Board 8 > Post Radiohead songs and I will rank/rate/writeup/obsess

(+) Yeah! (+)

Idk what kind of person kills themselves on the most perfect day they've ever seen.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

Thumbs Down version -
Open Pick, Wolverhampton -

Previously called "Open Pick" and even earlier "Pay Day", Jigsaw Falling Into Place as a title best identifies the songs place on its respective album, the final piece in the puzzle completing the perfect day. But the songs meaning can be traced through its lineage - the unheard "Pay Day" version includes the lyrics "you just got paid" in place of "jigsaw falling into place", Ed has said of this the song was about weekend release at the club, getting blasted and going nuts (in british words) after you just got paid. Open Pick was a decidedly guitar heavy anthem, probably more about going to the uk dance rave or whatever and picking out women - Thom in response to Ed's assessment of the song said the jigsaw falling into place was the drunken blur before it all goes wrong "and then you wake up the next day and you don't know her name". Honestly I can't be bothered to find where I read that so I'm paraphrasing a little bit. Regardless, the song isn't so much a date rape as a drunken escapade and ensuing regret "wish away the nightmare, you got a light you can feel it on your back". The light on his back is the same divine guilt that has been videotaping him on closed circuit cameras, documenting his transgression and condemning him to mephisotopheles. I think the song takes a musical thematic break after the "dance dance dance" part to show a divide between the singer acquiescing to the falling pieces of a vagina hunt puzzle that the only testosterone devil on his shoulder and in his pants wants to embark on, and his simultaneous inner guilt trip over what he probably sees most as a misstep in integrity, considering his perfectionist nature. Or maybe he cheats on the regular I really can't claim to know. But I think the song is intended to show some inner conflict. Blame it on the alcohol.

Musically, I do miss the Bodysnatchers rivalling straight-up rock format of Open Pick, but the instrumentation in the settled down version is sorta nice. I feel like considering its theme and place on the album a real climax would have been cool, then its hard to complain about climaxes on an album with All I Need (too much too soon!). Jigsaw is sorta low-key even next to House of Cards and Videotape, which kinda destroys the fire of the final suite of songs. So for its place on the album I really wish it rocked harder, but I've always liked the song for its content otherwise so I don't care so much. The chord changes were some of the first I learned to play from IR, scary to think I was plucking that stuff out six years ago already, feels like it was yesterday. Phil's job here is pretty ace for pacing it up but Colin doesn't seem to add much for once. I guess he doesn't win them all, which is why this ends up being a decent song that is still catchy in its own right but feels stripped of its punch to the Open Pick fans.

7/10

Pyramid Song
Where I End And You Begin
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At The Door
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Little By Little
Videotape

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What? The bass in Jigsaw is glorious! One of my favorites on IR

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Bah, Jigsaw's top tier for me.

15 Step

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James - Board 8's Resident Warm And Safe, Slipper-Wearing User
& The Cream of Porcupine Tree Fanboyism

ps am i the only one who wants another Thom Yorke solo record? The Eraser was so good. And that acoustic version of The Clock oh my god

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You've already ranked my favorite Radiohead song, EIIRP.
you've knocked out my #2, videotape
Sephy threw down my #3, separator

So let's go with All I Need, my favorite thom yorke vocal performance.

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Realo won gold at the Sex Olympics with a BROKEN FRIGGIN NECK.-Voltch

All I Need in the buildin. I'll do some more now.

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up

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Let's get drunk and make bad decisions
"Life is a bunch of stuff" -- Whiskey Nick

Karma Police

Music Video -
Le Reservoir '02 (Thom and Jonny) -
Great Woods, '96 -

I remember my first encounter with Radiohead, sometime in december 2003 my dad had bought two CD's at best buy and said I could have one - "Welcome Insterstate Managers" by Fountains of Wayne or "OK Computer" by Radiohead. I was ripe for something else to blast on headphones as I was getting heavy into Fire Emblem and spy novels; while my parents had hundreds of albums, cassettes, and cd's lying around and I heard and mostly liked it all on the daily, my own personal collection was limited to Joe Satriani, Seal, Rob Zombie, and Linkin Park. So when given the option between OKC and WIM, as a fourteen year old I naturally chose the one that featured "Stacy's Mom" for the raunchy video and catchy hook. To this day I maintain that Welcome Interstate Managers is a decent pop album with a few great moments (All Kinds of Time, Halley's Waitress, Fire Island, Supercollider) and Fountains of Wayne are a good pop band.

