i read somewhere that thom meant for this song to be about his work at a mental hospital and about the boogeyman. a lot of people find it weird and creepy. i find it sexy. the music and thom's voice together makes it seem that way, but what do i know?

Dont listen to this while u'r stoned. You'l end up in the looney bin for real.

Great track, brilliant. Love the distortion in it.

I think it's about insanity, pure and simple. Mental illness has many forms and can be described in many ways, both literal and nonliteral.

About the lyrics issue... I think Thom sometimes sings something different than what is published on the album jackets. If you've ever written a poem, you know that sometimes they change with the circumstance.

About the music... this is the spookiest sounding song I've ever heard and I absolutely love it. The eerie dissonance resolving into an eaqually eerie note has to be my favorite. I wouldn't let my daughter listen to it for a while 'cause I thought it would scare her. And when she finally heard it in the car, she just asked me to turn on 'No Surprises', which I gladly did.

I heard that Thom said the song was about "the unthinkable. literally, skull-crushing." If you consider the Care in the Community story (letting potentially dangerous mental patients out into the real world), these lyrics play with words brilliantly.

"open up your skull" seems to be a play on "open up your mind," which I would think would be a motto of the Care in the Community program. By opening their minds and accepting the patients into society, people are also inviting the literal opening of their fucking skulls.

The "fifteen blows" lines also seem to blur the line between metaphor and physical reality. The fear of the literal blows to the head results in "blows to the mind" or paranoia.

The scream at the end is mind-blowing in itself. Absolute perfection.

I can only give my interpretation to the lyrics, as the whole Thom working in a mental instution-yadda yadda-thing has me completely convinced lol. Kinda ruined my lil head party and sharing what I had thought the song meant is now, in my opinion moot.

But I am having some issues with a few of the lines and placing them into context with what I now strongly believe the song to portray. But oh well, either image is just as fun to mentally run through my head while I listen to this song. I simply adore it.

That scream at the end...and the section after it... fucking hell that's powerful

So its not about having a breakdown then?

This song is creepy as fuck. Good thing its followed by the pretty "No Suprises"....

As for meaning..i always thought it was about the "your own worst enemy kind of thing"...kind of about how you can never really escape the dark/bad parts of yourself.

As for the scream at the end...whatever. If you wanna hear a REALLY disturbing scream, listen to "Cuckoo For Caca" by Faith No More.

No no no no no no no.
Go to greenplastic.com
An interview quote there says Thom Yorke said this song was about people who beleive there are monsters under their beds and in their closets.

This song scares me almost as much as Idioteque. Not quite, but almost.

I kind of agree with naisebo. To me it's the voice of your fears. "I am the key to the lock in your house, that keeps your toys in the basement", and you want to get your toys out of the basement but you're so shit scared of this thing you just can't ... And then you grow up, and you think your fears are gone, "nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate, nothing so childish" but somewhere in your mind, you've still got this terrible, visceral horror of "fifteen blows to the back of your head" from someone you tried to forget. This is the voice of that terror.

And also, about "the pretty no surprises", I get the feeling the lullaby-ish tune of that is deliberately meant to symbolise the repression of the horror portrayed so vividly in this song. But, on the other hand, it is pretty...

this song is definitely about an insanity

it is so freaky. it scares me.

definitely reminiscent of HOUSE OF LEAVES, which everyone should read

I always considered this a very dark song, but not scary. It was only today I read the lyrics, and now I can see why it would freak people out.

Whatever it's about, insanity, monsters, or a mix, I reckon we've all felt that way at some point, probably more when we were young.

"And if you get too far inside
You'll only see my reflection"

That line is the most chilling for me, just a mental picture it conjures...

Radiohead's first distinctly "creepy" song: it has a strange beauty at the same time. Superb stuff.

I like to think that this song is both about Thom’s institution experience, as well as an introspective perspective of a troubled patient.

