"This was hilarious when it was on somethingawful.com, but you're a tool-box for cutting and pasting it. At least be original."

"Well, first of all, I never said it was about love or a girl. So most of what you said is completely erroneous. Second, the interpretation you just gave is alot more thoughtful than the one I was mocking before. So I'm not even going to disagree with you on that. One thing I will say is that Thom Yorke rarely -if ever- uses double meanings in his lyrics. Especially so on this album; all the songs are pretty cut and dry. But double meanings are one thing, forcing an abstract concept out of something that really has nothing to do with what you're talking about, is another. Saying that it's about the relationship between the United States, terrorism, and the Middle East is just ridiculous because on top of the double meanings, Thom -as you said- would have to be describing the feelings of the two different groups in the FIRST PERSON at the SAME TIME.



If you havn't heard anything by Queen, do yourself a favor and download/buy/steal one of their albums. Queen are classic; and even if you don't like them you should at least know who they are."

"I'm not ruling out that this song could be about politics. I'm just saying that your interpretation of this song requires big, distorted stretches of meaning.

It's true that alot of the songs on The Eraser have political meanings, but that doesn't mean that EVERY song does. You cant just pigeon hole everything on the album into the same category because politics are a theme in a few -or even most- of the songs.

In "Harrowdown Hill" and "And It Rained All Night" there is a direct connection between the lyrics and their meanings. Harrowdown Hill is the name of the place that David Kelly died. It can't be anymore blatent than that.

You really have nothing to go on other than the fact that he says "Arab". Everything else is completley indirect and could be interpreted many other ways without having to reach so much. Thats why I used Queen as an example: to show that by your way of interpreting songs, anything could be about terrorism or the Middle East."

"Yeah, and I guess Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen is about terrorism too.

"Let him go!
Bismillah! No we will not let you go!".

Those lyrics are obviously about the 9/11 hijackers. The first line is obviously the passengers of the airplane begging the terrorists to release them. The next line is the hijackers saying "in the name of Allah, we will not let you go". (Bismillah means "in the name of Allah".)

But then, of course, the movie United 93 was about one of the airplanes that was highjacked on 9/11. It was also directed by Paul Greengrass. And I'm sure if you go through the six degrees of sepreration, Paul Greengrass will be connected to Kevin Bacon somehow. So Bohemian Rhapsody could be about Kevin Bacon, too. Damn that Freddie Mercury was sly."

"It's a b-side from the Harrowdown Hill EP. You can find it on i-tunes."

"Yeah this song is catchy, like herpes. For christ sake, it's just "My Humps" with nursery rhymes. What's the chorus for the next single going to be?

"Mary had a little lamb
How come you always wanna touch my ham
My ham my ham my ham"?

The bitch from Black Eyed Peas has lost her damn mind."

"I'm pretty sure I heard Thom say in an interview that this song was about global warming and the fact that world leaders recognize it's a problem but just sort of ignore it. So with the line "But you just move the hands upon the clock throw coins in the wishing well for us" he's saying that our leaders waste time with talking and half-assed "solutions" to make the public think that they're actually doing something when in reality "Time is running out for us". I think he's also saying with the line "throw coins in the wishing well" that they are trying their luck and eventually its going to catch up with them."

"It's "He shook hands with the cripples
And gave them all milk
He did a few card tricks
For his mafia geeks"

Not "yeah his hands went like cripples'
and he came home ill
his death-fearing concious
was nothing that kicks were not""

"Please, it's one thing to say you disagree with a line or two, but posting the entire lyrics to the song again with only minor alterations is just obnoxious. Untill we have the actual lyric sheet, these are only guesses anyway. No one cares what you "think" the lyrics should be."

"This song is from the 1-8 EP. Good luck finding it if you live in the US, you're only hope then is using a P2P program like SoulSeek. And these lyrics couldn't be more off."

"I agree with Drealoth.

"There are doors that let you in and out but never open. But they are trapdoors that you can't come back from."

