Songfacts®:

• The Dead Ships frontman Devlin McCluskey wrote this song about his best friend, who killed himself after struggling to find meaningful work. He studied military history, but couldn't find a job in that field and ended up doing repetitive work in the pharmaceutical industry. A few months after moving out of his parents' home, he committed suicide.
  
  The song reflects on the good times they shared and imagines him returning to life after he sorts out his issues:
  
  If things get too loud
  and you're over it
  you can come back to life
  and return to the big quiet
  
  In his Songfacts Interview, McCluskey said there is some "positivity and light" in the song, which is what he goes for when he sings it.
• Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene produced this song. Six tracks that Canning produced, including this one, were issued in 2015 on an EP called EP I. "Big Quiet" was included the following year on their album Citycide.
• Devlin McCluskey made a video for this song using public domain footage from the 1978 film Cosmos: War of the Planets.