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Radiohead – Idioteque Lyrics 14 years ago
I always thought this song was about the Holocaust.
Jews being sent to concentration camps where they'd sleep in bunkers...
In the camps, children, the elderly, and pregnant women routinely were sent to the gas chambers immediately after arrival...

Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time
Here I'm allowed
Everything all of the time

I think that's talking about our time, now, how we're allowed everything all the time, whereas Jews weren't

"Ice age coming" could be about how the Jews were being killed and much of their race would be wiped out, like many species that went extinct after the Ice Age

Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both sides

This could be about wanting to hear both sides of the argument/the Holocaust... like wanting to hear what the Nazis could possibly say to justify their actions, and wanting to hear the Jews' side too to understand their side... I feel like the Holocaust is such a CRAZY part of history, maybe wanting to hear both sides of it would be a way to figure out how it could have possibly happened, to try to figure it out... I don't know... We all know it happened, I mean it was just so sick.

Throw it on the fire
Throw it on the fire

I don't need to explain that...

We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening

A scaremonger is a person who spreads frightening or ominous reports or rumors.
This goes back to what I was saying- It was such an ugly time. And before people knew where they were actually being sent, they wouldn't believe the rumors about the concentration camps because they thought they were being sent somewhere better... Some knew, deep down, and they would tell whoever they could to not board the trains, to flee and never return. Like this:

Take the money and run
Take the money and run

The book "Milkweed" by Jerry Spinelli helps to illustrate that.

...Also,

I'll laugh until my head comes off
I'll swallow until I burst
Until I burst

That part could be talking about the gas chambers- swallowing the gas until you die
It could also be talking about becoming insane, or laughing about the insanity of the situation, the absurdity of it, the state of disbelief you're in if you're a Jew or just not a Nazi...

I have seen too much
I haven't seen enough

From the perspective of a Jew, maybe in a camp,
"I have seen too much" death, too much destruction, too much of all of this...
"I haven't seen enough" as in I haven't even lived as long as I wanted to or as long as I was supposed to, I'm here in a concentration camp, and I'll be killed before my 'time'

I think every song can be interpreted differently. I went through like 6 pages of comments and didn't see any about the Holocaust, and I hope I'm not repeating anything someone's already said

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