Don't get any big ideas
They're not gonna happen

You paint yourself white
And fill up with noise
But there'll be something missing

Now that you've found it, it's gone
Now that you feel it, you don't
You've gone off the rails

So don't get any big ideas
They're not gonna happen

You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking



Lyrics submitted by pinkandblurry

Track duration: 04:13

"Nude" as written by Thomas Edward Yorke, Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood, Colin Charles Greenwood, Edward John O'brien, Philip James Selway

Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

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Nude song meanings
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  • 0
    My Interpretation:I can sense disappointment and a slight resignation/indifference in his voice. I don’t think it’s about love. It’s more about sick games and obsession.

    Don't get any big ideas
    They're not gonna happen

    (Don’t get any big ideas about us , they’re not gonna happen. Don’t get your hopes up. It’s over. )

    You paint yourself white
    And fill up with noise
    But there'll be something missing

    (You ‘ll put on this mask of innocence and act happy(noise!!!). It's a charade that gets you through the day. But deep within, you are an empty shell desperate to fill your need for some sort of validation or recognition.)


    Now that you've found it, it's gone
    Now that you feel it, you don't
    You've gone off the rails.

    (You are constantly fooling yourself that you found what you need. But it’s only an illusion.)


    You go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking!

    (You are someone who sets out just to inflict pain and play mind games.These thoughts will just keep you hooked into deep desolation, torment and despair.)
    Flag andrew566on May 13, 2013   Link
  • 0
    Song Meaning:This song is simply about putting people in their place - specifically those religious folks who think they know Jesus and tell you you're a sinner and going to hell:

    "You paint yourself white" (you think you're pure, self-righteous)

    "And fill up with noise" (you meddle in others business, point out their sins)

    "But there'll be something missing" (St. Peter won't greet you when you're gone)

    "Now that you've found it, it's gone" (born again evangelical's claim they found it / him)

    "You've gone off the rails" (you've gone overboard in your beliefs / rhetoric)

    "You'll go to hell for what that dirty mind is thinking" (see the irony now?)
    Flag HLMenckenon March 23, 2013   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking"
    the way he's telling "Thinking" , made me afraid of that like I don't wanna think anymore
    Flag Yazardshiron March 22, 2013   Link
  • +2
    My Interpretation:I suppose everyone else has a pretty credible explanation for the song, but I want to convey a totally different perspective to it. I agree with the fact that the song talks about never being able to find "it" to satisfy our needs entirely, as well as I read to have found that "painting yourself white" seems to really make sense with the flawed attempts at self-purification from the outside.

    However, I don't agree with this big bit: it's pessimistic. I like to call this song the jellyfish song for a reason, and the song to me is a beautiful, soul-bound perspective on the ego climbing to many set purposes in life. But there's the answer in it all, and that's withdrawal from the race and limitations on one's needs. Imagine, like in the music video, the floating jellyfish. How simple is their life? Do they desire more and more and more until they go over the rails? I think the key essence to this song is simplification and emotions, benefiting from one another.
    Flag MrBahumbugon November 19, 2012   Link
  • 0
    My Interpretation:This is one of my favorite Radiohead songs....It's so concise yet still so lush & rich in the swells. I believe it's about the ultimate act of denial of anothers' need for intimacy in this case an ex with the author.

    I believe that in this song, the writer/author is being pressured by an old lover (the rejected party or ex) to try to go back and reinstate a tragically failed relationship. "Don't get any Big Ideas, IT'S not gonna happen"... The "It" in the song is sex or intimacy. The writer is responding to pressures from the old lover or ex who still desperately wants him. She still wants to be with him sexually, but he can't possibly give in to the pressure. "You paint yourself white" is the act of the ex sanitizing all prior offensive acts, cleansing or literally whitewashing the crazy and desperate things this rejected lover has done to cause the relationship to end in an attempt to get the old lover back, justifying everything she's ever done wrong as the act of any normal person in love. "And fill up with noise" is the ex talking over all the words and deeds of the writer when they are saying they no longer have any interest in anything the ex has to offer. The ex literally drowns out with their own self serving sounds, the words of the writer in an attempt to persuade the writer to be intimate with them, to do "IT" one more time, thinking this will lead to a reconciliation. "But there'll be something missing". The writer has found someone else, someone new and different, that makes it impossible to ever imagine doing "IT" again with the ex. The ex will never be her, the new love. "Now that you've found it, it's gone. Now that you feel it, you don't" is the point where the ex has seen that they had something precious and it's truly lost. Perhaps they took this relationship for granted, or were too self involved to reciprocate the writers feelings until it became too late. "You've gone off the rails" the ex is clueless and desperate to the point of being crazy to restore the lost feelings, but what's broken here cannot be fixed no matter how increasingly kind, sweet, loving, beautiful, sexy, or provocative the ex acts. The ex grows more frantic, and presses harder, but the writer will not relent. The increasingly desperate ex crosses a line or lines and perhaps implies something really bad could happen if she doesn't get her way and this scares the writer "You'll go to Hell for what your dirty mind is thinking".....

