Snail Mail has officially released her cover of the Smashing Pumpkins classic “Tonight Tonight.” The track was originally recorded for Jane Schoenbrun’s critically acclaimed film, I Saw the TV Glow, in which Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan made her acting debut.
In a statement, Jordan explained that she and her band had already been working on the cover for their live set before Schoenbrun cast her in the film. “It came up early on because I have a tattoo on my right arm of the man in the moon to commemorate the first ever science fiction film, A Trip to the Moon and the Smashing Pumpkins video for ‘Tonight, Tonight,’” Jordan said.
As it turned out, Schoenbrun was drawing on similar influences for I Saw the TV Glow. While reading the film’s script, Jordan realized that the “arch nemesis” in The Pink Opaque — the young adult TV show central to the film’s plot — was “inspired by the same imagery.” (In the movie, Jordan plays Tara, one of the two main characters in The Pink Opaque.)
Jordan added: “I told Jane we were doing this cover in NYC, they came and saw it live, and the rest was herstory.”
(Despite that confluence of influences, only a snippet of Snail Mail’s “Tonight Tonight” appeared in I Saw the TV Glow; and until now, the song was only available on the vinyl version of the film’s soundtrack.)
In an interview with Rolling Stone earlier this year, Schoenbrun spoke about the music for I Saw the TV Glow and the particular influence of the Smashing Pumpkins’ classic, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (on which “Tonight Tonight” originally appears). “Just the vastness and the suburban romance of that double album and how it can envelop you was something I was really interested in trying to recreate,” Schoenbrun said.
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As for Snail Mail, the cover marks her first new release since dropping last year’s Valentine (Demos) EP. That four-song set featured a few early versions of songs off her celebrated 2021 LP Valentine, plus a new tune, “Easy Thing.”
Snail Mail will embark on a short tour next month, starting Aug. 26 at the Prescott Parks Art Festival in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The run will also include a handful of dates with Waxahatchee, Tim Heidecker, Fenne Lily, and Greg Mendez.