Of course, little did my fourteen year old self know that the other option held far more long-term interest payout, but like all the other music it was around the house enough to provide peripheral familiarity - coincidentally the first song that rung a bell was Karma Police. I was certain I'd heard it on the radio some years prior (5-6) and I still remember being specifically hooked on the bassline, thinking it was akin to something Roger Waters would write (my earliest experiments on one of these involved deciphering the main harmonic bits of "The Wall", much of which includes Roger's thudding E-F#-G-F# acting as a theme throughout - Colin Greenwood touches on this only for a second in his Karma Police bassline). Naturally I was like a moth to a flame, I delved into the rest of the album and the bands spell on me never really let up from there. During this process Karma Police lost my attention and favor but always stuck with me, and for at least the first few times listening through the album it was my favorite song (Paranoid Android and Climbing Up The Walls leaped it rather quickly, then Lucky and Airbag, then Let Down).

Structurally this song is very pop-oriented, some would say its a beatles ripoff, the main part being reminiscent of Sexy Sadie and the "this is what you get" part sounds like Imagine (search Karma Police cover and check the top one for example), personally I find it all vaguely coincidental. Both Radiohead and The Beatles' chord voicings are unique enough to differentiate. Personally I've noted that this song initiates with Thom's often used guitar trick of taking an A chord whether it be Am, A7, AM or whatever and dropping the root note to F# but holding the same chord, to make it F#/Am or what have you and then use that as sort of a harmonically ambiguous pivot point to play from. He does this in Fake Plastic Trees, Last Flowers to the Hospital, Karma Police, and more all with varying results. Karma Police is merely set up by this routine, it's more clever musical cues involve the irony of how pristine and sanctified it sounds - the mock angelic choir backing "This is what you get when you mess with us", the stately piano swaying under Thom's vulnerable melody weaving lyrical contempt, despair, and restabilzation. It all comes off with a hint of irony but to what end?

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The deliberate major change leading to a third mental state of euphoric reality check (after condemning people in the first verse and mourning ones own bad karma in the second) is especially clever, breaking what seemed to be a cycle of bad karma and bad vibes and fridge buzz into a clear carefree state. Perhaps the song is about not dwelling on other people's bad karma when you have bad karma of your own, Radiohead's closest approximation to Hakuna Matata.

The video for the song is interesting and doesn't quite parallel the song but I don't know how it could. It syncs up nicely, though Thom is always awkward. As for the live versions I find the reservoir performance to be a delight for the sake of Jonny's piano skills, even without the catchy rhythmic backbone that Colin and Phil provide. And Ed's cusped yells, I guess. The Great Woods premier of the song is rather special for the slightly different lyrics, Thom singing in a higher register for the bridge, Ed singing along more, guitars everywhere, and the crowd has never heard the song so there's no obnoxious out of tune thrall of alcohol-fueled automaton singalong routine that the song is usually adorned with in a live setting. The audience is the real robots. However you can tell that at this point when they bust it out live they really have to be in the mood or they'll just snooze through it. It's 15 years old already, I get it.

Also greatest ending to a pop song ever.

8/10

Pyramid Song
Where I End And You Begin
Karma Police
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At The Door
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Little By Little
Videotape

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really good topic

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Let's get drunk and make bad decisions
"Life is a bunch of stuff" -- Whiskey Nick

The National Anthem

Paris '01 -
Saturday Night Live - http://qtv.freechal.com/movie/QTVMovieView.asp?docid=1663490
Colbert Report - http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/radiohead-colbert-report-watch-national-anthem-video-31337

I cannot fathom how shocking this song would have been in 2000 coming off The Bends and OK Computer, and on a a smaller scale the already shocking Everything In Its Right Place and Kid A. But if those two songs are an immediate left turn from where they left off on OKC, The National Anthem is a hard swerve right. Here is the first song in their relevant catalogue*** that gets stuck on one harmonic groove the entire time and doesn't move into a different section - even EEIRP and Kid A have definite sections A, B, C, etc. The National Anthem is a brooding rumination on just one bassline and rockin drumbeat - possibly Phil's best to date. Airbag is good but that's a lot of gear wizardry doing that, I'm sure Phil took this song live. Thom adds the very minimum in lyric to describe some kind of widespread fear or insecurity - the songs title leads me to believe he's referring to society at large. The elephant in the room, the brass section, improvises using Thom and Jonny's strengths as conceptual backdrops - at first Thom's new choppy, scattershot vocal delivery is mimed by a horns staccato dwelling on two notes, this soon is responded to and enveloped by other horns crashing in at increasingly odder angles until they finally coalesce on Jonny's spacey Ondes riff, Thom yells "It's holding on!!" and for a while it feels like its tearing apart.

