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Rust in the mountains
Rust in the brain
The air is sacred here
In spite of your claim
Up on the roof tops
Out of reach
Trickster is meaningless
Trickster is weak
He's talking out the world
Talking out the world
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
I wanted you so bad
And I couldn't say
All things fall apart
We wanted out so bad
We couldn't say
These things fall apart
We're talking out the world
Talking out the world
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
Truant kids a can of brick dust worms
Who do not want to climb down from
Their chestnut tree
Long white gloves
Police tread carefully
Escaped from the zoo
The perfect child facsimile
It's talking out the world
Talking out the world
Rust in the brain
The air is sacred here
In spite of your claim
Up on the roof tops
Out of reach
Trickster is meaningless
Trickster is weak
He's talking out the world
Talking out the world
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
I wanted you so bad
And I couldn't say
All things fall apart
We wanted out so bad
We couldn't say
These things fall apart
We're talking out the world
Talking out the world
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
Hey
Hey
Hey
This is only halfway
Truant kids a can of brick dust worms
Who do not want to climb down from
Their chestnut tree
Long white gloves
Police tread carefully
Escaped from the zoo
The perfect child facsimile
It's talking out the world
Talking out the world
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I'm not saying you're wrong though... I'm not sure who or what The Trickster is in the context of this song, though I'm aware of the archtype. Tempted to think it relates to a political figure, someone whom the country's younger population were pinning their idealistic hopes on, only to have them shattered.
On a different note - and though it PAINS me to say this about my favourite band! - I believe Radiohead 'lifted' a good portion of The Trickster's music from a 1980s tune called "Down Among the Dead Men" by Flash n' the Pan - especially the guitar riff.
^ The singer had been a member of successful 60s group The Easybeats (of "Friday on my Mind" fame. If you watch the clip on youtube, it's not hard to spot the similarities!
The first stanza is the narrator speaking from the present about himself after everything has happened that will be told through the song. "Lost in the mountains" - He has become pothead to escape from his emotions. "Rust in my brain" is metaphorical of what a piece of machinery does when it sits and is not used for a long period of time, the brain being this machine. "The air is sacred here In spite of your claim" - she was against him doing drugs and constantly condemned them while they were together.
The second stanza is again refering to him being high and because of this out of reach of the girl that left him, the trickster. A preivous post by gs explains well why the trickster is meaningless and weak. Becuase she is not able to have any effect on him anymore, she no longer has any power (at least on him).
The first time the chorus comes in it is referring to what it is going to explain in the second verse, which is the literal story absent of the metaphors. When Thom says "talking out the world", he is always referring to the mentioned person is complaining, bitching, or however you want to phrase it. In this case the boy is continually talking about this girl that he is head over heals for and complaining about how he is too nervous to ask her out. The "Hey, hey, hey, this is only halfway" is foreshadowing how their relationship is going to be, half full.
The first stanza of the second verse is before they are a couple when the guy has a crush on her and is wanting to be IN a relationship so bad it's driving him crazy. The second stanza is describing the end of their relationship when they both are tired of each other that that want OUT of the relationship.
The second chorus if you notice says, "We're talking out the world" instead of "He's talking out the world." This is because it is the progression of the story. Now instead of the line being a good type of talking, it is referring to them talking bad about each other (probably to their friends). You know, that friend of yours that is always bitching and complaining about the relationship that they're in. And as I said earlier, the line "Hey, hey, hey, this is only halfway" is referring to the way that they view their relationship, half empty or negatively. They can't be just happy with each other, but instead look at all the bad and annoying things that each other does.
The first stanza of the last verse is describing their deviant kids who has also turned to drugs to escape from the situation at home where there is constant yelling and fighting, which you hear of many kids resorting to pot for this reason. The "Chestnut tree" is their safe haven when they are high. As you will notice, Thom always uses places of elevation as places of escape in this song as symbolism to being stoned or just high. "A can of brick dust worms" is referring to the kids environment. They are being related to worms in a can of pure brick dust. Just as worms need healthy soil to develop properly and are not able to survive in such a harsh environment, neither can the childen in this household.
