*I didn’t mean for the introduction to get so long, so if all you care about is the music stuff and not the me stuff, then skip down to the third paragraph

*Warnings: Absurd essay-like length, Spoilers for Rick and Morty, Westworld

I never really liked music that much when I was younger. Whenever someone would ask me about my music taste I would just shrug and say “I dunno, I guess I like all kinds of music,” just to avoid saying that nothing really spoke (sang) to me that much. Sure the occasional song or two would draw my attention because it would be catchy, but yeah, I’d only listen to them just out of sheer boredom.

However, something happened to me during my first year of college. Perhaps it was the experience of living apart from my parents for the first time ever, which catalyzed my sense of maturity as a human being, which has let me appreciate music as a whole more. Or maybe it was the few LSD trips I did throughout the year. Several studies have noticed that even a single trip has permanent personality changes, namely an increase in the “openness” trait in the 5 Factor Model of Personality, which is closely linked to creativity, interest in ideas, and interest in aesthetics. My own experience matches up with these findings; I have definitely felt that I have become more tolerant, open-minded, and humble as a result of my trips, and it’s just easier for me to understand art of all kinds now. Someone on the internet put it well: psychedelics are like cleaning out the cobwebs in your brain or defragmenting it, which lets your brain let go of some of the past you’re holding onto. It was as if in the course of 36 hours (3 trips x 12 hours / trip), I had received a year’s worth of psychological therapy. I was shown the miraculous beauty of the world, and the crushing horror of existence. I was reduced to a trembling, sniveling creature as the drug tortured me with all of my disappointments, failures, regrets, and weaknesses. The drug also showed me that at my core, despite all of my faults, I somehow loved and forgave all human beings, and that redeemed my flaws. So maybe it was the psychedelics that changed me. Or maybe it was just Austin that did it.

Anyways, for one or all of the aforementioned reasons, I became more interested in artsy stuff in general. And right as all of that was happening; I stumbled upon a band called Radiohead. And my goodness, what a discovery. At a first listen, most of their discography doesn’t seem all that that special, sometimes it even sounds downright weird and pointless. However, as I soon discovered, their music rewards patience and repeated listens to actually “get it.”

The lyrics often employ distinctively abstract imagery, which causes them to be a tad inaccessible. The nature of the music itself also causes it to be a little impenetrable at times; some of their best pieces have multiple melodies and harmonies that for a first time listener might cause the entire song to sound noisy. They will hear some alright sounding noise, rather than the beautiful magic that someone who can discern between the simultaneously playing voices and instruments hears.

One song took me like 6 months or so to actually understand what they were going for. But once I understood it, I fell in love with that song and it became my favorite. It doesn’t help that the vocalist, Thom Yorke, doesn’t enunciate the words he’s singing that clearly. But once (or if, it’s quite obvious that this isn’t music for everybody, it takes itself almost too seriously at times) you understand the lyrics and just “get” the music on a visceral level, you’ll never want to stop listening. A fair warning though, their music is melancholic, sober, and more about pure emotions and feelings than anything else. It also usually isn’t upbeat or exciting either, but there are exceptions. It also isn’t the most complex or eclectic music; I would categorize it as extremely well made popular music. It’s melancholic music for melancholic people, people who are hurt often by the world, but understand that sometimes, the most beautiful things in life are the most painful.

So, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of their third studio album, Ok Computer, here are 10 little reviews/reactions/impressions of my favorite Radiohead songs, arranged in an order that has personal meaning for me. The emotions conveyed in these 10 songs make up about 2/3rds of what I feel when I am feeling things, so if you were to understand the emotional content of said songs, you’d understand me, as a person, pretty well. Not bad for a bunch of little songs.

Daydreaming, from A Moon Shaped Pool

Everything seems to glow from within. You move through the world, or it the other way around? You stare at the faces of the people passing by without recognizing a single one. You are aware of something they seem to be missing. As you float through the crowd of people, there is a powerful sense that you are experiencing an inexplicable truth of some sort. Existence is miraculous, and it is ineffable. However, something is off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. And just like that, the song’s over, and you come crashing back down to earth.