The entire soundscape here is totally alien and marvelous in its own unique way. The noises at the intro, the entire subtle buildup of the intro section, the entire time that bass is impossible to not love...might have been Thom in the studio, nobody is sure, Colin does it live. Thom claims to have wrote the bassline when he was 16. Speaking of the song live, I posted the 3 that I know feature a horn section to accompany them for a unique performance. I've seen them rock it at shows with just the five of them, but you might as well get the deluxe version they intended. The performance at Colbert is great for the recency and novelty, Paris is good because it's pretty extended and Thom gets really hyper, but the SNL performance takes the cake. Slightly harder to find, it was one of the first live shows after Kid A came out and you can see the contempt in Thom's eyes after the song is over. But the song, my god - never have they been more visually and aurally convincing as crazy geniuses at the same time than here. Jonny switches between radio transmissions and Ondes whenever, Ed is jockeying all over the place for no reason, counterpointing Jonny, Thom is more flaily than usual but there's a certain point near the end from 3:40-on where the camera diagonally zooms in on the band, Ed is feedbackin like a gangster, Jonny is receiving signals from aliens, the horn section is having a private orgy, and Thom looks like a combustion engine perpetually backfiring as the jazz chaos draws to a close, then he goes on to conduct the final anti-triumphant splats of noise with some mad leaps and glare at the audience. If you didn't feel the intensity of this song at that moment, see a doctor. You are dead.

*** - I used "relevant catalogue" to omit Pablo Honey, both "Creep" and "Stop Whispering" focus on one chord progression throughout. Its just easier to consider PH non-canon when you're really into this band, ask Thom Yorke - not that I wouldn't write any of the songs up if someone mentioned them.

9/10

Pyramid Song
Where I End And You Begin
The National Anthem
Karma Police
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At The Door
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Little By Little
Videotape

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Creep

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SephirothG, channeling awesomeness from Mershiness.
The Resurrection

I don't know much about drumming but I think the drumming Kid A (album) is amazing. TNA (lol), Kid A, and Optimistic all really impress me.

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FPT tomorrow, purge save for now

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Got half of a two poster waitin, or a third of a three poster who knows. FPT is the first song mentioned that I haven't previously cared to do any live research about so I'd rather spend more time doing the homework and making bigger writeups than doing smaller crappier ones for songs I'm not as familiar with - for the first compromise of quality is the harbinger of death for many an ongoing writing project on board 8.

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Radiohead absolutely killed EIIRP at Bonnaroo this year. really spruced up the rhythm section.



I'll submit my "sleeper" favorite, Climbing Up The Walls.

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SuperNiceDog shoots the lights out

Fake Plastic Trees

Music Video -
Glastonbury '03 -

Apparently the heartfelt vocal was recorded shortly after Thom attended a Jeff Buckley concert, tellingly it owes its delivery to the late singer's sudden falsetto - I wouldn't be surprised if the man played "So Real" on that fateful inspired night. More importantly, the quick falsetto trick used here is one of many attempts all throughout The Bends to force the vocal melody over quick ascents and descents in pitch, no doubt in part to showcase Thom's newfound vocal prowess but in my opinion to musically symbolize the cause of the actual disease known as "the bends", which is rapid change in altitude (usually from diving underwater) causing your blood to release nitrogen and heat up and make you bend over backwards. The Bends as a disease is a metaphor for the bands' quick ascent to fame following the success of "Creep" in Israel and the U.S. That's right, I'm asserting that the vocal leaping all over the album (most notably in the High and Dry - FPT - Bones suite as well as Bullet Proof, and bits of Street Spirit) is symbolism for a metaphor. It's a symbaphor, metabolism is taken.