I believe this song is about a patient that has blocked up a past manipulating split personality or schizophrenic fear that has been deeply rooted since childhood, which has also landed him into a mental institution. The institution is what is helping him block out this second personality or schizophrenic fear. However, this song is sung through the perspective of the split personality or schizophrenic fear, and it is letting him know that it is climbing up and over the barriers that the treatment has set up to block out it out. I think it is a song about its relentless attempt to break him down and eventually take over and make him do something terrible once they are released to the “outside”, or in other words, the community again.

“I am the key to the lock in your house that keeps your toys in the basement”
-Manipulating split personality or schizophrenic fear that has been deeply rooted since childhood

“And if you get too far inside you'll only see my reflection”
- Internal conflicting reference of understanding that they are of the same body, which is a state in which the human mind cannot remember nor express, so it is stated more as a comment, rather than a reminder

“It's always best when the covers are up”
-What he would do when this fear/personality would visit and interact at night

“Pick in the ice”
-A tool used to climb. Specifically referring to the barriers that it must climb

“Do not cry out or hit the alarm”
-Warning him that if he were to freak out during this personality/fear revisit it would prolong their stay at the institution, as he would appear to still be unfit for the outside

“You know we're friends till we die”
-Another reference of understanding that they are of the same body, and should cooperate with each other

“And either way you turn
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there
Climbing up the walls”
- No matter how far he tries to escape this fear or personality it will always be there, even if he puts up mental barriers, it will climb them

“It's always best when the light is off”
-Referring to the fact that it enjoys what is fearful, probably a time that it enjoys fucking with him because it is when he is most vulnerable. Probably when this fear visits the most often. Remember the reference to when the covers are up?

“It's always better on the outside”
-Wanting him to know they it too wants to leave the institution, but for other reasons

“Fifteen blows to the back of your head, fifteen blows to your mind”
- Referring to the way it is capable of fucking with his mind, because it is in his head

“So lock the kids up safe tonight, shut the eyes in the cupboard”
- It warning him to hide his loved ones and valuables, for it is going to take over once again

“I got the smell of a local man, who’s got the loneliest feeling”
- Trying to remind him that they once existed together, but it is lonely now due to the treatment blocking it out and therefore it has been trapped alone within him during his stay at the institution and is ready to cut loose

“That either way we turn
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there”
- Same as before, but with the word we, because him and it are reunited again, and to always remember that if it is gone from treatment, all he has to do is look inside his head, because it lives there, and will climb past the barriers (treatment) to reach him. Relentlessly.

I believe that the guitar interlude is symbolic of him losing control from the severity and surprise of the revisit. The scream is of frustration from it being temporarily blocked out once again by some sort of anti-psychotic drug, which was given to him because he freaked out during its revisit.

This song seems to display Thom’s idea that some people are unfit for life outside of the mental institution because they cannot escape their illness without being medically and mentally institutionalized. Regardless of the interpretation, this song has brilliant play on words mixed with an awesome sound.

Check out the Zero 7 remix, it's lush.

funny thing is, before i'd actually looked at what the lyrics were (sorry but sometimes Thom is impossible to understand) I thought this song was so calm and relaxing: made me feel really peaceful. i told this to another radiohead fan who then gave me a weird look and asked if i knew what the song was about. i proceeded to look at the lyrics and realized how creepy this really is.... oddly enough it still makes me feel calm: i guess psychos just have that effect on me :P

btw, to anyone who has not seen the band live, i highly recommend it - i'd barely listened to them until i went to the concert and now i'm a huge fan!

can anyone give me the name of a band or an album where the main style is similar to this song? the one thing i don't like about radiohead is the fact that you'll find a song which is just genius, you can't believe what a masterpiece it is and then there'll be no more of it. sure there'll be other masterpieces which i love, but i want some consistency. this song is the perfect expression of my mind and i need more. this is why i wish i were dead for not being able to create music, if i could, i wouldn't need this.

There's a picture hidden in the Climbing up the walls lyrics in the OKC booklet. There's one in most of the OKC songs actually. For 'climbing'
turn the booklet 90 degrees left so it opens upwards. then look AT the B(Oklet. It looks like someone is climbing. There are more in the other songs but I won't spoil em for you.