I think this line refers to a decision in life where the outcome is unclear or deceptive. You make the choice unaware of the consequences, then it to slaps you in the face when you realize there is no going back. Hence, you can walk in the door or out the door with a treacherous ease, but when you turn around and try to go back through, it never opens again."

"Actually it was written by Ed Cobb. But Gloria Jones was the first to perform it."

"No, it was written in 1964 by soul singer Gloria Jones. Soft Cell made it popular in the 1980's when they covered it."

"driftwood21 -

Damn right I'm a "nobody". So? Are you trying to say that only famous people can have opinions? Which guy are you in Bright Eyes? Oh yeah, you aren't in that or any other band because you're a fucking "nobody" just like me.

And trust me, you do not want to hear me sing. I'm horrible singer. But hell, after hearing this song, I think I might just take a shot at a singing career. I mean, I agree with you. It`s absolutly hysterical that this jackass is making thousands (if not millions of dollars) by repeating shitty one-liners that he probably stole from some jerk-off's political blog in a voice that sounds like Elmer Fudd with a nasal infection and I'm spending my time arguing online with a rabid fanboy like yourself. Infact, if I ever make it big, you`ll probably think I`m a "genius" and spend all your time singing along to my shitty records.

Oh, by the way, I downloaded this song off i-Tunes. It was free (thank god). Thats how I found it. The fact that this song is anti-Bush doesn`t bother me at all, I was just blown away by how cliche the lyrics were and how absolutely rancid the singing was. And in actuality, I don`t hate the song, my hate has been transformed into awestricken entertainment. Even funnier than the song is people like you that actually think it's good music and that it's worth defending."

"Even though this song is supposed to be a serious protest song, every time I hear it I laugh my ass off. It's just so fucking terrible. Basically, it's some dork going through a laundry list of anti-Bush bumper slogans while playing a very unoriginal chord progression on a guitar and singi... I mean bludgeoning your ears with a pre-pubescent sounding wail. Infact, thats probably the part that cracks me up the most. This clown has the worst singing voice I have EVER heard, even a shit-faced Bob Dylan singing I Want Your Sex at a karaoke bar would sound better. It's truly incomprehensible that this guy could actually think that his voice is even decent sounding. But yet I bet he thinks he's dope. Just like he probably thinks his lyrics are hard-hitting and thought provoking. Fucking hysterical."

"I love The Mars Volta, but I`ve gotta say, this song was a disappointment. It just became available on i-Tunes today and, of course, I was super ecstatic and downloaded it right away. But I was completely suprised by how bland the song was. There was no crazy Syd Barret-esque guitar (except for a short solo), no psychedelic latin rhythms, no frantic modulated vocals, and no vivid hallucinogenic lyrics. It's just the most calm, conventional, finger picking acoustic slow pop song. Not anything like what I'd expect from a band like The Mars Volta. Actually, it's not even that the song is tame in comparison to their previous work (which really isn`t saying much considering how insane their previous work was), it's because the song really isn`t that distinctive or original sounding in comparison to anything. So I`m just praying to god right now that the rest of the album sounds nothing like this song (I refuse to listen to the leaked version).

As for the meaning of the song (actually, the entire album), it's not about hell, Saint Francis, or alot of the other nonsense I`ve read. It`s about a diary that former bandmate Jeremy Ward (who died in 2003) found.

"The story is inspired by a diary that Jeremy found in the backseat of a car while working as a repo man. He discovered he had a lot in common with its author. He kept it and let us in on it. The diary told of the author being adopted and looking for his real parents. The names of each song are named after people in the diary. Each person he meets sort of points him in the direction of his biological parents." - Cedric Bixler"

"Wow, I amazed that no one figured out what this song is really about.

