Constructive Interference: Built to Spill’s “Big Dipper”

MP3: Built to Spill - Big Dipper from There’s Nothing Wrong With Love (1994)

MP3: Built to Spill - Big Dipper performed live at Rams Head Live in Baltimore, MD 2008.09.24

MP3: The Thermals - Big Dipper (Built to Spill) Live at Echoplex

After seeing this great show by BTS earlier this week, I found myself re-discovering their track “Big Dipper” and playing it non-stop. So I thought I’d kick off a new section of in-depth, exhaustive and track-specific spotlights. It’s just kind of my take on the track and a bunch of clips including a straight-laced but good cover by personal favorites, Portland punk extraordinaires the Thermals.

“Big Dipper” is a precious, endearing and understated gem in a catalog full of them. Rich lyrics filled with whimsy, vivid images and a bit more than a tinge of tragedy (He thought he’d have a beer thought he was alone/He thought an Albertson’s stir fry dinner would make his apartment a home). The song waxes poetic on coming of age, dealing with growing up and struggling during those awkward transition years between dependent and un-steady childhood to adulthood, trying to reconcile the past with the future while being true to yourself. The song has some warning signs for this windy road, full of potholes and false-self discoveries which many people tragically never escape from (I thought I bored me but I learned to think like you/Now nothing bores me that’s that nothing is thought through).

The refrain (Bottoms up and this time/Won’t you let me be?/Bottled up but this time/Won’t you rescue me?/You should have been here last night and heard what the big dipper said to me) screams of inner conflict and identity crisis, frustration and confusion. The vocalist wonders what happened between the intro of the big dipper (Once/When I was little someone pointed out to me/Some constellations but the big dipper’s all I could see/That brontasaurus must have stood a thousand miles high/That brontasaurus laying on its side up in the sky) and now, desperately trying to get someone else to notice the same anomaly, that loss of innocence and wonder that the vocalist sees. The frustration builds through a passage of heavily effects-laden guitar riffs, heading into the next verse which then culminates in a cathartic, raw and cracking shout of “why!” Finally, the end of the song experiences a bit of a happy closure (Thought it out and this time/It’s all I can see
You should have been here last night and heard what the big dipper said to me).

So. That’s for me. What did the big dipper say to you?