Am i the only one that gets a deep dark purple color in his head after hearing this?

Ramthar likes guys. Just thought you oughta know

It talks about a stalker. I will not let you go, it is whats he says. You will be mine or you are dead. Fear because I will be there till you die climbimg up your walls.

radiohead songs literally give me chills sometimes..
perhaps it's because how eerily wonderful/good they are.
who knows.

this song means to me, a different meaning than everyone elses because it is my own interpretation. Everyone takes a song and twists it around their own thoughtprocess their own feelings yada yada yada. i think it is too easy to believe this song is merely about the mental hospital that thom worked at because that explanation is too set in stone. too easy. Thom probably got the idea for the song from the hospital, but I believe their is a deeper meaning. whether this song is about thom or patients at the hospital, or just the general fucked up person in conflict with themselves, i don't know. this song is definitely about a person who is paranoid and afraid.
There are two concsious selves, the I and the me. The "me" is that side of you who lives through the eyes of other people. basically the person you propose to everyone else. The person you want to be by forming to society and norms. Then the "I" is that in which you perceive yourself or the true person inside of you. Sort of like The conversation inside your head that no one else hears but you. A person who's all fucked up in this region has some problems. Theyre crazy.
This song might be about a schizophrenic.
When you look at the lyrics think about the nature of the music and since there are alot of shizo's in mental hospital, it could make some sense.
"i am the key to the lock inside your house
that keeps your toys in the basement
and if you get too far inside
you'll only see my reflection"
it's as if. when the person in this song, he gets away from the outside world, je "holds the key" to the house and locks it so no one can see inside. now the real person is revealed. when they look too far inside themselves they release a monster.
"best with the covers up" fear
"pick in the ice" chipping away at oneself
"do not cry out or hit the alarm, you know we're friends till we die" save yourself from freaking out, I'm always going to be around. It's like a conversation between two people, one who's afraid and one who is antagonizing. But friends till we die implies he will suffer between these two conscious selves till he dies. You can either be a friend to yourself or hate yourself, be depressed. Well no matter what, the self you perceive is with you till the end. it's almost a taunt or a
threat. friends for life!
Then comes the chorus "open up your skull" as if the person is performing brain surgery on themself and "climbing up the walls" around themself, going crazy trying to find a way out. this defines the essence of the song, this person is going crazy. you picture someone climbing up the walls, you picture exorcist scary shit. This guy is in deep shit with himself to the point he is freaking himself out enough to climb around walls, maybe not literally, but figuratively. still fucked.

"Fifteen blows to your mind" not sure about the signifigance of 15 but blows to your mind, it's like the "I" is beating at the "me", the monster inside themself is beating away at the person in their mind.
then "lock the kids up safe tonight Shut the eyes in the cupboard
I've got the smile of a local man
Who's got the loneliest feeling"
again they lock themself inside, away from everything, safe away from the outside world. Try to go to sleep.
On the outside he has the "smile of a local man", meaning he seems an average man like everyone else around, but he has the "loneliest feeling" either because of the problem inside himself that leaves him feeling alone. Either because he can't be his true self the "I" or because he's so afraid. The sad part about the song is that this guy isnt all that crazy because he's actually lonely and sad about his problem. And everybody needs other people to live and be happy. It's crazy how paranoid people can see things or feel things that arent real just because of sucj a low self confidence and fear of living. It reminds me of "There There" Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there. It seems to me the dude in this song is afraid, paranoid, of things that arent real. there's definitely an inner conflict going on, but sometimes he's just gotta relax. convince himself the monster isnt real and stop climbing up the walls.
This song is meant to be scary and it sure dpes it's job to the tee. Who knows what the hell it means, this is how i took it. A schizo, a lonely guy, a confused guy, a paranoid and afraid guy, who is climbing up the walls inside himself looking for answers trying to get away.
At this point ive written too mucj, made no sense and im going to bed.
i love radiohead.
i love this song.
sry for writing so much. respond itll be cool. i dont care if you think im completely wrong, just respond.