It`s quite simple, he`s singing about the pressures of his newfound fame and popularity. Personally, I think when he refers to "the bends" in his song, he literally means his new album, The Bends. But that is up for debate. Anyway, I don`t I have the time to disect this song, so I`ll just copy and paste the best song meaning from greenplastic.com

This was one written by Kevin Newcombe

"The Bends is literally a serious (and sometimes fatal) medical condition that happens to people when they come up out of the water too fast. I think the The Bends meant as a metaphor for the band instantly becoming rock stars without a chance to adjust to fame. Something in the lines of "My Iron Lung" the Bends is a song that speaks about the instant fame Radiohead acquired when they released Pablo Honey, and the world discovered Creep.

"Where do we go from here?" Imagine all your life you wanted to be a rock star and have fans and tour the world. Once it happens, and you achieve that goal, what else is there to do?

"Alone on an aeroplane / Falling asleep against the window pane" This line is about the exhaustive nature of touring. For a two hours a night it's standing in front of a screaming crowd of tens of thousands of fans, playing rock music, but the rest of the time it's just sitting on tour buses or in airports, or waiting for sound checks etc.

"I need to wash myself again / To hide all the dirt and pain / I'd be scared, that there's nothing underneath." It gives the image of the tortured artist, something Thom was perceived as after Creep hit, writing about their pain to relieve themselves of it.

"I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath" could be taken as meaning that the pain and melancholy is all there is to their songs, and that maybe the artist can't write about being happy and in love, only about being in pain.

"Who are my real friends? / Have the all got the bends?" The author is asking himself, who are the people who like the real him and who are the people that just like him for being a celebrity. The people that are his real friends, are the people who understand what he's going through, who also have "the bends." In other words, his real friends are the other guys in the band.

"My baby's got the bends / We don't have any real friends" Refers back to the previous line, about people wanting to be his friends because he's famous. "I'm just lying in a bar... I wish that something would happen" refers back to the first line, that once you've 'done it all,' traveled the world, performed to massive crowds, etc., going back home and trying to be a regular person again, hanging out at bars, doesn't really have the same feel.

"I want to live / breath / I want to be part of the human race." This line is talking about how being a celebrity is totally different than being a normal person. Being a celebrity means being this 24 hour public relations machine that has to be nice to everyone they meet and never do anything wrong, in case someone's watching them (celebrities are role models after all)""

"Well, everyone knos Sopranos at 9:00, Parkers at 6:00 so and making money laterm pay bills is like having potatoes and couches. its no wonder that so coming home, late, bored, lonley, you get laid off. You eat them and you don`t like that so too late though. Thtas how its like. My gilrfreind, she was always running around, putting on clothse but than she Coca Cola and candy, people thought she pregnant, but if she eats the greens, thats how the babys come."

"What makes this band so great is they sound nothing like Radiohead, even though the lead singer is Thom's brother. He's actually doing his own thing instead of mooching of his brothers success."

"Their motto should be "We sound more like Radiohead than Coldplay". It`s halfway decent, if I had spent more than 5.00 on their CD I would have been pissed though."

"This CD was released before 9/11. I know because I listened to it on 9/10. Plus all of the songs were recorded January through Febuary, 2001."

"Personally I think everybody interprets the song differently because they are all looking at it from a different point, i definitley think the main meaning is a downed helicopter but you can also see it as a tour(or a long trip) from the soldiers point of veiw. Think about it, if you had to go into enemy territory and face possible death, the shortest distance would feel like an eternity. The same applies to the suicide idea, the soldiers felt that they`re mission was suicidal and ATDI conveyed that emotion in the song."

"this song is from the cd rerelease of "Alfaro Vive, Carajo!" and it`s really hard to find. Restart Records might have it for sale or you can just wait for it to show up on ebay."

"It`s about the Great Escape, stop trying to be a smartass and pick up a history book. "Libary laundromat inside the dirty sheets" refers to the library of different kinds of dirt that staind the clothing of the soldiers trying to escape the German prison camp by digging tunnels."

"those arn`t the official lyrics, i just tried my best to figure them out. mine are probably way off so i`ll use yours instead. thanks.
"