Tag Archives: radiohead

#935: Radiohead – No Surprises

Again, I think this track falls into that group of those that seemed to have always existed in my life. Couldn’t pinpoint a particular time, event or moment where I saw/heard it for the first time and explain how I felt there and then. What I could tell you is that the music video was what introduced me to it. Though I want to say the guitar intro was used in a advert on television or something, that’s maybe my mind playing tricks on me. In the video, Thom Yorke’s head is miming to the song in a tank which slowly fills up with water. When it gets to the bridge, he’s fully submerged and he holds his breath until the end of the instrumental break, where the water flows out, he gasps for air, smiles ’cause he got the right take and closes his eyes as the song ends. The kid I was when I saw it wasn’t shocked at this. Really I wanted to see if I could hold my breath for that long too and tried on many occasions.

Before its release as a single in December 1997, ‘No Surprises’ would have been known as the tenth track on Radiohead’s OK Computer, the song that comes as a sweet, sweet lullaby-like tune after the somewhat terrifying ending to the preceding ‘Climbing Up the Walls’. The twinkling arpeggiated guitar intro begins alongside some light bass guitar work, and after a short computer boot-up-like sound, an acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and drums come in. Thom Yorke enters, singing in a much lower register than usual, providing lyrics filled with imagery that have very much given a number of people out there the idea that the song is about suicide. It very may well be. I’ve taken it as one that’s about just waiting for life to end with no hang-ups or sudden unexpected situations. The mentions of ‘carbon monoxide’, a ‘final fit’ and the harmonised cries of ‘let me out of here’ do steer the meaning more toward the suicidal route though. Maybe I’m the fool here.

Now, it’s one of Radiohead’s most well-known songs. Its release as a single helped, as did the video. It’s come a long way and taken a life of its own. You would think so, having been around for 25 years at this point. The band will get to the “Bring down the government/They don’t speak for us line” at live performances and the audience will holler and cheer in agreement. Some people may like it just for that line. I’d like to think that the large majority are struck by its warmth and comforting tones. Everything’s played so straight, yet it’s still so powerful. Also helps that it’s really easy to sing along to. Got beautiful melodies and hooks in abundance.

#917: Radiohead – (Nice Dream)

Leave a reply

A very good Radiohead track, this one. Roaming around the internet I’ve come to find that the opinion on The Bends is that it’s great, but Radiohead didn’t become the almighty greatness they are until the next album they did. Something along those lines anyway. When it comes to me, there are plenty of times when I probably prefer to listen to The Bends over their experimental, thinking-man’s work. The record’s cathartic in a variety of ways. You get the slow burners, you get the full-on rock bangers, and then there are the pretty ones that float along and wow you with their beauty. ‘(Nice Dream)’ covers that last category quite aptly.

I’m a sucker for a song in 6/8 time. I believe I wrote about another track in that timing only a few days ago. And here’s another. Actually, like ‘New Test Leper’, ‘(Nice Dream)’ is very much acoustic-led. The guitars that start ‘Dream’ off and pretty much stay in the mix throughout were played by all five bandmembers in a garden somewhere. You can hear an electric guitar chugging away in the verses way in the back, but the spotlight really falls on those acoustics and Thom Yorke’s soft vocal that’s very upfront. Gotta give a shout out to those beautiful strings during the choruses too. Really pull on your heartstrings, they do. The time when things really get a bit edgy is in the bridge where Jonny Greenwood pulls out one of his solos where he sounds like he’s strangling the guitar and pushing it to its limits. When that intense bridge ends, it softly lands into the outro, more reminiscent of the quieter verses, that fades out with these strange, surreal “whale songs” as neatly described by bassist Colin Greenwood.

Radiohead never regularly play much of their pre-OK Computer material live. There are those that that statement doesn’t count for like ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, ‘My Iron Lung’, even ‘Creep’ at this point. So when they pull a deeper cut from out of the hat, it’s usually met with a reception of shock and excitement. During the second half of their tour for In Rainbows, they played ‘(Nice Dream)’ for the first time in five years. Sometimes I get the feeling Thom Yorke doesn’t like playing those deep-cut Bends-era songs that much. He started to write more in the third-person for OK Computer and beyond because he was tired of writing about himself all the time. But when he smiles right at the end of the performance, I think what am I talking about. He probably does. It’s a great live take.

#896: Radiohead – Myxomatosis. (Judge, Jury & Executioner.)

3 Replies

‘Myxomatosis’ may very well be the very first Radiohead song I ever heard. You may think, “Why that one?” Out of all of the tracks that the band have ever made, that’s a bit out there. Well, it’s because it was on the soundtrack of FIFA 2004, a game that I played almost every weekend when I was nine years old. EA Sports were on another level with their soundtrack picks back in the day. Have to say this song stood out from the many others that accompanied it in the the game’s background music. The child that I was, I had never heard a song like it before. The riff was nasty/strange, I thought it had a bit of a swing to it (which it doesn’t – it’s in 4/4, but I had no idea what time signatures were), and the singer had this low, relaxing delivery. It was sort of hypnotizing. And after enough times I was singing along to it whenever it popped up.

Obviously, there’s a huge irony about a nine-year-old happily grooving to a track that references a fatal disease that affected rabbits, but the music sounded too good. I remember the times of trying to find this song online, but music streaming definitely wasn’t a thing (at least not to the extent it is now), so all I could ever find were lyrics. Through finding those I then discovered that FIFA had actually censored some parts of the song and had cut a large chunk of it out. It was years until I listened to the full thing, I guess when I got Hail to the Thief as a present in 2010. Six darn years later. But by that point, my appreciation for Radiohead had grown immensely. In 2021, this song still stomps. It’s intense, it pummels, gives off such a menacing aura. I don’t know what it’s about, I can’t lie. I’ve had some thoughts, and my interpretation is that it’s a very, very dark take on touring and the media. The fans are the people twitching and salivating, the narrator talks about sleeping with whoever they like and how one woman in particular ‘ate him up for breakfast’. But at the end of it all, he ends up feeling confused and like a piece of meat. These are all just guesses on my part. In recent live performances, there are some extra lyrics that Thom Yorke sings that weren’t included in the album version. A particular appearance of these are in the band’s live take of the song in their From the Basement set in 2008. Sometimes, I even prefer that to the original. I’ll link it all below.

And that is it. That’s the ‘M’ section done. The calendar for this shows that I started posting for the M’s exactly seven months ago. I actually started on January 10th, and wrote each following post almost a month in advance. As I type to you, it’s the 7th August, and I’ve just had my second COVID vaccine. Hello from the somewhat distant past. Thanks for joining on this ‘journey’. Thanks to whoever’s been reading and liking and following. Makes all of these posts worthwhile; I’m glad it’s reaching people out there. The N’s will definitely arrive. But for now… a break’s needed. Bye, bye, now, Take care of yourselves.