I daydreamed a lot as a little kid, and still do now and then when I get the opportunity to. The song is atmospheric and subtle, but in its own way, it demands, no, beckons for your attention, and you can’t help but lose yourself in it. Whenever I listen to this song, I experience mild disassociation, which reminds me so much of what it was like to be a young little me, just floating along, gently and a little mindlessly.

Where I End and You Begin (The Sky is Falling In), from Hail to the Thief:

This song is about separation, but of what kind, I simply do not know. Is it about being separated from God, big daddy himself? Or is it about feeling separate from nature itself because of our unique ability for self referential and self conscious thought? Maybe it’s about pollution and climate change? Or is it simply about a romantic breakup? In any case, the results are disastrous. God is dead, and we have killed him. We poison the air and butcher each other. The dinosaurs roam the earth. The entire song can be viewed as a one long crescendo, and as the music itself gets gradually more intense, the lyrics themselves slowly shift from a somber realization to a cold, angry accusation. The finale ends the song with whatever we managed to piss off pointing at us in the face, glaring, and exclaiming:

“I will eat you alive

I will eat you alive

I will eat you alive

I will eat you alive

There’ll be no more lies

There’ll be no more lies

There’ll be no more lies

There’ll be no more lies…”

How to Disappear Completely, from Kid A:

Sometimes when you’re hurting really really badly, all you want to do is just disappear and hide and just not be, just until what’s making you feel so horrible passes. This song was Yorke’s personal way of doing just that; he often played this song to himself as the band was touring for Ok Computer in order to escape and hide from the terrible stress he was feeling due to the band’s sudden explosion in success and his own depression. He once said that if Radiohead was to be remembered for one song, he would want it to be this song, and I can see why. It’s comforting when you’re in a lot of pain to have someone else there to completely understand what you’re feeling, to see that someone else was also forced to come up with the following lyrics just to stay sane:

“In a little while

I’ll be gone

The moment’s already passed

Yeah, it’s gone

I’m not here

This isn’t happening

I’m not here… I’m not here”

I honestly can’t really do the song justice at all in words. All that I can say is that I know that whenever I’m in trouble and just want to hide, this song will be here, on all of my media devices to be there for me.

Street Spirit (Fade Out), from The Bends:

The first time I “got” this song, one warm autumn day on a UT toilet, I was absolutely entranced by it. I was so entranced that I actually listened to it repeatedly for an entire day. I don’t think I was in a healthy state of mind at all that day, due to this fucking song. The only way that I can think of to describe the song is absolute evil.

Yorke himself said it best:

“Its core is a complete mystery to me. I wouldn’t ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve – ‘Street Spirit’ has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end…

Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don’t realize what they’re listening to. They don’t realize that ‘Street Spirit’ is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes… and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he’ll get the last laugh.

“The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I’d crack.”

The human emotion system is quite incredible, especially to me, a human. If we take a evolutionist, materialist view, the only purpose of emotions is to ensure the propagation of the species. It doesn’t seem all that much of a stretch to guess that the reason we are so affected by death is because it is evolutionarily useful for humans to be afraid of oblivion so that they’d avoid the damn thing. Hence why Mr. Yorke and I share this same sense of evilness with regard to death personified. Regardless of the real explanation, the emotions are real, and this song is just about conveying those emotions.

All we can do in the face of this inexorable enemy of ours is just to “immerse ourselves in love.” The song even makes love seem desperate and ultimately futile. What a fucking song. That day I listened to this song on repeat, I was absolutely drained of all emotions, with the exception of distress. I felt like Morty from Rick and Morty when he discovered that the universe he had been living in was one of an infinite number of universes, and was forced to leave his original universe because every living thing on earth was permanently ruined due to an omnipotent bio-virus or whatever. He then had to bury the dead version of himself in the new universe he moved to. I also felt like Maeve from Westworld when she walked through the theme park’s development floors and saw firsthand that she was simply a machine programmed to amuse people, that everyone she knew and loved were also tools, and the ultimate sacrilege of everything she thought or felt was sacred.

I want to take a moment and state that this is the lowest point of my playlist. Things may seem bleak and hopeless and horrible right now, and they kind of are. However, there is something to be found here. Something of immense value. Countless thinkers, such as Jung or Nietzsche or Campbell, have reiterated over and over again the message that if one encounters the void, evil, madness, and chooses to dive into the void instead of running from it, and embrace all that it has to offer, and if they survive said encounter, they will be reborn and gain from the experience. Perhaps one can learn to laugh back at the devil.

