| Coldplay – Daylight Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I think the first lyrics are "To my surprise and my delight"... making the ones posted here wrong. Good song that sets a great mood, albeit a little too optimistic for my taste |
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| Radiohead – How to Disappear Completely Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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That's mostly why I like Radiohead. As cryptic as the lyrics can be, they seem completely honest. Their music cuts through all pretense and BS and operate on a level beyond happiness, sadness or anger... I can't describe it any better than "acceptance of all things, good or bad." |
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| Radiohead – Go to Sleep. (Little Man Being Erased.) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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If that were entirely true (and it could very well be), then it's very frustrating. The thing is; I think Yorke purposely downplays the songwriting process... possibly to stop people like us from dissecting his lyrics. Yorke once pointed out that he'd rather people didn't analyze the words apart from the music because he viewed both as being inseparable. As much as is said about pulling lyrics out of hats, I don't think that Radiohead's creative process is nearly as random as they'd like us to think. It's obvious that a lot of thought goes into their work, and IMO their songs wouldn't lend themselves to such 'overanalysis' if it weren't for their impressive depth in the first place. |
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| Radiohead – Go to Sleep. (Little Man Being Erased.) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
| Chill. | |
| Radiohead – Optimistic Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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"Dinosaurs roaming the earth" To me this refers to the fact that despite our advances as a species we're still essentially DNA, by which I mean that the same rules and behaviour that applied to dinosaurs apply to us - "big fish eat the little ones". Underneath the veneers of civilization, technology and rational thought we're just animals mindlessly* perpetuating the same old cycles. *unlike dinosaurs, flies, vultures or fish, our consciousness means that we can observe this, acknowledge it and wish to separate ourselves from it, but without being able to actually do so. Kind of a deterministic view, but our minds really only give us the tools to observe and rationalize without giving us the power to escape. |
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| Radiohead – Subterranean Homesick Alien Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Yeah, the guitar/keyboard(?)/voice effects are spectacular. This, Weird Fishes and Morning Bell are my favourite in terms of letting the guitars drive the song's mood, texture and space (if that makes any sense at all). This is one of the main things that appeal to me about Radiohead: they don't just write music to accompany the lyrics; they create compositions that not only marry themselves to the lyrical contents but actually fuse together to the point where each song feels like a world of its own. |
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| Radiohead – Where I End and You Begin. (The Sky Is Falling In.) Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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I think EdwinMontoya has a point... much of Yorke's music has a running theme of being trapped in your own head and desperately wanting to escape, but not being able to for the simple reason that it's impossible... I don't know of any other band that addresses these feelings so well (or at all)... which is a little surprising considering that Yorke basically describes the human condition. There's enough content there to drive a thousand records. |
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| Radiohead – Morning Bell Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Blake Newland - nice analysis... very insightful take on the mumbling too (it's not meant to be understood - it's just noise - since it reflects the zombified way in which we go about our day-today lives... everyone is alive but no one is living, everyone speaks but no one is listening). |
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| Radiohead – Weird Fishes/Arpeggi Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Some very astute insights from you guys... Even though everything's pretty much been said, I'll throw in my 2c. "In the deepest ocean": at the beginning of "Weird Fishes", the narrator is wallowing in depression, isolation, routine, futility, confusion, blindness (any of the above)... "Your eyes - they turn me": something catches the narrator’s attention. These 'eyes' pierce through the darkness and call to him. They could be love (or lust, or the desire for love), faith, or some external force… whatever they are, these eyes shine with the glimmer of something that could bring him to the surface. "Why should I stay" — the narrator begins to question his place and realizes an opportunity for change. “I’d be crazy not to follow” — “they turn me”: entranced and hopeful, the narrator (I’ll just call him Yorke from now on) abandons his lull in search of answers, happiness or indeed anything to shake up his world. “Turn me onto phantoms” — “this is my chance”: Doggedly, Yorke continues his pursuit of the light at the end of the tunnel. The