not include a standard guitar solo, a short melodic guitar part appears during the bridge. Corgan explained: "The little guitar break over the C chord is actually a forwards sample that we laid in backwards. Then there's a weird vocal effect that moves across the speakers, a 'yan-yan-yan-yan' thing, which was generated by using a Roland Space Echo to regenerate on the last word of the vocal line, 'I wanna turn you on. The dark, ironic lyrics of "Today", describing a day when Corgan was feeling depressed and suicidal, contrast with the instrumentation. Michael Snyder of the San Francisco Chronicle said that the song is "downright pretty as rock ballads go" but that "Corgan manages to convey the exhilaration and tragic release he seeks." Corgan told Rolling Stone that "I was really suicidal ... I just thought it was funny to write a song that said today is the greatest day of your life because it can't get any worse." Corgan later compared writing the lyrics of "Today" and "Disarm" to "ripping [his] guts out". They played the song live for the first time on September 20, 1993, on Late Night with David Letterman. Music video The music video, directed by Stéphane Sednaoui, brought even more mainstream success to the band through repeated airplay on MTV. Debuting in September 1993, it was shot with low quality photographic equipment, which, like several other early Pumpkins videos, was an intentional stylistic decision. Corgan said that the video's plot was inspired by a memory he had of an ice cream truck driver who, upon quitting his job, gave out the rest of his ice cream to the neighborhood children. This image was then melded with Sednaoui's own sensibilities inspired by the film Zabriskie Point. The video is available on The Smashing Pumpkins – Greatest Hits Video Collection (1991–2000) DVD, released in 2001. The video begins with Corgan reading a comic book dressed in an ice cream man uniform. A clip of the intro to the song is played and stopped repeatedly before the song begins. Groups of two or more people are kissing each other around him as he drives in an ice cream van through a desert. Corgan picks up a dress-wearing Iha and the two drive for a while before stopping at a gas station, where Chamberlin and Wretzky appear as gas attendants. After Iha changes into a yellow and white