Radiohead – How to Disappear Completely

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  General Comment:4.30 to the end is just perfection. Especially 4.55-5.00

  Flag rossb93on May 13, 2013   Link

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  My Interpretation:I interpreted this song similarly, but differently than some of the comments below.
  
  I have really bad anxiety, to the point that some days it is extremely hard to function. There seems to be nothing that can take your mind off of what is bothering you (why you are anxious - fears, breakups, life changes, etc). You go to parties, clubs, events, and celebrate holidays to try to distract yourself, but they never work. Yet society tells you that you have to keep living and being a "normal person," so you go through the motions like a ghost or empty shell when it'd just be easier if you disappeared.

  Flag Raphaeliteon April 22, 2013   Link

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  General Comment:at its core i think this song is about a nervous breakdown but... im more inclined to have a political interpretation to really bring it into perspective. I think at its deepest the personal becomes at statement about everybody, society as a whole and has inevitable connotations to the state of things. This song is about the tradegies of modern society and what we have become. 9/11, war in iraq, an out of control economic system, child/ serial killers. Just watch lots of tragic news stories and this songs fits perfectly. basically the failure and coming collapse of our society is i think acutely put across here. But also i think its about the reality of being in a successful band- being followed/stalked, harassed and the media circus. its about all of these things at once to me. A truly tragic song

  Flag jonny-ohon April 18, 2013   Link

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  General Comment:so HOW ?!?

  Flag Yazardshiron February 15, 2013   Link

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  My Opinion:I think of this song as a sort of nihilistic delusion

  Flag ShadoBlazeon January 17, 2013   Link

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• +3
  My Interpretation:My feeling (only my own interpretation rather than Yorke's) when I listen to this is that he is done with this life, tired, exhausted, ready to "throw in the towel" as such. For me at least, there is no lower feeling you can experience than when you are truly connecting with this song. To me it's about being stuck in a hole so deep you don't feel you'll ever escape from it, out of it and back up into the real world. By "real world" I mean to fit back into society as a happy, functioning individual with goals, aspirations, a future in sight. The idea of such an existence seems foreign even if it was once your reality, so you want out. You want to disappear.

  Flag sjukhus01on December 30, 2012   Link

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• +3
  General Comment:This is what it feels like when you're living a life you don't want to live, just going through the motions of something you would never choose on your own. Especially when you're doing it on little sleep.

  Flag JohnTheSavage1on December 01, 2012   Link

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  My Interpretation:I think that this song is about a man having an out-of-body experience, and not liking what he sees.
  Let me explain.
  He says "That there, that's not me. I go where I please... In a little while
  I'll be gone
  The moment's already passed"
  This is the out of body experience, that one moment where he's out of it all, and witnesses himself from third person eyes. Usually when this happens, I'm overcome with joy, the very miracle that I am even alive astounds me, and I believe that it's what happens to him. But it is that fact that distresses him. He feels regret. Like he didn't do enough with the gift of life, or he sees what a monster he is, or what a waste him and his entire species are.
  
  "Strobe lights and blown speakers
  Fireworks and hurricanes
  I'm not here
  This isn't happening"
  This is him trying to have the out of body experience again, and failing, as it is avoiding, and only happens randomly under the right circumstances. He rationalizes his either meaningless, monstrous, or wasteful existence by lulling himself with the phrase: "I'm not here, this isn't happening". This is the same phrase that REM frontman told Thom Yorke to say to himself when he felt the weight of it all. While his world crumbles, he lulls himself to sleep, and crumbles with it, because that is all he is.

  Flag TheGiggoloon November 17, 2012   Link

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  My Interpretation:I think it's about doing or being apart of something you see is not acceptable now and seeing the only way out is to deny the event ever happened. In also kinda reminds me of O'Brien's speech in 1984 about how if he said he was levitating in the middle of the room he would be, and said that reality exists only in the human mind. Also the book's concept of if you convince yourself something is true or happened/vice versa, then it did happen, Which reminded me of Winston's torture into making him love Big Brother.

  Flag AHendersonon October 18, 2012   Link

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  My Interpretation:all my pains and suffering, every moment i'm living, is passing by, when the fuck am i going to understand...nothing lasts....all in all i'm a part-universe

  Flag adiagyaon September 05, 2012   Link

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