eyes, however, lead him nowhere. He ends up chasing ghosts and running in circles (“to the edge of the earth” “and fall off”). “Everybody leaves if they get the chance” could refer to the human tendency to dream about escape and greener pastures. What I see here is Yorke observing other people and concluding (a) that they have something he lacks (they’ve already ‘left’ the hole he’s in) or (b) - that, given the chance, they would follow the eyes themselves. This is also probably a reference to death, since everybody dies (leaves). “I get eaten by the worms” — I’ll get back to this. “Yeah I” — “Escape”: After chasing his desires*, Yorke falls into the ‘sea’ and ends up back where he started. He is back, but now with the added realisation that there is no escape save for death. *The goals valued by society, the pursuit of everlasting happiness, perfect love, salvation - these are all illusory and lead nowhere. As the music builds to a climax I can hear intensifying yearning in Yorke’s voice, and as the instruments create the impression of a rushing plunge towards ‘the bottom’, Yorke’s final breath (right before the cymbal that closes the song) seems to burst with glee and relief. This may be stretching it, but “Arpeggi” seems to progress in a cycle. The first verse seems to take place in a foetal environment, the second and third remind me of birth as the narrator contemplates leaving (“why should I stay here”), and the last two seem to reflect death. (From dust we arise, to ashes we return.) IMO the song’s abrupt ending constitutes its climax, which serves to reinforce the idea that there is no grand epiphany to be gleaned from life except in death… and even in death there are no answers to be found; only the cessation of questions and longing. There is irony in the fact that the only escape from the human condition is through the one thing that arguably defines us most — in death, every living being fulfils the inevitable; and as the worms and the fish show, death fuels life and the cycle continues. There is no escape. |
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| Radiohead – Fitter Happier Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Yorke has a point: we are - most of us - shackled, zombified and dehumanized by the very lifestyles which we've chosen to lead and aspire to. Our values and our goals are twisted and warped. But it also raises an interesting question: is there any way to live without being a pig in a cage on antibiotics? Is there a way to escape being almost deterministically conditioned by society and our environment? Probably not... this song makes me smile every time I hear it (I convince myself I can hear the sarcasm in the computerized voice), but it's also incredibly bleak. |
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| Radiohead – Climbing Up the Walls Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Well apparently my interpretation of the song is wrong, but I prefer it to Yorke's mental patients gone wild thing. I'm not saying that my view has any merit or is any better btw. When I listen to 'Climbing Up the Walls', I picture someone trapped in their own mind. Their brain is a padded cell and no amount of beating the walls can free them. ("Either way you turn, I'll be there. Open up your skull - I'll be there." "You know we're friends till we die".) This person is either insane, depressive or even 'normal' - it could be anyone. Before I read them on the net, I misheard "that keeps your toys in the basement" as "that keeps you tied in the basement". This fits well with the view that this person is fighting with himself and keeping himself hostage in his own head. But it's wrong. For me, "keeps your toys in the basement" symbolises a person's inability to confront and know themselves; self-discovery and being 'normal' (like everyone else) are out of reach, locked in the basement. The "toys" could also be memories and past experiences - these are negative and so are kept in a safe place where they can be ignored, like the 'kids' locked in a safe at the end of the song... these 'kids' are our inner child or our primordial nature, neither of which we are able to get back to or deal with. And if you do manage to delve 'too far inside', you end up in a hall of mirrors. It's just you. The reflection staring back at you is your worst nightmare, your inseparable friend and enemy. And as you look for something else - an escape, an ultimate truth* or whatever - you just keep running into yourself... another interpretation is that your mind (this could be anyone's mind, but particularly applies to someone with a personality disorder such as a narcissist) is doing this as a defensive mechanism in order to shield you from a truth too disturbing to accept. Another dimension to this song is the reference to society's thin veneer of normality, underneath which lies chaos - or a reality that we're not equipped to deal with - and below which we lurk, like chained animals ready to break loose at any moment. "It's always better on the outside" - outside yourself. "It's always better when the light is off", "It's always best with the covers up" - denial and illusion are better, or easier, than the truth.. they keep you safe and warm. "I am the pick in the ice" - I see this as the repressed voice in the narrator's mind. The ice covers the 'voices in his head', but the pick (insanity, introspection or the narrator himself) threatens the stability of this hiding place. The pick could crack this fragile veneer and set everything loose. |
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