Lyrics for Idioteque as interpreted by piesupreme

Idioteque Lyrics
Who's in a bunker?
Who's in a bunker?
Women and children first
And the children first
And the children
I'll laugh until my head comes off
I'll swallow until I burst
Until I burst
Until I

Who's in a bunker?
Who's in a bunker?
I have seen too much
I haven't seen enough
You haven't seen it
I'll laugh until my head comes off
Women and children first
And children first
And children

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

Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both sides
Let me hear both
Ice age coming
Ice age coming
Throw it on the fire
Throw it on the fire
Throw it on the

We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening
Happening
Mobiles skwerking
Mobiles chirping
Take the money and run
Take the money and run
Take the money

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

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

The first of the children

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tipi-tia
03-15-2003

Rated 0 
I think this song is simply some great beats put together with some pretty deep lyrics, along with with a killer voice from Tom York.(the live version is soooo good)

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Tektronic
03-23-2003

Rated 0 
The vocals in this song are quite beatiful, I usuall dont like a males singing like that so much, minus Zeppelin and Floyd, but it's pretty beatiful and I truly enjoyed the way it flowed together with the drums and bass esque beat.

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UnemployedDaysleepe
03-30-2003

Rated 0 
I'm not sure why nobody else has suggested this but it sounnds like its about a family. about a man who starts a family though he doesnt love his wife or children, he has a wife that stays at home and takes care of the children. he controls them with fear. he has sex with whomever he wants besides his wife he has a mistress, he abuses his family hes rich white upper class and is allowed everything all of the time.he doesnt love his family -ice age coming- but that doesnt matter, he wants sex and he wants a family, he takes it and runs, he neglects them, the line "ive seen too much, not seen enough, not seen it", reminds me of one from the song Wolf at the door, *that'll be on the new Hail to the thief album* where he mentions the movie stepford wives, and says '' cold wives and mistrtesses, cold wives and sunday papers, city boys in first class, don't know we're born..." "...oh i wish you'd get up, go over and turn this tape off" the line in idioteque and WATD are probably based on a personal experience, maybe the laugh until my head comes off is from imagining *hate to spoil the ending for anyone so i'll be vague* the women being saved and put into bunkers to raise their children and propegate the species when the ice age (REAL environ-mental ice age ) comes and people are crowded into bunkers. and the men are throwing themselves to the wolves.
and the line the first of the children= KID A
the first born child of a man who doesnt need to love his own children, or his name in a computer program or something

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UnemployedDaysleepe
03-30-2003

Rated 0 
oh my god no its what the mother would name the first child born in the bunker in the future. LOL

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broken_gerbil
04-26-2003

Rated 0 
this is the best fukin song iv eva herd bout an impending nuclear winter!!! go radiohead!

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WeepLikeaWidow
05-12-2003

Rated 0 
i like soot's interpretation its up there somewhere.

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Bojangles
06-05-2003

Rated 0 
yugaquanto seems to have nailed this one.
I think you people are taking the "Ice age coming" a bit too literally. By Ice age, he's(Yorke) speaking about an extended period of time devoid of growth, where life is very nearly vanquished. He's may well be attempting to conjure the images we associate with the neanderthals, having been the only "humans" to live through the ice age, ie; small groups of people scavenging, hiding in caves (or in this case bunkers), whose survival hangs by a thread. Conversely, this period would be triggered by our own actions rather than by a cycle of nature. One of you made reference to the term "nuclear winter", in KID A, he seems to be speaking of the impending end to society as current, whereas Amnesiac seems to take place at some point near the end of the "nuclear winter/ice age". One line off that album, in the refrain of the piece "Knives out", "catch the mouse, squash his head, put him in your mouth" seems to support this, given that humans have been reduced to surviving on rodents. Interestingly, radiohead's new album "Hail to the thief" seems to be set in present times, or a time very similar. Are they going back, to catalog the apocolypse quantitavely, or are they conveying the message that, regardless of grandeur, society will forever destroy itself anew?

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juvenilecokefiend
06-06-2003

Rated 0 
i always got the impression that radiohead are far more concerned with emotional responses rather than flat semantics. i mean, what links "women and children first" and "ice age coming" and "this is really happening"? just that feeling of impending disaster. attached to it is that strange mania ("throw it in the fire!") Humans are screwing it up for themselves? who knows? this song is about terror, i don't think it gets more specific than that.

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Deimos
06-08-2003

Rated 0 
I totally agree with juvenilecokefiend: emotional responses are far more important than flat semantics. However, I think this song is about taking drugs: once you're high, you think you're alowed "everything all of the time". When you get down, you feel fits of hot (throw it in the fire") and cold ("ice age coming"). To me it's a song about the terror of having completely loss control over one's desire's and to find you're totally dependant on something.

