I have a lot of history with this song. For one, I was a huge STP fan in the 90s. “Core” is tied with Pearl Jam’s “Ten” as my two favorite grunge albums.
Also, this song was featured in the all-time-great soundtrack for the movie “The Crow” – which has a lot of history around it. It was a great movie, and also a huge break for Brandon Lee – son of the one and only Bruce Lee (of whom I’m also a huge fan). But, tragically, Brandon died from a freak accident during filming where somehow one of the guns being used in a big shootout scene was loaded with real bullets instead of blanks.
Apparently, Stone Temple Pilots’ contribution to the soundtrack was going to be an unreleased track of theirs that was sort of mocking death, and they switched it out after Brandon’s death for “Big Empty” instead, which was going to be the lead single off their new album. And then Scott Weiland, the lead singer of STP, went on to have a pretty tragic story of his own…
Anyway, not to bum everyone out too much with all of this… “Big Empty” randomly popped in my head a few months ago and I thought it would be a fun one to learn to play. It might not be as meaningful to anyone else but it’s sort of this little time capsule for me.
Hope you all enjoy it!
-Peter