Let Down, from Ok Computer:

This song is sacred. I don’t know exactly why I feel this way about it; it’s not that technically interesting. Maybe it is because the song is fragile, beautiful, and hopeful, kind of like a child, and the sacredness of children is obvious. It may just be the meaning of the song, and how well it communicates feelings I believe we all, as humans of the 21th century, have.

The song is essentially about being “let down,” or disappointed by society and by extension, life itself. It’s so tiresome, this rat race of ours, with its “transport, motorways, and tramlines, starting and then stopping, taking off and landing.” This feeling is especially relevant now, in 2017, with fears of globalism clashing with fears of fascism and everybody feeling gradually more helpless in the face of it all. Technology is merrily speeding along, ripping apart life as we know it as it changes society so quickly that we can hardly even keep track of it. You can’t help but feel “crushed like a bug in the ground.”

There is a counterpoint to the despair and disappointment. A glimmer of hope. “One day I’m gonna grow wings,” goes the song before immediately countering with “A chemical reaction, hysterical and useless, hysterical and…” I can easily see this train of thought going on inside someone’s head. Hope followed by cynicism and despair ad infinitum. It definitely goes on inside my head every single day. Maybe one day all of this hope and faith will pay off and everything will be ok. Maybe one day…

Nude, or Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any), from In Rainbows:

This song reminds of a certain widespread fable traced back to Persian Sufi poetry. I’m not familiar with that stuff so I’m going stick with the version I’m more familiar with: the Jewish one. In the fable, King Solomon requests a magic ring from his talented minister. Solomon wants a ring that has the ability to make him happy when he is sad and sad when he is happy. He asks for this ring because he wants to teach his minister a little humility. The minister struggles to find the ring, and the night before the ring is due, he stumbles upon a jeweler in the poorest district of Jerusalem. He asks the jeweler if he knew anything about the ring. The jeweler takes out a plain gold ring and inscribes the words “This too, shall pass” on it. The minister turns in the ring in the nick of time, and Solomon reads the inscription, realizing that all of his wealth, power, and wisdom will eventually fade away and is humbled.

Nude reminds me of that fable because it essentially does the same thing by telling you:

“Don’t get any big ideas

They’re not gonna happen

…

Now that you’ve found it, it’s gone

Now that you feel it, you don’t

You’ve gone off the rails”

It understands the hedonic treadmill, that one can never ever achieve constant happiness, at least without altering our brains. The song deflates me when I feel like I’m doing something important and special. It also oddly lifts me up when I feel useless, by telling me what even if I fail, I’m going to feel just as much happiness as when I succeed. The song pretty much grounds me absolutely, forcing upon me a sense of humble contentment.

I’ve found that teachings and ideas like the ones presented in Nude are often life denying, so the best (in my view) way to incorporate them into one’s way of life is to manifest them in parallel with natural living. What I mean by that is to live your life normally, fall in love, get heartbroken, “crush your enemies and hear the lamentations of their women” (I had to change the grammar of the quote), eat, shit, fuck, play, etc. However, always keep in the back of your head those ideas, that life and the pursuit of happiness is Sisyphean by nature. To truly accept that is to become invincible. To push or not to push, that is now the question. Oh yeah, and the song is one of the prettiest things ever.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, from In Rainbows:

Interesting how Radiohead put Weird Fishes, which is essentially just about chasing your desires, dreams, what have you, immediately after Nude. I guess we know their answer to the Sisyphean question, and it’s absolutely beautiful. I don’t know how many guitars were used (harmed) in the making of this song; I can never count or follow the arpeggio-ing of God knows how many singing guitars.

The meaning of the song is simple, basic, but the song itself is absolutely sprawling with so many sounds going in different directions. I can see four distinct thematic parts in the song. The first sounds like a butterfly, gentling floating up and down in the wind. The second, once the backing vocals start going off (I can never tell if that’s Ed or Thom), sounds like someone running, even sprinting. It’s a triumphant run. The third part sounds like being underwater, which is obviously what they were going for given one of the names for the song. The fourth and final part occurs as what I think is Colin’s bass takes center stage for a bit, and you feel like you’re flying as the song climaxes beautifully until it sadly ends.

