Author: joseph

Radiohead is widely known to have taken their band name from the Talking Heads song “Radio Head” from the 1986 album True Stories. The lyrics to the song are available here.

The eighth song on OK Computer is “Electioneering.” According to the OED, “electioneering” has two meanings. First, it is the art or practice of managing elections; canvassing on behalf of candidates for membership in representative assemblies. Second, it can be used as an adjective to describe a person or group of people that takes an active part in elections.

Jonathan Percy’s notes to the song on Green Plastic Radiohead claim that Thom Yorke was “was thinking of the Poll Tax Riots as he wrote this, the scenes were people … breaking down the gates of Downing Street.” Although England has a long history of protest against poll taxes, the Poll Tax Riots to which Percy refers occured March 31, 1990. Black and white photos of the riots taken by Paul Ross, a London freelance photogapher, are available here. A pamphlet titled Poll Tax Riot: 10 Hours That Shook Trafalgar Square containing first-hand accounts was published in 1990 by Acab Press. Though somewhat biased, this article provides a concise account of the riots.

The eighth song on The Bends is “My Iron Lung.” There is an online Iron Lung Museum that includes an essay on the the history of the British iron lung from 1832 -1995.

The following is excerpted from an email Koyder sent to me in June 2002:

“On the official Radiohead site, in the audio-video section, there’s a scrolling Flash presentation of Amnesiac’s lyrics. In the lyrics of “Pyramid Song” there, instead of ‘A moon full of stars’ there’s ‘A moonful of stars.’ Beautiful to me. I mention it, as these lyrics seem most competent. End of message.”

The flash presentation in question is available here.

These comments are excerpted from an email Daniel Bentley sent to me in August, 2002:

“I recently went back to visit the OKC booklet to have a go at finding something hidden in there. On the second to last page (the one with the figures shaking hands) at the bottom the words ‘faces, hands, arms, necks’ and ‘the corsets of the dial painters’ are readable. This is an extract from a report by Dr Cecil Drinker into women who became affected by Radium which they painted onto watch dials in the 1920s to make them luminous. They were unprotected and were exposed to high levels of dangerous radiation. The full extract reads ‘Dust samples collected in the workroom from various locations and from chairs not used by the workers were all luminous in the dark room. Their hair, faces, hands, arms, necks, the dresses, the underclothes, even the corsets of the dial painters were luminous. One of the girls showed luminous spots on her legs and thighs. The back of another was luminous almost to the waist….'”

You can read a review of the book Radium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935 by Claudia Clark. There is also an essay on “The Radium Girls.”

These comments are excerpted from two emails Andres Bisserier sent to me in March, 2002:

“Among the second set of antivideos RH released, there is one called Piranesi. Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 – 1778) was an italian artist who did a series of etchings called The Prisions (Le Carcieri) … [I’ve recently] bought a book that comprehends the entire series. [I’ve] observed that the image of the temple with the staircase in the Amnesiac booklet, also a part of the artwork in Rh’s I Might be Wrong Live Recordings, is very much based on some of the plates in these series. Also, the image of the gravestone with two heads in it, included in the Amnesiac booklet, is based on a very similar image in one of the etchings (number XVI, Carcere, with a High Gallery Beyond a Low, Timbered Anteroom).”

“It’s not really possible saying whether the series depict underground prisons, and [they] don’t seem to be actual mazes, but rather labyrinthine (word rings any bells?) structures. In many of them you see people walking by, arguing or even shouting out to other people across the rooms, and stuff like that–it actually looks like some sort of an endless castle, made of a lot of annexes built on top or around the others; just this really messy, improvised, even living architecture. One of the most remarkable aspects of the etchings is the staircases: some of them seem to have been built around parts of the structure after it was finished, like they needed to get to a place where they hadn’t [planned] they would have to go, so the lifted a flight of stairs that hadn’t been [planned] in the first place.”

“The book I have is simply called The Prisons (Le Carcieri) By Giovanni Battista Piranesi, subtitled The Complete First and Second States. It was published by Dover Publications, Inc. NY. Their address is: Dover Publications inc., 180 Varick Street, New York, N. Y. 10014. The first edition is from 1973. The international standard book number is 0-486-21540-7; and, just in case you have access to the library of Congress, the book is under the catalog card number: 72-92762. The book I have is quite good, it consists of, allegedly, the entire series in both their states, each etching being reproduced at 60 per cent of their original size. Considering the tiny images in the further planes of some etchings, this is a good thing. However, if you can’t find this particular book, I should point out that Taschen has some books on Piranessi published. One of them is a small thing, with some of the Carcieri etchings. The other is bluntly called The Complete Piranessi, and should have every and all the etchings the Italian artist ever made…”

Approximately fifty-two minutes and eleven seconds into Meeting People is Easy, Thom Yorke makes the following comment: “If they’re going to call it [OK Computer] a concept record, and they’re going to focus on the technology thing, it’s like, just let them, it’s fucking noise, anyway. We’ve done our job, you know. It just adds to the noise. It would be interesting to see [fades out]…”

Song 3 on Amnesiac is titled “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors.” The revolving door was patented on August 7, 1888 by Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia. Little information regarding the invention’s specifics exists on the internet. These links contain sparse information.

Radiohead has debuted a new song titled “Myxomatosis.” Myxomatosis is a viral disease that affects the skin and mucous membranes of rabbits. It was released by the Australian government in 1950 to control the country’s rabbit population. By 1953, 90% of the rabbit population had died. In 1953, the disease was transported to France by a man hoping to control the rabbit population on his estate near Paris. Subsequently, the disease has spread across Europe and to the UK. A thorough fact sheet explains the history and symptoms of the disease.

The title of Radiohead’s b-side “Worrywort” is a phrase of uncertain origin. The OED claims the first usage of the phrase, spelled “worrywart,” appeared on page 177 of Ivan Belknap’s 1956 book Human Problems of State Mental Hospitals: “The persevering, nagging delusional groupwho were termed ‘worry warts’­, ‘nuisances’­, ‘bird dog’­, in the attendants’ slang.” Other reference sources claim the phrase first appeared in J. R. Williams’s comic strip “Out Our Way” in 1956.

A portion of the song’s lyrics read:

Take a look around,
There’s candles on the cake,
On what might have been,
The road you should have took,
Mistakes mistaken

The tradition of putting candles on cakes seems to have developed separately in both ancient Greece and medieval Germany. The association of cakes with candles and birthdays appears to have started in Germany, however. Though for elementary school teachers, this page is a good resource for summarized information on birthdays. Though hosted on a commerical site, this history of birthdays is informative.