Lyrics for Paranoid Android as interpreted by piesupreme

Paranoid Android Lyrics
Please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken voices in my head
What's that, what's that?

When I am king you will be first against the wall
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all
What's that, what's that?

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking, squealing, Gucci little piggy

You don't remember, you don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?
Off with his head, man, off with his head, man
Why don't you remember my name?
I guess he does

Rain down, rain down, come on rain down on me
From a great height, from a great height, height
Rain down, rain down, come on rain down on me
From a great height, from a great height, height

That's it sir, you're leaving
The crackle of pig skin
The dust and the screaming
The yuppies networking
The panic, the vomit
The panic, the vomit
God loves his children
God loves his children, yeah

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misledyouth765
07-04-2004

Rated 0 
It was inspired whe Thom decided to go bar hopping in LA. He ended up getting surrounded by people wanting a piece of him. If I remember right, when he was writing the lyrics for this, he heard the voices of those people in the bar in his head. So the song is really just paranoia. Of course, I could be wrong

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benjo21
10-08-2004

Rated 0 
Thom Yorke wrote this song after he'd been for a relaxing pint in a london bar. As he was relaxing it occured to him the behaviour of all the others in the bar was odd, and it turned out that it was because everyone was coked up. He wrote it to describe the evil he saw in those yippies that evening.

I love lines like 'you won't remember my name' and 'kicking squaeling gucci little piggy'. The former a reference to somebody smashed and not caring to remember the name of a new asscoiate and the lattle a reference to a coked up woman, shouting, screaming, utterly selfish, with all her fake, designer cloths on.

I can just picture it in my mind, half the bars in london are like that. Soulless, haunting places i find half of them

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hermajesty
10-17-2004

Rated 0 
It's so much fun to sing along with Thom Yorke's depressing voice.
I love Radiohead.

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dbaker
10-27-2004

Rated 0 
It's not an accident-Thom Yorke says, "It's just chaos, chaos, utter f***ing chaos" The song is awesome, really.

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Eatcarpet
11-08-2004

Rated 0 
Wow, I'm surprised at how many idiots are listening to Radiohead, but have no idea what the song is about. Obviously it's "Bohemian Rhapsody" of the 90's.

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ToxicTapeworm
11-12-2004

Rated 0 
Wouldn't it be better if we just listened to the song and soaked in the meaning of it, without the words, and not demean Radiohead by brewing up silly theories such as it being about shooting up jocks?

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bakismaki
11-24-2004

Rated 0 
This song is from OK computer. And OK computer was a concept album. There is one central concept to OK computer, and it's the dehumization of the human race. People get so caught up in their day to day they forget to enjoy their lives. People get caught up in their crappy jobs. They become robots or computers. Anyway it's a great song. And it's just one part of the overall concept of the album. To really get the full effect you have to listen to the whole album. All the songs on it are great. Easily one of the best albums of the 90's. Paranoid Android is an incredible song. Paranoid Android is the centerpiece of the album. Do yourself a favor "slow down", and also buy this album if you have not.

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Trenity1234
12-14-2004

Rated 0 
Doesn't anyone think this song is about models and whatnot?

The very first thing I thought of when hearing this song was that twilight zone episode about the young, beautiful woman who was branned as ugly because she didn't look like any of the other pig-faced people.

I dunno, the first part seems to be the paranoid aspect of modelling (am I skinny enough, do I look good enough, etc) and the second part about being king just reminded me of putting posters of models of barely clothed men/women on your wall.

The gucci piggy part is just a way of trying to look like all the other pigs (in the case of the twilight zone reference) via plastic surgery?

And the whole part about the remembering "my name" strikes me as a pop culture sort of thing. If I went up to someone famous, they prolly wouldn't remember me for the life of them, but they would most likely remember a fellow model, important person, etc. Also, in the media, the stupidest things can be put on television, and as long as they are done by a famous person, people will intently watch them.

And the last verse:
The plastic surgery = the crackle of pigskin
Yuppies = Bigwigs controlling the model's actions (hence, networking)
Vomit = Anerexia?
God loves his children = Irony


That's my whole view on the song.

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jonsonic
12-15-2004

Rated 0 
very good. obviously the ambiguous nature of the lyrics mean different people can derive different meanings from the text according to their life experiences.... i think this song is a reference to marvin the paranoid android and relating marvin to modern urban living, as has been mentioned numerous times above.
but what of the book, the Guide to the Galaxy? the meaning of the book is that in an infinate universe anything is possible and everything is random and meaningless. so the fact that the song is so ambiguous and in many ways obscure and meaningless relates to the nature of the book. time for my total perspective vortex i think...

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FaaipDeOaid
12-16-2004

Rated 0 
This was the song that made Radio Radio. This one here is there cling to fame- lyrically, instrumentally, everything about this song is flawless.