But I digress. As with Karma Police, Fake Plastic Trees makes good use of that F#/A chord down from the A7 which is very tasty as well. Thom makes a habit of touching on an extra G# during the line "who just crumbles and buuuuuuuuurns" during a live setting, it was quite arresting to hear him pull that trick in '06, I can't find a decent video of it but there was a rocket launching behind the band during the song AND a ufo hanging about! I'm usually a very skeptical person but everyone in the audience saw a silver thing in the sky, idk what it was. I still personally like to believe that aliens might actually be intrigued by Radiohead's music, which is scientifically plausible. The reason we put Mozart, Stravinsky, and Chuck Berry on the Voyager II golden record is because evolutionary biologists concluded that any species intelligent enough to decode the playback instructions would necessarily understand math well enough to grasp the point of such organized sound structure, the idea that successful species might universally develop similarly functioning 'ears' presents a little more grey area with respect to possible boundaries of extreme intelligent life conditions in different types of pressures and atmospheric makeups, but the music is definitely going to be mathematically sound everywhere it travels - you could say it has an objective quality in this sense and most certainly any species intelligent enough to be able to get here and apparently observe would be attracted to the greatest spectacle of music our species puts on in these times.

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Yet again I digress. Fake Plastic Trees just does not grip me on its own merits people, the lyrics are definitely relatable but every bit about wearing people out I could do without. They scatter too many lulls about, in particular the one after the song has just built up and boiled over feels like such a drag to have to end the song with. The organ along with the band at the very end of the song would have been succinct right after the "If I just turn and run" finish. Maybe dragging it out was the point of it considering the lyric, but damn is it thematically draining. I do love Ed's addition to the song, some nice crystalline notes in octaved pairs - Jonny is frenzied as always and honestly he overdoes it sometimes live. There's a nice peak he hits on the album version, it feels like he responds to the crowd anticipation/reaction of him going wild with it after the song has put most of them to bed but it just doesn't always come off as genuine. Phil and Colin don't really get to do anything but fill the role in either the live or studio version which really speaks to the songs place in their catalogue, though their assistance through to the wonderful crescendo provides a good close to the first third of a three act album. A step forward in their career at the time, Fake Plastic Trees sounds a bit sappy and dated now. Its telling they haven't played it so far on this tour - it's too slow of a burner next to the next level material. That said, the song does boast some great emotion give the proper context and patience for music that sounds slower than it actually is.

And the video is kinda awkward and pointless. It's like I'm watching Thom being forced to mime his own songs to his dismay and mine alike. Why did we both just engage in that, Thom? Because of EMI, those bastards. They're the real magpie.

7/10

Pyramid Song
Where I End And You Begin
The National Anthem
Karma Police
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At The Door
Fake Plastic Trees
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Little By Little
Videotape

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lunch break purge save

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Fake Plastic Trees is still one of my favorite Radiohead songs. Just a perfect pop song. And the version at Glastonbury 03 is just insane

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my 3 favorite live performances

1.Kanye West performing Hey Mama after Donde died.
2.Arcade Fire doing Wake Up in Spain with 10 gajillion people doing the "oooooooh oooooooooooooooooh" section.
3.FPT in Glastonbury

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Realo won gold at the Sex Olympics with a BROKEN FRIGGIN NECK.-Voltch

From: WalrusJump | #066

I'll submit my "sleeper" favorite, Climbing Up The Walls.

I knew I liked you for a reason

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"30"

Airbag

Studio version -
Solo Coachella '10 -
Belfort '98 -

Heroic, anthemic, explosive, Airbag is the opener of all openers upon the album of all albums. It's place in their career is a groundbreaking landmark, a new oil has been struck and will be tapped into from this point on in their career - although not one single aspect of the band could account for such a ramp up in quality, be it their whittling down to Nigel Godrich being the sole production influence, their tendency to want to escape their own sound, increased musical chops or sheer added wisdom, the band dynamic has assimilated newfound confidence AND freedom - one of the most difficult combos to achieve in writing music. What potential Pablo Honey and The Bends hinted at Airbag brazenly blows out of the water, immediately kicking the listeners ass and displaying entirely new structural concepts for every member's role in this band's sound, while retaining the same instrumental role as a 3-guitar rock and roll band (for the most part).