The last stanza is about a the result of a traumatic event that happened between the couple, most likely domestic violence. The first two lines are describing this event. The third line is about the kids being taken away from the parents because of the incident that occurred. The house he was in was the "zoo" and the kids were "escaping" it. In the fourth line a facsimile is a copy, or in this case more like a template. Thom is being sarcastic in this line by calling these scared and screwed up kids an ideal image of a child.
If you read this explanation and listen to the song again, the instrumental mood is very fitting. This song has a very similar sound and message to most of the songs from "she wants revenge." In fact one song, killing time, is very similar to this, but more from a high school point of view.
If anyone has any comments or revisions for my idea, I am open for suggestions.
Chestnut Trees in early Christianity were symbols of chastity, and the truant or troublemaker kids in BNW were morelikely to abstain from sex as it was glorified in the culture portrayed in the book. The 'perfect child facsimle' could be a clone but the fact that he uses the word facsimile really implies a fabrication, so what if the Savage is a fabrication of what the perfect child would have been in Huxley's day, a clean-living, intelligent child who spends his time forging his own life and quoting Shakespeare. Then Thom repeats the line "talking out the world" in succession implying that maybe the Savage gets a bit to close to the world this time and then he drops "this is only halfway" maybe saying that Savage really did cross the line into society... Just like in BNW.
It's probably wrong, but it sounds cool.
“"Long white gloves
Police check carefully
Escaped from the zoo
The perfect child facsimile"
could mean one of two things: 1) that the trickster checks carefully to see if the police are around so that the trickster can do mischief, or 2) that the police are looking carefully for the trickster. Either way, the trickster is and/or has broken the rules. The function of police is to enforce the rules of society (the values of the larger group). That the trickster spends a lot of effort avoiding the police (society), or that the police are searching for the trickster, indicates that the trickster does not follow the laws, nature, or values that the rest of society upholds. This difference further exemplifies the alienation that the trickster feels (see gs’s comments on 12-9-2004). We can also see that society does not like the trickster or his tricks because specifically the police are searching for him, presumably to arrest him.
Through a change in tenses, York leads us to speculate in the next line, “Escaped from the zoo,” that the trickster is no longer separated from society and is out to create havoc. The words “escaped” and “zoo” could mean that the trickster has broken the boundaries of what is acceptable in society and is wild in nature.
Additionally, Nerve mentioned "The trickster seems to have been and still is one of these [truant, mean] kids even if he is an adult now." The line in the song, "The perfect child facsimile" supports this idea. It leads us to infer that the trickster is not physically a child, but exactly like one (hence "facsimile"). Thus the trickster is an adult that has not grown up.
i also think that the narrator is feeling tricked by the lies of the 'trickster', when he says :
Lost in the mountains
Rust in my brain
The air is sacred here
In spite of your claim
it is like the narator has been promised to reach the top but got lost in the process somwhere 'half way true' because the 'claim' was a lie. It is only now that the narrator has realised that he is being a subject to the tickster's manipulation.
The phrases;
I wanted you so bad
That I couldn't say
All these things fall apart
We wanted out so bad
That we couldn't say
These things fall apart
Also suggest that this trickter was able to 'blind' the people into becoming his dedicated followers because he promised he could give them somthing which they have been wanting so much.
I am not sure about the last two paragraphs but to me it seems that tom is descrbing who this trickster is, where he came from, what was the enviorment which he grew in? Hence;
Truant kids
A can of brick dust worms
Who do not want to climb down from
Their chestnut tree
Seems to refair to ignorant spoiled kids who never chose to learn or grow and who do not hesitate into taking extreme measures (at the expense of the rest of us), just to satisfy their greed.The trikster seems to have been and still is one of these kids (even if he is a adult now).
THe last paragraph is even more ambiguious to me, but it seems to support the one before it. When tom says 'The perfect child facsimile ' seems to allude to the fact that this trickster has been brought up into beliving that he is a supirior 'perfect' being and thus can rule over the rest and fool them into anything he wants. THe word facsimle in that phrase seems to alude that such a person lacks so much the human elements, like compassion and altruism that he is just a copy or a product that has been manipulated to fit his role.
this is just my humble opinion about this stunning song which anyway i could be completley wrong :)