[post corrections in comments]
i will slip myself into your pocket
invisible
do what you want, do what you want
i will shrink and i will disappear
i will slip into a groove and cut me up and cut me up
there’s an empty space inside my heart
that once had you
now i set you free
i set you free
there’s an empty space inside my heart
and the wings take root
so now i set you free
i set you free
slowly we unfurl
as lotus flowers
and all I want is the moon upon a stick
just to see what if
just to see what if
I can’t kick the habit
just to feed your fast ballooning head
listen to your heart
we will shrink and we’ll be quiet as mice
and while the cat is away and do what we want
do what we want
there’s an empty space inside my heart
where the wings take root
so now i set you free
i set you free
because all I want is the moon upon a stick
just to see what if
just to see what if
[ ] into my room
slowly we unfurl
as lotus flowers
and all I want is the moon upon a stick
dancing around a pit
the darkness is beneath
i can’t kick the habit
just to feed your fast ballooning head
listen to your heart
When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun. A documentary on Tibet.
Thom Yorke: composer. Along with Philip Glass and Damien Rice.
From The Basement, 2008:
For MTV’s EXIT (End Exploitation and Human Trafficking), 2008:
Scotch Mist Version, Live, Dec 31 2007, stars at (1 minute, 30 seconds):
News from W.A.S.T.E:
just to let you know that Thom was guest DJ/co-host on Radio 1 Gilles Peterson show and this may be info that you would like to post onto your sites.
It was broadcast in the early hours of this morning and here’s a link for all to listen again
Including a glimpse of what Pitchfork calls Thom Yorke’s “trademark adorable/nerdy dance moves.”
“In concert the band brought out muscular, kinetic patterns, to which Mr. Yorke responded with peculiar but totally liberated dancing.” – Thom Yorke’s New Band, From Many Angles
“‘It was excellent,’ said Matt Lingo, a 21-year-old student. ‘It was the most depressing dance music I’ve ever heard.’”
don’t bore us
get to the chorus
open the floodgates
we want the goodness
without the bullshit
and no heartache
no pain and
no suffering and
no one gets hurts
we absolve you
we absolve you
open the floodgates
While you make pretty speeches I’m being cut to shreds.
Excerpt from Dead Air Space:
if you read in tommorrows headlines that a deal was reached?? remember it was nothing like what was needed and was filed by a bored complicit press who needed to show something for two weeks of crap.. and that it reflected the wests inability to lead decisively.
A headline from BBC News, on the site’s front page (as of Dec 19 4:45am Pacific):
UN welcomes climate summit deal
Saying a deal is “welcome” does not mean a deal was made, as the article makes clear. A quote from Ban Ki-moon:
We must transform this into a legally binding treaty next year.
The accord sets no goal for concluding a binding international treaty, which leaves the implementation of its provisions uncertain. It is likely to undergo many months, perhaps years, of additional negotiations before it emerges in any internationally enforceable form.
An image from Dead Air Space:
“baby’s got the bends.” – the bends
“oh, baby burn” – maquiladora
“baby smiling in back seat” – fitter happier
“shot of baby strapped in back seat” – fitter happier
“living in times when i can’t stand it babe” – dollars & cents
“baby alligators in the sewers” – fog
“little baby’s eyes” – i will
“send baby jesus to radiate his light” – wicked child
“you’re either in the club, baby or you’re not” – bangers and mash
2001 – 2005 ?: Rough video doesn’t sync with the music. But this is similar to the version I heard at The Gorge in George, WA on Saturday, June 23, 2001.
2005: At Methodist Central Hall, London, April 16, 2005 for the Wake Up to Trade Justice Vigil.
2009:
“in the past couple of weeks i’ve been getting a band together for fun to play the eraser stuff live and the new songs etc.. to see if it could work!
here’s a photo.. its me, joey waronker, mauro refosco, flea and nigel godrich.”
via.
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”
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.
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” }
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 weel
- 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.
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.”
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/
From a w.a.s.t.e email dated July 14, 2009: “The band members are recording in their studio at the moment”.
jonny in check
Roofing_\emblem. Free classes.
squint, peer. look. these coequals.
squint, peer. look. these coequals.