The song opens on E one note ahead of the beat before shifting into a distorted lullabye revolving modally on Fmajor and Amajor, Jonny's guitar alone would leave it a little dark and empty but the backing cello combines to give it a velvety, smoky character and the sleigh bells have got to be tongue-in-cheek but totally effective to Thom's idea of the song being about the intense feeling of relief and joy you get right after a near death experience. The bells evoke the wonder of christmas magic, perhaps George's revelation that an angel just got its wings and he truly does have a wonderful life and he doesn't wish he was dead after all. Ed's bristling guitar line arrives suspiciously at bar 7, Phil's manipulated jam snippet arrives at bar 11, and having the distinct advantage of knowing the song as a musically inept 14 year-old I can say that if even if you had no idea where to start counting, his intro in no way sounds unnatural. Alternatively, you could say the first E starts on the fourth beat of the first bar or it simply is the first bar and the bells/cello begin on the second bar, that way Ed technically starts at 8 and Phil starts at bar 12. Regardless, it's a conscious edit on the band's part to start the song on an off beat/bar. What they're doing A. coloring outside the lines, B. throwing you off, and C. subconsciously planting the seed that something is indeed different about this band - at 23 years of age I now note that Ed starts exactly on the ten second mark (OK Computer's working title was "Zeroes and Ones" for a long time, furthering the idea that Radiohead construct their music with respect and affinity for maths).

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Thom's guitar enters I believe with Phil but it's initially pushed so far down in the mix it's hard to tell. That guitar part is how the song was originally written (this section of the song is decidedly in Amajor, playing off of B7 - F#m and Esus4 - Emajor) but it was intended to be left off the final mix and used solely as a guideline for the rest of the band to coalesce around - in the end the other members agreed the song sounded great with Thom playing along and his practice demo was used for the album. Conversely, Colin's teleporting bassline was laid down as a skeletal foundation with the idea in mind that he would figure out something to play in between later on - when he never did, the final product ended up making him sound more characterized, idiosyncratic, and downright jazzy than he ever did plodding along to the likes of "Bones", "My Iron Lung", et cetera. He did take bass lessons during The Bends touring, that might have something to do with his new creativity, but again wisdom seems to define this band just as aptly as creativity. He's playing to the laboriously programmed drum sample that required the space to be heard about the rhythm section - apparently this was a Selway/Godrich joint effort in the studio on a mac for two days and a drum kit for fifteen minutes. God I shudder just thinking about macs. But the hell they endured was worth it, their efforts supply a rhythmic confidence and exuberance that stays jarred but unscathed, which is really what an Airbag does, you feel incredibly lucky and shaken after using one.

And so muses Yorke's spacious vocal "In a jackknifed juggernaut I am born again, in an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe". By 1:15 all 5-6 members of the band are individually vindicated and creatively liberated. Course, Jonny wouldn't be content merely providing the intro so he soars over the song with a tremelo-picked, reverb-drenched eastern scale for a verse and a solo, and Thom comes back triumphantly to save the universe once again. Just when everything seems to come to a halt, guitars glitch out and drums sputter, the bass comes to life and demands the song keep moving. The mellotron informs some resolute sighing from Thom until the intro theme finally makes its way back into the mix and reintroduces the consistent shifts from Fmajor to Amajor, perpetuating an even cycle of introducing and resolving a minor conflict between C and C# but keeping major keys constant so the overall positive mood of the melody is never dropped, instead passed between two hands. No doubt Jonny penned this bit. The final A rings out and three aural dots punctuate the song like, well, an ellipses...

Thom's solo rendition on a nylon string plays up the song's Neil Youngish folksy quality. His voice sounds fantastic and focused, he even jams out a little bit near the end and busting into the straight up F and A chords at the end after keeping the intro in A was so effective thematically compared to the studio versions' emphasis on the tonal difference in the intro moreso than the outro. I actually just watched this after writing up the studio version, so I wouldn't have probably noticed as much if I wasn't just now sitting here figuring out how the album version all goes on a guitar. As for the live band version I'd have given one from this tour - they play it often but there aren't any videos that do Clive and Phil justice to my knowledge. And I doubt Thom has gotten more buck with it in 2012 than he did in Belfort. This is one where there's a million live performances to choose from and it'd be hard to go wrong with any of them.

10/10

Pyramid Song
Airbag
Where I End And You Begin
The National Anthem
Karma Police
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At The Door
Fake Plastic Trees
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Little By Little
Videotape

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Airbag so good. I agree that the spacious bass is nothing short of marvelous

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I never really "got" Pyramid Song.

Upon review I never really explained about the beat structure, 3-3-3-3-4 is four triangles and a square, or the faces of a pyramid. That's all there is to get, really.

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oh wow I never saw that

I thought it was called that because of the fact that it basically SOUNDS like some egyptian song thanks to the scale but I guess it could be both

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Yeah I assume that too. To my knowledge hearing the subdivision of threes isn't technically any more correct than hearing subdivisions of four in your head given how swung the piano is, but then the swing is what gives people room to openly hear the thirds in the first place, apparently. So there could be something to it.

