elliott smith and the freedom of nothing

if you were to survey the bars of portland, oregon in 1996 there’s a good chance you would bump into a slinky character, hunched into the corner of a backstreet watering hole thinking up grandiose musical ideas. that character was elliott smith, undoubtedly one of the greatest songwriters to have walked this earth, and in the late 90s in portland he was recording his magnum opus either/or.

released a year later in 1997, either/or doesn’t mess around. 12 tracks, 37 minutes in run time, and not a single melancholy or devastating punch is pulled. smith tackles life’s tallest skeletons, writing about addiction, isolation, relationships and depression. but what makes either/or so special is that smith isn’t purely showing up as a songwriter, but also as a philosopher, challenging our beliefs, ways of life and actions (and it’s no surprise, the album gets its title from the danish philosopher kierkegaard’s 1843 book of the same name). this is best demonstrated in smith’s greatest piece of philosophy on track 3 ballad of big nothing, in which we’re confronted by perhaps the scariest thought out there: what if it all means nothing at all?

for the first two verses and choruses we get the elliott smith we know and love. candid descriptions of scenes and characters, unbelievably complex yet simple sounding guitars, and raw and honest vocals. the chorus refrain even reads as an overwhelmingly positive, life affirming message of freedom ‘you can do what you want to, whenever you want to / you can do what you want to, there’s no one to stop you’. we’re reminded of the infinite possibilities laid out ahead of us in modern life; told that despite the inevitable challenges and atrocities we bear witness to (smith sings of tired old men on their death beds, urban blight and personal decay in the verses) everything is going to be fine. whilst there may be friction in modern life, there is no friction between the two things that really matter, your desires and your actions, outside of your own resistance. it’s a beautiful, invigorating depiction of freedom.

but if the first two verses and choruses are smith’s jab, the final chorus is the knockout blow. the twist at the end of the movie that shuts you up and sinks you into your chair. most songwriters would land on such deep, personal writing as smith does in the first section of this song and think they’ve struck gold, double down and never look back. but smith isn’t most songwriters, and in the final chorus soundtracked by the arrival of a left-of-field D chord which throws the song through a loop, we’re greeted by the crux of the song:

now you can do what you want to, whenever you want to

do what you want to, whenever you want to

do what you want to, whenever you want to

though it doesn’t mean a thing

big nothing

and just like that, it’s a punch in the gut. it’s the air sucked from your lungs leaving you winded on the floor. this beautiful freedom, justification of life and free will is snatched from your hands, and replaced by the quiet realisation that finding joy in life is meaningless, because it all means nothing in the end. no matter how large you live your life we’re all headed to the same place, and you can’t take anything with you to the big nothing.

it’s devastating. but does it have to be? smith sets up the line as if it is the rug being pulled out from under you, accompanied by a sinisterly happy instrumental and worryingly upbeat delivery, it feels like we’re supposed to be torn apart by this refrain. but what if we’re not? what if we don’t read the malignant evil that bubbles under the happy-go-lucky surface of this song? what if we, instead, join elliott smith in embracing his nihilist realisation, and commit to allowing the big nothing to seep into our everyday decisions?

in a modern world that can be unilaterally defined by overstimulation, overconsumption and over attribution of emotion to everyday life, a bit more meaninglessness could be the answer we’re all searching for. social media, a mental health crisis and the worst living standards in generations have resulted in the need to feel like we must justify our every waking thought, action or belief to some larger consciousness we’re all chasing. you had a sweet treat after dinner? well that’s only because you were good last week and your favourite influencer is on ozempic anyway. you donated to charity? make sure you post about it because moral value doesn’t exist if others don’t know you did it. you think a movie is bad? it’s because you watched a video essay about it, not because you arrived at the belief yourself. but what if you replaced each external justification with elliott smith’s universal response: nothing means a thing. why did you do that? because nothing means anything.

now that’s the kind of freedom we’re searching for. no friction between desire and action, and no friction in justification. no rumination or fitting in. elliott smith’s ballad of big nothing gives as a cheat code, a permanent justification to do the things we actually want to do, with no pressures of perception or consequence. because no consequence can outweigh the greatest consequence of all: big nothing. and so, next time you find yourself pinned down by the thousand pressures of modern existence, remind yourself that ‘you can do what you want to, whenever you want to’, spurred on by the fact that none of it means anything anyway.

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