waiting for something to happen. — “The Bends”
i wish that something would happen — “The Bends”
this isn’t happening. — “How to Disappear Completely”
this is really happening. — “Idioteque”
something big is going to happen. — “Go To Sleep”
we are accidents waiting to happen. — “There There”
i won’t let this happen to my children. — “I Will”
what happened? — “15 Step”
they’re not going to happen — “Nude”
no matter what happens now. — “Videotape”
nothing’s going to happen without warning — “Down is the New Up”
Author: joseph
Categories
Message 324: Sayings, Part 2
Sayings. More:
- ate me up for breakfast
- judge, jury and executioner
- skinned alive
- put me in a home
- freaking out
- deaf, dumb and blind
- spinning plates
- feed me to the lions
- bearing down on me
- made for life
- a total waste of time
- killing time
- what am I to do?
- what are we coming to?
- where do we go from here?
- running away to the foreign legion
- feeling pulled apart by horses
- blow into a paperbag
- get off my case
- the best you can is good enough
- i’m on a roll
- wash all over me
- like everything is fine
- sorry is not good enough
Sayings are stopgaps.
Categories
Message 323: Like a Weapon
Song: present_tense.mp3.
Categories
Message 322: Don’t Get Heavy
this dance
this dance
is like a weapon
is like a weapon
of self-defense
self-defense
against the present
against the present
present tense
i won’t get heavy
don’t get heavy
keep it light
keep it moving
i am doing
no harm
as my world
comes crashing down
i am dancing
freaking out
deaf dumb and blind
in you i’m lost
in you i’m lost
i won’t turn around
[ ? ]
i won’t stop now
i won’t slack off
all is lost
will be in vain
stop from falling
down a mine
[ ? ]
[ ? ]
but all is lost
will be in vain
in you i’m lost
in you i’m lost
in you i’m lost
in you i’m lost
{ edited on 9.20.09 in response to comment; changed “distance” to “this dance” in the opening lines }
{ edited on 9.21.09 in response to comment; changed “stop from falling [ ? ]” to “stop from falling / down a mine” }
{ edited on 9.21.0 in response to comment; added “will be in vain,” and changed “all is lost’ to “but all is lost” }
Categories
Message 321: Sayings
Radiohead makes use of commonplace, familiar sayings—if that is the best word—in their lyrics. The usages of these is more marked in their later work. Below is a first attempt to gather those sayings with links or information to their usage.
- cat get your tongue
- chew the fat
- baby (common rock lyric word, last appearance in The Bends)
- Won’t take my eyes off the ball
- living in a glasshouse
- house of cards
- knives out
- The chink in your armor
- the pot will call the kettle black
- packt like sardines
- off with his head
- how am i driving
- you can’t take it with you
- climbing up the walls
- caught on candid camera
- you’re so last week
- you and whose army?
- bull(y) in a china shop
- piss on our parade
- don’t get any big ideas
- high and dry
- alligators in the sewers
- watch your feet for cracks in the pavement
- jigsaw falling into place
- you do it to yourself
- move along
- tongue-tied
Sayings are in no particular order (for an as yet unrevealed reason). I am posting an incomplete list and will add sayings noticed by other users. These findings will be credited. Not all sayings found will make it into the list.
The sayings are, in themselves, uninteresting. But how they inhabit Radiohead’s lyrics is unusual. “We are hungry for a lynching” near “chew the fat.” “Piss on your parade” near “hammerheaded sharks.” “Tongue-tied” near a disease afflicting rabbits. The familiar leans against the strange in ways that defamiliarizes, but also makes the odd lyrics seem commonplace.
Note to self: use the word “defamiliarize” with caution, avoiding pretension if possible.
Categories
Message 320: Twisting Words
Help requested if incorrect (likely). Lyrics for “These Are My Twisted Words.”
these are my twisted words
went off the roof still walking
i know i should not look down
but i’m so sick of just talking
when are you coming back
i just can’t handle it
when are you coming back
i just can’t handle it
when are you coming back
i just can’t stand it
i just can’t handle it
New song: “These Are My Twisted Words.” Available at the W.A.S.T.E. store for £0.00. The download includes high-resolution artwork.
A new Radiohead song? “These Are My Twisted Words.” At Ease: http://www.ateaseweb.com/2009/08/13/new-radiohead-track-leaked/. Greenplastic: New Radiohead song leaked?.
And an update from Greenplastic: What we know and don’t know about “These Are My Twisted Words”.
Radiohead has released a single titled: “Harry Patch (In Memory Of).” It is available for purchase and download from W.A.S.T.E.
Thom Yorke posted the song’s lyrics and comments on Dead Air Space. The lyrics read:
“i am the only one that got through
the others died where ever they fell
it was an ambush
they came up from all sides
give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
i’ve seen devils coming up from the ground
i’ve seen hell upon this earth
the next will be chemical but they will never learn”
Yorke mentions the song was inspired by “a very emotional interview with him a few years ago on the Today program on Radio4.” Mike Thomson interviewed Harry Patch on December 24, 2005 for BBC 4’s Today program. That day’s audio archive does not correctly link to the original audio. However, this recent BBC Today audio clip contains excerpts from the 2005 interview.
Some lyrics are almost verbatim from the interview, a practice in keeping with of Yorke’s composition methods. This aside, the directness of the lyrics and the clarity of the song’s purpose–to memorialize Harry Patch–seems new for Radiohead. The song’s speaker is clear: it is Harry Patch. The lyrics are clear: war is horror. This may be Radiohead’s first threnody. “Harrowdown Hill” memorializes David Kelly, but the band has yet to produce a song with the directness of “Harry Patch (In Memory Of).” The song’s lyrics and music recalls, in part, Wilfred Owen‘s posthumous preface: “This is in no sense consolatory.” The song, too, is in no sense consolatory.
Yorke’s voice sounds fragile throughout. Cracking at times, seeming unable to transition between, for example, the song’s opening syllables: “I am.” This same crack or dissonant transition mirrors somewhat the music’s relation to the lyrics: it never quite matches up. In typical Radiohead fashion, the music has a comforting, swaying start at odds with the lyrics’ imagery. The music climbs to a joyful height when the lyrics suggest we give leaders guns to fight it out themselves, as if the suggestion might work, but the song falls into a despairing sound and then returns to Yorke singing along with the opening sway–devils are coming up from the ground and leaders will not learn from past mistakes: the next will be chemical. At this point the lyrics conclude but the swaying music continues for a minute or so longer.
The music’s sway speeds up and turns into a solid dissonant sound. The song, at this point, doesn’t end so much as it stops. The music’s opening and close are opposed. Lull, almost lullaby, versus and an ending that seems to come too soon without a feeling of resolution.
To quote Owen again: “All the poet can do to-day is to warn.”
Categories
Message 316: The Present Tense
A new song performed by Thom Yorke at Latitude:
http://finefinemusic.com/2009/07/19/thom-yorke-the-present-tense-live-at-latitude/
Via At Ease:
http://www.ateaseweb.com/2009/07/19/listen-to-thom-yorke-the-present-tense/