I’ve written elsewhere, I’m sure, that “Ballad of Big Nothing” is the first time that Elliott Smith actually wrote a song as opposed to a particularly beautiful note to someone (even if that someone was himself); there’s something particularly structured about this song from his Either/Or album that feels complete in a way that earlier efforts didn’t. Perhaps it’s the traditional structure (Is this the first solo song he did that has a separate verse and chorus? That can’t be right…), or the fact that the instrumentation seems to go beyond “Elliott and his guitar and maybe some double tracking,” but this always felt like more of a song song than I’d expected from him, and I find myself with amazing affection for it.
Lyrically, it’s as sharp as ever (“All spit and spite/You’re up all night/And down everyday” is a great description of someone filled with self-loathing, I think), and is delivered with more passion than usual; it feels like the closest Smith had come to Dylan by that point, and may have been the song that convinced some that he had it in him to become a star. He didn’t, of course, and while trying didn’t kill him, it definitely didn’t help him stave off his sadly, seemingly inevitable, end. To this day, I still miss him and wonder what else he could have gone on to do.
(This entry was initially “Between The Bars,” by Elliott Smith, until I realized I’d actually previously written about that song. What was here has been edited into the original entry I wrote, which you can find here.)