    In real life, some years ago I sought asylum from a disturbed abusive ex, and had managed to hide from him for 4 months in a remote area with my future significant other & a group of kind and protective friends. One morning, out of the blue around 3am, my ex found us and comes bounding in. He had a gun and was threatening to kill me and the other people there, and then himself. Realizing I was endangering innocent people, I decided to relent and go off with him, hoping I could talk him back onto "the rails". He believed that deep down inside I still had to love him, because he still loved me, and that if we could do "it" or be intimate, all would be well in the world once again. He apologized for physically abusing me before, and told me about all the good things he was involved with now ('painting himself white') and literally talked over & dismissed all my feelings, not hearing a word I said when I attempted to articulate why I'd had to leave him ('filled up with noise'). There was nothing that could fix that which was now so irreparably broken ('there would always be something missing', namely the love that we once had). For years I had begged him to change, and once I'd grown strong enough to leave, and it truly became too late, he'd miraculously had an epiphany, and had seen The Light, and was ready to make any and all the changes I wanted ('found it, but it's gone, feel it, but you don't'). By allowing myself into that car alone with him, he thought the next logical step was a physical reconciliation via sex, (his "big idea") but in my heart of hearts I could never ever willingly be with him like that again. Ultimately, he was arrested that night, and spent time in mental health facility, and I continued to move farther and farther away from where he was, and now have a happy life with a husband and child. But in those moments after I first went off alone with him that night, as he pressed me for intimacy believing "IT" was a great idea for "us", I believe I lived a different version of this song. Only Thom Yorke and the members of Radiohead made a terrifying ugly event sound incredibly beautiful, and for that I will always be grateful.....
    Flag MotherSquidon June 09, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:This is about...believing you're actually wonderful when you know it's not true.
    Flag hayleyxxon May 24, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment:"Paint yourself white..."
    "Fill up with noise.."
    possible clown reference?
    Flag sJsgublerXon May 19, 2012   Link
  • +5
    General Comment:Couple of quotes Thom Yorke said which I think highlights what the song means.

    1."I grew up under Thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. Then gradually over the years it occurred to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state."

    2. "The sad thing is, if an issue is laughed at and patronised by mainstream media, then it's up against it big-time. I read some journalist recently lecturing the anti-globalisation lobby, saying, 'This is the way capitalism works, all capitalism is exploitation and to make it try and do something else, it's never gonna happen.' And it's like, yeah, but where does that leave us? This is somehow God's will? All this? It's God's will that we sit in traffic? It's God's will that millions of people are gonna die this year because of some outmoded economic policies? No, it's not! It's like some deranged sacrificial altar, the high priests of the global economy holding up these millions of children each year, like (Arms aloft) 'We wish to please you! Oh Gods of free trade!' It's like... give us all a fucking break! If there is a Devil at work, then he rests in institutions and not in individuals. Because the beauty of institutions is that any individual can abdicate responsibility. The assumption that we're all utterly powerless, that's the Devil at work."

    These lyrics are the powers that be talking. That's what the institutions stuff into your heads, that you can't change the world around you. That message is one you've gotta fight.
    Thats how I see it anyway. The song still drives me to tears.
    Flag WillAndWindon May 14, 2012   Link
  • 0
    Lyric Correction:Don't get any big ideas
    They're not gonna happen
    You paint yourself white
    And fill up with noise
    But there'll be something missing

    Now that you've found it, it's gone
    Now that you feel it, you don't
    You've gone off the rails

    So don't get any big ideas
    They're not gonna happen
    You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking
    Flag paperbagwriteron February 27, 2012   Link
  • -1
    General Comment:Wow! You people have waaaay too much time on your hands!
    Flag gogogirlon December 02, 2011   Link

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