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glad to see some love for Airbag, finally!
second best song on OKC

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god airbag is probably the best opener to any rock album ever

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SephirothG, channeling awesomeness from Mershiness.
The Resurrection

Depending on how we are defining the genres 15 Step and Everything In Its Right Place (both albums I like much less than OK Computer), I might be inclined to disagree

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"Occulams razor says you are scum" - masterplum

sorry for the Airbag fans but nothing, and the rock means nothing, will top those first moments of Everything In Its Right Place.

it's not just how spacious and vulnerable it sounds, but how Radiohead used it to warn us that "this is not Ok, Computer. not even close."

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Realo won gold at the Sex Olympics with a BROKEN FRIGGIN NECK.-Voltch

bloom and 15 step are the only radiohead openers that are legitimately great songs as opposed to good introductions to the tone of their respective albums

fantastic band for closers, but album openers not so much

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And if you don't know, now you know.

giggs you just blasphemed Everything In Its Right Place

I'm placing you on musical ignore for 24 hours while I listen to Jane Doe and remember our good times together

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Realo won gold at the Sex Olympics with a BROKEN FRIGGIN NECK.-Voltch

this is a very good topic and the insight has made me appreciate Radiohead more

listened to Airbag again in a long time and was reminded of how awesome it is

but yes, Giggs is blaspheming when he says Everything In Its Right Place isn't a legit great song

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all you need

You, Planet Telex, and Airbag are all fantastic! They always bookend an album well, except for how imbalanced LIAGH is over Packt

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I originally nominated Airbag but chaned my vote to WIEAYB. Glad someone else nominated it because it's a fantastic song and their best opener.

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CherryCokes posted...

Depending on how we are defining the genres 15 Step and Everything In Its Right Place (both albums I like much less than OK Computer), I might be inclined to disagree

they ain't rock albums!

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SephirothG, channeling awesomeness from Mershiness.
The Resurrection

oh and as for a song to get analyzed

Morning Bell

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all you need

what the hell is in rainbows if it isn't a rock album?

also i stand by the EEIRP judgement, it's flawless as an introduction to kid a, and pretty cool live, but easily in the bottom half of that album quality-wise

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Giggsalot posted...

what the hell is in rainbows if it isn't a rock album?

also i stand by the EEIRP judgement, it's flawless as an introduction to kid a, and pretty cool live, but easily in the bottom half of that album quality-wise

Giggs more like BAD RADIOHEAD OPINIONS

EEIRP might seriously be in my top 3 Radiohead songs atm and ALL their openers are legitimately great songs!

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Giggsalot posted...

also i stand by the EEIRP judgement, it's flawless as an introduction to kid a, and pretty cool live, but easily in the bottom half of that album quality-wise

I'm with you. It's still a good song but it's much better as a piece of that album than as a stand alone song imo. Not that my opinion should count for much because it's easily one of the more popular songs on Kid A.

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So many people in this topic woke up sucking a lemon

sorry you guys only have one color in your heads.

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Realo won gold at the Sex Olympics with a BROKEN FRIGGIN NECK.-Voltch

In Limbo

Studio Version -
Canal '01 -

Originally titled "Lost at Sea", Kid A's seventh song retains its helplessly adrift imagery through music more so than lyric, despite Thom clearly saying "I'm lost at sea don't bother me" and referencing off-shore weather forecast radio channels "Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, I got a message I can't read". It's a metaphor for the band at large being unsure of where to go next musically after the overblown success of OK Computer - writing OK Computer 2 was the last they wanted to do, and so they were stuck with a sea of possibilities and a captain who can't read the messages necessary for directions. Yorke's lyrical reflection of writers block or an inability to work out an idea stretches back to Stop Whispering: "and the feeling is that there's something wrong because I can't find the words and I can't find the songs" - to The Bends: "Where do we go from here? The words are coming out all weird".

But in another sense, it goes back to the very name of the band, Radiohead. I believe the name refers to the process of writing music - the brain tunes into chaos and channels form and figure. Or perhaps it is simply about receiving and interpreting the clearest musical frequencies, getting good reception. Whatever the case, Radiohead's radio heads were receptacles of fog and confusion during the OKC touring/Kid A writing phase, and so in a stroke of genius they penned a song characterizing the their unsure vulnerability (I'm on your side/nowhere to hide) in the wake of unrealistically heightened expectation.