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phoggy
06-08-2003

Rated 0 
There is a more literal interpretation of the first two verses. In a recent interview Thom mentioned how, during the recording of Kid A, he had become obsessed with the missile video images from the first Gulf war, particularly the incident in which a "weapons" bunker in Baghdad that was shown being destroyed was later found to have contained women and children. He was disgusted at what technology could now do to people (another meaning of Ideoteque). I swallow until I burst - he can't swallow any more of the stories fed to us by the military. He's seen more than he wants to see but we need to see more so we can stop it. This is really happening - it's not a video game.

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phoggy
06-08-2003

Rated 0 
There is a more literal interpretation of the first two verses. In a recent interview Thom mentioned how, during the recording of Kid A, he had become obsessed with the missile video images from the first Gulf war, particularly the incident in which a "weapons" bunker in Baghdad that was shown being destroyed was later found to have contained women and children. He was disgusted at what technology could now do to people (another meaning of Ideoteque). I swallow until I burst - he can't swallow any more of the stories fed to us by the military. He's seen more than he wants to see but we need to see more so we can stop it. This is really happening - it's not a video game.

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*FelipeVox*
06-08-2003

Rated 0 
Iīm really afraid od this song...
This song is about a bad thing... a really bad thing, like the end of the world, like a genetic war... "Woman and children first" and "take the money run", itīs telling us that we have to SCAPE from something that "is really happening", but "here Iīm allowed everything all of the time" makes me think that the person of the song canīt scape... and heīll laugh... Why? I really donīt know.

But this song is abour caos... "throw it on the fire..." and "ice age coming" are opposite... People have to burn everything because the ice age have come... weīre dying... and in the end: the first of the children, obviously the clone.

I think itīs about the end of the world, and the KID A, the clone, the first of the children, is destroying everything... Thatīs what Í think, but IDIOTEQUE is radioheadīs great mistery.

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Running_On_Empty
06-11-2003

Rated 0 
cool song, I'm listening to it right now on x-96

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UnemployedDaysleepe
06-12-2003

Rated 0 
maybe about how men are out in the business world or out working to fight for their share, while someone stays home to raise the kids. and after a time you have to grow up and leave the bunker and start your own family ,but now with modern technology we dont have to leave, we can party and have a good time anytime we want, go dancing and drinking after a hard days work (isnt that what inspires modern invention, isnt that progress?), responsibility , we can build robots to raise our kids for us or plop them down in front of the tv while we wait for someone to invent rosie. and see what we become and see how long we last

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veritas1821
06-21-2003

Rated 0 
i've always looked at it as it being about the cold war myself, but i do like the idea of the Kid A and first human clone refference which goes along to "the first of the children." and the idea of it being about global warming is a thought... but as Maester Rob said... "ice age coming" and global warming... doesnt make too much sense. personally, i think the line reffers to the theory that after full-out nuclear war and everything was destroyed, that another ice age would come and pretty much start life over. but thats just me...

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borednesstakesover
06-24-2003

Rated 0 
I dunno I kinda always thought of it as a sick leader's point of view while bombing. He has many regrets and doesnt care too much either.

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matte1
06-30-2003

Rated 0 
Im not much of a radiohead fan but this is an amazing song !!!! :D

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SnapHappyActivist
07-05-2003

Rated 0 
i think it is about the pop revolution, and in the early seventies when pop and rock seperated and became the mundane electronica and feel good love songy shite fest that modern pop is...(then again no-one agrees with me very much)
hence them hiding it in a dance song...great name, love what they did there...i wonder if the government are watching us now....

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NicoleInWonderland
07-07-2003

Rated 0 
one of the most beautiful songs.


reminds me how people who are considered important do not get drafted into the war. like entertainers, politicians, really ritch people, etc.....

while the rest of the country is off fighting wars and dieing for them, they are allowed "everything all the time."

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CutSlan
04-08-2004

Rated 0 
Everyone has a pretty good explanation, although some put too much thought. It is nuclear war, never considered the eviromental thing. doesn't really fit.

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fetology
04-18-2004

Rated 0 
My favorite song of all time, definitely.

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peeda
04-21-2004

Rated 0 
He is NOT saying "first of the children". I went to a radiohead concert, its "this is one for the children", he sang it at the end without the distortion. Dunno about that clone crap, Thom seems to make stuff up if he doesn't like the interview, his songs usually aint as bizarre as its made out to be.

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anna118k
05-01-2004

Rated 0 
One of my favorite Radiohead songs.. Though it seems so atypical.

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mumbles
05-12-2004

Rated 0 
I think it's about world-weariness... about the whole world doesn't make sense to him and how he's afraid of war's... people and future and how he just get's manic (i laugh until my head comes off) and depressive (i'll swallow until i burst)

it also may be a critical song about the american media... how they exeggerate everything...

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jaz40
05-13-2004

Rated 0 
i always thought this song was about y2k, how all the crazies were stockpiling guns and food because they were so sure the world was going to end. i think it's just about how baseless panic can snowball into something totally overwhelming.

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