"1979" is an alternative rock song written by Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins and was the second single from their third album, 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The song was nominated for the Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video. The song is the highest-charting single of the band's career, and one of their most well-known songs. According to Corgan, the song is about making the transition from youth to adulthood.

The band took a rather uncharacteristic approach to the song, featuring rare use of loops and samples (previously used to a lesser extent on album tracks such as "Hummer", but never before on a single), with Corgan calling it "not the typical Pumpkins song." Kot, Greg. "A Long Strange Trip To 1979", Chicago Tribune. (available blank">online). Despite the song's unconventional style, it was popular with critics and fans, becoming a "somewhat surprising hit." It proved so popular that it later spawned a second single, "The 1979 Mixes", featuring remixes of the song. The 1979 single would later be part of the box set _The Aeroplane Flies High, and the song would appear on the greatest hits album Rotten Apples. "1979" was the first Smashing Pumpkins single with obvious electronic influences. The electronic elements of "1979" were explored more in depth in soundtrack songs "The End Is the Beginning Is the End" and "Eye," and continued in select tracks on the follow-up to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Adore. As James Iha said in 1996, "The future is in electronic music. It really seems boring just to play rock music."