In Limbo matches lyric to music perfectly. The drums roll out a swampy 4/4 while the guitar literally spirals down fourths in 3/4 for six bars through the chorus just after Thom falls through his trapdoor - Thom himself is throwing himself between rhythms, singing the lundy fastnet irish sea bit at 4/4, playing with 3/4 for the verses. Even Ed's plinky 3 note intro has its own unique vexing rhythm, though it can be heard in standard time with practice. This is not the last time Radiohead will use multiple time signatures to achieve an oceanic multiple current/wave effect, never again will it be done so nauseatingly. Now mind you about the bar lengths, it the guitars still sync up with the drums but because they are a bunch of evil bastards and made the guitars do only six bars in the chorus and eight in the verses they do it on a larger scale - Jonny's sixth bar ends just as Phil's third bar ends meaning he essentially fills up twelve phil beats with eighteen notes.

Here's a simple way to explain it, G and D being where the guitar and drum cycles restart, and | - - - is a 1-2-3-4 count following the drum beat, where the guitar bars are half that size.

--------------------------D-------------------------D-------------------------D
---------------------------|--------------------------|--------------------------|
--------------------G ----|------------G------------|-----G------------------G
| - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - | - - - |
--------------------G ----|------------G------------|-----G------------------G
---------------------------|--------------------------|--------------------------|
--------------------------D-------------------------D-------------------------D

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Ultimately the verses lock in after 48 beats, or 12 bars, allowing the listener to hear three sets of four bars or four sets of three bars, meaning the underlying math of the 4/4 and 3/4 on six bars juxtaposition has unlocked a parallel battle between threes and fours on a higher tier of musical structure - truly this song fractal-craps over everything else on Kid A, and to me that makes it pretty special considering that if you wanted to make a song intentionally disorienting you wouldn't necessarily need to make it mathematically clever. You could just make a bunch of weird jarring pointless noises in a random sequence and call that In Limbo, but to wield such chaos moment to moment in a juggling act veiling grander schemes? Certainly the 'Head were seeking a maximalist dare of a completely realized push in a new direction - in a way In Limbo is the Bloom of Kid A (It was recorded first, at least. Bloom being a statement of intent and In Limbo being the ultimate anti-statement of intent).

They've always had this song down live.I can't find a performance where they screw it up and there's plenty of about equal quality ones on the tube dating back pretty far...the Canal versions are definitive enough. And sometimes they don't make Ed hammer out that ridiculous keyboard intro which is a shame because its always fun to make the handsome one look silly. Jonny gets some really sick stuff in near the end, some of those echoed notes sound like seagulls in the distance as you're having a heat stroke out on your raft. Needless to say, his solos here are dischordia central (but not atonal, there's a difference) if the chord progressions weren't already twisted enough. Nobody makes Em sound more grim. CCCCOCOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMEEEEEE BAAAAAAAAAACCCCCKKKKK

You know when I see them next to each other I can't justify it over The National Anthem. Really tough call though. On a different day...

9/10

Pyramid Song
Airbag
Where I End And You Begin
The National Anthem
In Limbo
Karma Police
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At The Door
Fake Plastic Trees
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Little By Little
Videotape

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Giggsalot posted...

what the hell is in rainbows if it isn't a rock album?

also i stand by the EEIRP judgement, it's flawless as an introduction to kid a, and pretty cool live, but easily in the bottom half of that album quality-wise

EEIRP is the 3rd best Radiohead song and In Rainbows is not a "traditional" rock album


You know what I meant!!

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SephirothG, channeling awesomeness from Mershiness.
The Resurrection

I'm not sure anyone knows what you meant

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CherryCokes posted...

I'm not sure anyone knows what you meant

OK Computer was the last Radiohead album that the general public would consider "rock" (In Rainbows is not really a rock album, quit being a snob)


Therefore, I do not include EIIRP or 15 Step when I said "Airbag might be the best opener to any rock album ever."

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SephirothG, channeling awesomeness from Mershiness.
The Resurrection

Bump for now. I've watched musicologists argue over the definition of rock to the extremes of "anything without a guitar is rock" and "anything spawned in the 20th century onwards absolutely is rock", the science of genres is really anyone's game.

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I think Sephy is arguing that In Rainbows is not a "straight rock" album but alt rock or whatever. Seems fair to me.