I love this song so much; it’s so simple, but it’s so human.

All I Need, from In Rainbows:

This is one of their most simple and accessible songs. Radiohead’s lyrics usually rely on abstract images or ideas to get the emotions across. Not with this one. It is a simple ballad about love of the ugliest kind, obsessive and unrequited. Most of us have felt or will feel this kind of immature, adolescent love.

“I’m a moth

Who just wants to share your light

I’m just an insect

Trying to get out of the night”

The climax is an explosion of noise as the speaker directly expresses their conflicting, multifaceted feelings about their obsession.

“It’s all wrong

It’s all right

It’s all wrong

It’s all right…”

The speaker achingly expresses their pain and their anger at the injustice of wanting something and wanting that something to want them back, but that thing just won’t. (I feel like this kind of love is characterized by excessive want, hence the many want’s) The speaker also tries to convince himself or herself that “It’s all right,” but that’s obviously doing nothing to help. The climax is one of my favorite Radiohead moments; hearing it was what drew me into exploring Radiohead’s music, and I’ll never forget getting absolutely blasted away the first time I heard it.

Reckoner, from In Rainbows:

I usually demand some kind of articulable meaning from a piece of art in order to truly love and cherish it. I have definitely tried many times to force meaning onto this song using my dumb, overactive imagination. All in vain, however. I honestly don’t have a good explanation for this song and its meaning. What is, or who is the Reckoner?

A google definition of the word “reckon” provides 5 definitions: to calculate, to include, to believe, to judge, and to anticipate. Is it some sort of god that judges us? That doesn’t seem right in the context of the album, or the song. Is the Reckoner the Platonic ideal form of each individual’s consciousness? (It isn’t necessary for Radiohead to have read Plato to come up with that; the idea may have just popped up) Put in simpler terms, is the Reckoner the “perfect” or purest idea of the consciousness of human beings? This makes a little bit of sense with the lyrics “Reckoner… dancing for your pleasure.” Some may say that we are cursed with it but I think that it’s a bit of a pleasure to be able to experience life as a human being. Since living is a pleasure, and the Reckoner allows us to have experience as we are (lower resolution) reflections of it, it could be seen as dancing for our pleasure, and “dedicated to all human beings.” This at least fits in with the humanistic theme of In Rainbows.

All of that may or may not be absolute bullshit. I’m of the conviction that art is the expression of ideas and impressions in an illogical and pure way. Art often conveys subconscious convictions that diffuse into the work without the artist even noticing. I feel that I’ve had enough experience with Yorke’s songwriting to feel that at least a little of what I just wrote was genuinely felt or intended.

The true meaning of the song aside, this is undoubtedly my favorite song of all time. It evokes feelings that were antithetical to my pervious disposition, before LSD and before a bit of college maturation. Before, I was convinced that the world was ugly and that life itself was just a horrible, senseless accident. A few acid trips later and I saw that there was beauty in the world, and I was healed. Reckoner showed me that there was true beauty in the world, everywhere around us, without the crutch of drugs. And I was healed for life. I will never forget that one walk going back to my dorm from class. I was listening to In Rainbows. Reckoner had never clicked before; it was just filler between the brilliant first half of the record and Jigsaw Falling Into Place (sorry everything on that second half). The sun bathed everything in gold, and LSD had taken some heavy loads off of me, so I felt free for the first time in… well, forever. The song came on, and nothing else seemed to matter. It was as if my guardian angel or a benevolent god was bathing and infusing me with goodness and beauty and love and everything good about life. The song somehow redeemed all of life itself. I immediately concluded that all of life’s struggles and sufferings are worth it if Reckoner exists and I can listen to it.

Motion Picture Soundtrack, from Kid A:

The perfect ending song. The harps and organs and choirs are fitting for a departure from this world of ours. Lost love, past failures, what does it matter now that you’re dying. All that matters now is that you accept it with dignity, you crazy motherfucker. Sorry that it wasn’t perfect, I don’t know who told you that it would be that way. Hope you made the best of it as much as possible. I forgive you. Goodbye, and I will see you in the next life.

P.S. The solo piano version of the song on the OKNOTOK cassette tape hits like an emotional truck. Listen to it if you want to ruin the studio version; it’s better in every way. There’s even a third verse that makes the song so much more poignant.