Big Bad World One

wulfreigns, "me zero, big bad world one" is a scoreboard reference. not tarzan speak. like "home 12, away 16" i draw the meaning that sometimes life is so hard why try, no im not being emo but thats what it seems like hes saying. such as "But I see by the look on her face if I keep my mouth shut I'll save some time" so i might even say its on the line of suicide

This one makes me think of My Monkey, in that it takes a real serious message (in this case hopelessness), but explains it with childish language ("I quit, it's no fair, the big bad world is winning"). It goes back and forth from depressing-sounding verses to the chorus where it sounds more like he's just getting frustrated like a kid, or "knocking over the chessboard" so-to-speak.

For me this makes it one of the few songs that I can listen to when I'm sad, but that can make me feel better. Often listening to sad songs when you're sad yourself just makes it worse, but this one has just that hint of cuteness to it which makes it okay. Makes me feel like I am being childish and that my problems aren't as bad as they seem.

Note the little play on words/ Tarzan speak in the chorus-- "Me zero, Big Bad World One(Won).

I find Coulton has so many songs that people can identify with, this song being one of them. Who hasn't had a tough day and just wanted to give up?

So to me it just seems like Jonathan is being existential and a little angst ridden at the same time. The childish diction sets the cuteness and helps to establish a sort of childish view towards existentialism. Thus, in my opinion, this is a cute little song that helps to show how childish existentialism can be.

What he means by "Me Zero Bid Bad World One" Is like he's keeping score, luike Me: Zero Big Bad World: One

The protagonist in this song is a wallflower who's anticipation of failure with women is a self-fulfilling prophecy. On minimal evidence he decides to give up and winds up always sleeping alone. Rejection has become a bogeyman he can't face - quite literally he is a quitter, the game of courtship isn't fun, it's filled with trepidation for him (it reminds me of The Smiths lyric of "then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask").

The chorus line "Me: Zero, Big Bad World: One" is a double meaning - on one level it's a keeping score one-nil to the Big Bad World, but he's also saying he is a zero, and the Big Bad World won (homophone!) in that it beat him once again.

Succinctly it describes a situation a lot of young men get themselves into - I know this feeling only too well. What he probably needs to do is get a few actual rejections under his belt so he knows that they're not as world-shattering as he imagines, because while he is avoiding the risk of rejection he's ensuring his own failure. It is a big bad world because it frightens him - it's actually the fear he's defeated by.

I find this a therapeutic song from that point of view - there has probably been a point in many of the more sensitive males' lives in which they've found themselves in this same vicious cycle, and when you're in it you don't see the absurdity of it, only the tragedy - but listening to the narrator in this song describe his thought process we can see the absurdity and become aware that maybe our own vicious cycle is absurd and how we can correct it.