Category: Uncategorized

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.

In nytimes.com article:

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.

Song: present_tense.mp3.

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.