No, Creep isn't their best, not by a long shot. Not close. Creep sucks.

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radiofreakhead
12-18-2004

Rated 0 
Does anyone else go into orgasm when the guitar solo kicks in. Best song ever in my humble opinion

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antikuma
12-20-2004

Rated 0 
One of the best songs ever. The moment i heard it life was just sublime. Well I haven't read the book you've been talking about, so here's just another personal view on this song's meaning: heartbreak! the noise that doesn't let you have some rest, someone who claims not to remember your name, all the rage we feel when the one who dumps us carries on her/his life sucessfully. But of course i know the actual meaning is beyond such trivial feeling; just telling you what the song meant to me in a particular moment of life.

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triptiensemble
12-30-2004

Rated 0 
Definitely Anti-yuppie. As with most radiohead song's, they try and make people find their own meaning's, it could subconsciously have references to the hitchhikers guide... and the fall of a roman king, but i don't think he set out to write about it. Ace song though

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Radiogod
01-04-2005

Rated 0 
OwnPersonalDemon - "A better song has not been made."

Truth.

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enigmatic_jess
01-16-2005

Rated 0 
I cannot and will not, EVER, get sick of this song. It absolutely rocks my socks off.

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rjennar
01-19-2005

Rated 0 
You are all right in one way or another.

But let me back up the one who made the allusion to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy of four.

There are references to Marvin the Paranoid Android all over that book, verbatim about the first against the wall line, and there's even a page where a character gives up and says, "OK! Computer". It's a running gag. Here, I can look it up. You look it up too. Funny book. I'm pretty sure it's all in the first one.

Well I can't find what page. Suffice to say that Marvin is depressed and depressing as he's a robot who knows everything there is to know about life, the universe and everything.

Definitely this song is split into 3 parts though. Not as esoteric and confusing as you're all making it out to be. You can tear it down word for word, but only at the expense of ten thousand of your own words. Just hear it, it's a cool sound.

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MenTaLPiRacY
01-19-2005

Rated 0 
Well from what i gathred the video has nothing to do with the song. It is just clips used from a telivision show in Brittan called "Robin" or somthing like that im sure i read that on a intreview one time. Also if u wantch the video RadioHead is in it. They are sitting at the table while that dude has his head sticking out of his stomach. haha they are just sitting there chillin.
Here is more info from another site
Lead singer Thom Yorke decided to bar-hop in Los Angeles one night, but what began as a festive evening soon became a nightmare as Yorke found himself surrounded by parasitic scene-stalkers intent on extracting a pound of Yorke-flesh. "The people I saw that night were just like demons from another planet," said Yorke, now safely ensconced in a New York hotel. "Everyone was trying to get something out of me. I felt like my own self was collapsing in the presence of it, but I also felt completely, utterly part of it, like it was all going to come crashing down any minute." That night inspired "Paranoid Android,"

Thing i think is alot of people are taking it deeper than it really is.

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Reverend-Maynard
02-02-2005

Rated 0 
The best song ever written full stop. - and Radiohead are not even my favourite band (TOOL)

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Reverend-Maynard
02-02-2005

Rated 0 
I always thought this song was simply about and against animal cluelty. "From all the unborn chicken voices in my head", the crackle of pig skin,
the dust and the screaming
The yuppies networking
the panic, the vomit,
the panic, the vomit
God loves his children. Meaning god loves ALL his children animals included. "When I am king......" York wants to stop all the people who are cruel to the anaimals???? any thoughts, am I being way to simplistic???????????

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alter913
02-03-2005

Rated 0 
this is the song that finally persuaded me to buy an acoustic guitar a few years ago.

best music video ever

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maggotbrain
02-09-2005

Rated 0 
this song and a lot of radiohead songs don't really speak to me. they dont make sense to me but i still like them all anyway...

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meursaultsrevolver
02-22-2005

Rated 0 
i love the last set of lines. the ridiculous notion of a benevolent god. sitting there, watching his children crawling through pain and panic and vomit with yuppies and fascists walking all over them and trampling them into the dirt. it's happening. wake up idiots.

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Morvit
02-27-2005

Rated 0 
I call it the modern "Stairways to Heaven"

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charrbin
03-24-2005

Rated 0 
Here's the Hitchhiker's part:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes,' with a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the post of robotics correspondent.

Curiously enough, an edition of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future defined the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as 'a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.'
- Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

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admather
03-25-2005

Rated 0 
It's a piss-take. Thom and Johnny have said many times that it isn't meant to be taken literally or even particularly seriously.
Its just full of little in-jokes and obscure insults ("gucci little piggy" is inspired) that meander around a phenomenal musical structure. I don't think it actually "means" that much, to be honest.

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