we nobly fought the subversive John Denver, we rested on our laurels thinking that having warning labels about song lyrics was enough. We were mistaken. With children today listening to more music on the worldwide web than what they can find in a record store, we’ve decided to up our game by declaring that band names are also problematic. And right now, Mr. Corgan’s group is at the top of the list. Its name, we are sad to say, is The Smashing Pumpkins.

God help us.

The threat Mr. Corgan poses is real. It is pure luck that he has not once acted on his destructive desires in the last 35 years. The same is true of the others in the band, which we shall refer to only as TSP, out of our sense of decorum. (We at the PMRC are opposed to any sort of “smashing.”) While a relief, the absence thus far of Corgan-on-pumpkin terror is no excuse to let our guard down.

Just look at how, since last Halloween, TSP has released three installments of a concept album called Atum—pronounced “autumn.” If that’s not a giant, specific hint as to what Mr. Corgan has planned, we don’t know what is.

So, before the scheming frontman emerges from the bowels of Chicago (of course) to scour untainted small towns for our beloved autumn vegetable, we propose three precautionary measures, none of which detract from an enjoyable—and also traditional!—Halloween experience:

1. Ask trick-or-treaters to unmask themselves to confirm that they are not Mr. Corgan

2. Place jack-o-lanterns in protective plexiglass cubes within an arm’s reach of your front door

3. No screaming, in case Mr. Corgan is attracted to loud noises

Some will surely doubt the need for these safeguards. We’re not naive. To them, we simply ask: would you feel comfortable inviting Mr. Corgan into your pumpkin patch, if you had one? Could you trust him to keep his hands to himself while your school-aged daughters carved jack-o-lanterns at the kitchen table? The answer should be a firm “no.” Not even the decorative gourds on your wraparound porch are safe, frankly. It’s not worth the risk.

Americans have already been through enough in the decades since our disbandment. We’re told that several families with a certain last name are still reeling from the knowledge that there’s another band out there called The Dead Kennedys. At our urging, they’ve bought guns, installed home alarm systems, and only eat pre-packaged, unopened foods to help thwart an attack on their lives. Meanwhile, the Kennedys who haven’t are as good as dead. The only question is: will they live to see a rockstar defiling their pumpkins, cackling devilishly in their faces as he does so?

As a formality, we reached out to Mr. Corgan to ask what his intentions are on October 31. His response: “Take another look at ‘The Smashing Pumpkins.’” We did, and that has only confirmed that we’ve found what we were looking for.

So it’s settled, then: beware of Mr. Corgan and protect your pumpkins. But also, have a good time—without going overboard!—knowing that on Halloween, everyone is entitled to one good scare. Your friends at the PMRC know the feeling well.

Sincerely, and with gratitude for our congressional hearing tomorrow,

The Parents’ Music Resource Center