Big Bright World......

The inspiration for the song, and the title specifically, came when Barbara MacDonald said to her husband singer/songwriter Pat MacDonald, "The future is looking so bright, we'll have to wear sunglasses!" But, while Barbara had made the comment in earnest – it was the early '80s, the two had met and married and were starting a family, their first EP was coming, their book was filling up with gigs – Pat heard the comment as an ironic quip and wrote down instead, "The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades."[1]

From there, the lyrics to the song were born, but not the song as it ended up in the minds of popular culture. While Pat wrote a song of a young nuclear scientist and his rich future,[1] listening audiences heard a graduation theme song.

Pat revealed on VH1's 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s that the meaning of the song was widely misinterpreted as a positive perspective in regard to the near future. Pat somewhat clarified the meaning by stating that it was, contrary to popular belief, a "grim" outlook. While not saying so directly, he hinted at the idea that the bright future was in fact due to impending nuclear holocaust. The "job waiting" after graduation signified the demand for nuclear scientists to facilitate such events. Pat drew upon the multitude of past predictions which transcend several cultures that foreshadow the world ending in the 1980s, along with the nuclear tension at the height of the cold war to compile the song.

When they performed the song on the Joan Rivers show in 1989,[2] a third verse fit the ironic intent of the song:

I'm well aware of the world out there,

getting blown all the pieces, but what do I care?

Similarly, the group's EP Looks Like Dark to Me contains a slower version of the song with an additional verse, making clear the dark nature of the song's intent:

Blowin' up the lab,

Blowin' the professor,

Torn between two evils,

I always pick the lesser.

That same EP's title track also refers back to this song:

The future's been bright for so long now, it looks like dark to me.

The genesis of "Big Bright World", came from a three-night bout of insomnia suffered by the band's guitarist, Steve Marker, while staying in an apartment on Hollywood and Vine. "[It] was probably about the noisiest place in the world that I've ever been. I couldn't sleep... and I grabbed an acoustic guitar and just did this little riff with some of the chorus of that song," Marker Later recalled. He played it back for vocalist Shirley Manson, who loved it. "To me, it's probably the most anthemic track on the record," remarked drummer Butch Vig later. "We were really excited as a band to get back together and that song captures the excitement of us playing together for the first time in a long time," Manson added.