Radiohead, OK Computer
And how saying no to The Bends saved my life.
And how saying no to The Bends saved my life.
As I’m sure all civilised people will concur, music, as a concept, ended on 21st May 1997 when Radiohead released their epoch defining album “OK Computer”. Music of course will never die, despite what Don McLean might have said about American Pies and driving a Chevy to a levee, which, according to this magnificent song, was sadly dry. But when Radiohead released OK Computer in 1997, they’d recorded the greatest album of all time and one that was so far ahead of it’s time it was coming back in on itself on the other side of the curve of the space time continuum. In an interstellar burst they were back to save the universe, and a universe not yet aware of the impending doom of the blips and beeps, the connections and re-connections, the disconnections and dislocations that represented the future that lay ahead for the human family as we entered a 21st Century of a multi media world that would scream for our attention and whether we liked it or not, we all kind of complied. The five school friends from Oxford warned us, starkly, of what lay ahead, of an ever connected computerised world that would paradoxically see us all ever more disconnected. Taking off and landing. Starting and then stopping. The emptiest of feelings. Of disappointed people clinging onto bottles and can you please stop this noise I’m trying to get some rest. From all the unborn chicken.
And the voices in my head.
Tales of aliens watching us from above, bemused at the state of the humanity below and of a karmic police and a man who “buzzes like a fridge” talking in math and sounding like a detuned radio. The blips and beeps of a modern life envisioned by Thom, Jonny, Colin, Ed and Phil that in 1997 sounded (both lyrically and sonically) so bizarrely brilliant and yet is today representative of a 24 hour news cycle that you cannot ignore even if you wanted to, of that electronic device that won’t stop bloody beeping, demanding your attention, approval, scorn or angry riposte. Are you climbing up the walls yet? Well that’s only track nine on OK Computer and one of Radiohead’s bleakest and most disturbing songs they have ever put on an album, but it encapsulates the claustrophobia and feelings of being unable to escape I believe they wanted to collide together, of a sonic bombardment of a future they saw coming in 1997, and in truth, way before this, as several songs were developed long before they were finally waxed into vinyl place. As this majestic album comes to a close with “The Tourist”, lead singer Thom Yorke implores us all to “slow down” and perhaps this is both the perfect finale’ to an album warning us of an ever quickening world that we would need to slow ourselves down from as well as a warning to himself and the band, as both him and they were spiralling out of control at this point and on the verge of a break up that thankfully never materialised. But before the album closer, Thom would spit with venom at politicians (an oft pursuit of his) with tales of riot shields and voodoo economics and if this wasn’t persuasive enough for your vote on election day, well here’s a cattle prod and some economic incentives from the IMF. He returns to save the universe again in “Lucky” as a superhero rising from a lake and with no time whatsoever for politicians or heads of state again, before, as only Radiohead can do, they include the anthemic, almost poppy, glockenspiel inspired simplicity of “No Surprises” and the greatest album ever created is complete. Ask any casual observer of Radiohead for their favourite song and they may suggest Creep or High and Dry or Street Spirit (Fade Out) but many I would venture would say “No Surprises”. It’s a bubbly, cheery, happy, festival friendly sing-a-long they might also say.
Really? Have these people read the lyrics?
“A heart that’s, full up like a landfill. A job that slowly kills you. Bruises that won’t heal. You look, so tired unhappy. Bring down, the Government. They don’t. They don’t speak for us”.
“I’ll take, a quiet life, a handshake, of carbon monoxide. And no alarms. And no surprises. No alarms, and no surprises. No alarms, and no surprises. Please?”
So what does this all have to do with saving my life? Well, frankly, nothing! Twas just a hook to get your eyes of appreciation here, but please, if you are as Radiohead obsessed as I am, please do stay as, well, no-one else reads my blogs and I could do with the company. I’d much rather be waxing lyrically on the geniuses from Oxford in person with a fellow aficionado of Radiohead but as they warned us all those years ago, we’ve been disconnected and high and dry on the iron lung of a brave new world that beeps and pings at us from all angles. I can and will give a brief treatise on the magnificence of The Bends and I plan to re-visit their other seven albums in coming blogs, so please stick around. Unless of course you feel as though you’re packt like sardines in a crushd tin box and in that case I hope you bloom like a lotus flower and sail to the moon. But true love waits, right?
All of my blogs/stories, regardless of their title or general hook are aimed at humanity, the human condition, of needing love, respect, laughter, common ground and a celebration of what humble human beings can achieve and what we mean to others in our collective human family. Radiohead (and songwriter Thom in particular) covers the human condition constantly in all of their songs and especially the fragility of being human, and the mental and physical toll of being a living, breathing entity can bring to all of us. The twelve songs on “The Bends” cover this all encompassing human fragility in spades and it obviously starts with the title of the album (a condition otherwise known as decompression sickness when a diver rises to the surface too quickly after being underwater) but the song itself, whilst leaning heavily on the metaphor is more concerned with discussing who we are, why are we here and of needing certainty and friends. The song also has a long time favoured run of lyrics of
“Where do we go from here? The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear. And where are you? They brought in the CIA. The tanks and the whole marines. To blow me away. To blow me sky high”
before Thom laments he wishes he could be in a differing decade, a different person and more importantly a happier person before screaming that he wants to “live, breathe” and “be a part of the human race”. As 2nd songs on an album go, it’s ridiculously good. But of course it is. Before this we have the album opener of “Planet Telex” and the screaming, jangling guitars that Radiohead were, at this, the second of their albums, highly regarded for before mostly ditching this style from OK Computer onward, but Planet Telex opens the album loudly and spectacularly and covers the human emotions and feelings, perhaps bodily functions too, of everything being broken, dislocated and on the verge of failure, as well as feelings of isolation and despair. Radiohead, cheery as ever!
Ever the contrarian, the third track “High and Dry” is one of my least favourite Radiohead songs (despite it’s more popular mainstream acclaim) and although Thom’s vocal is amazing, the song itself (of a sexual being yearning for sex/stimulation but with a physically broken body surrounding him) leaves me strangely cold. “Fake Plastic Trees” follows and from such humble beginnings in the early 1990’s, this monumental piece of musical beauty had been kicked around by the band for ages before being approved for “The Bends”, this song has since become an anthemic stadium rocker ever since. Desires of being someone different and someone wanted close the song but way before this sweet and beautiful ending we have a snarling character railing against a plastic, disposable society, of fakery and losing the natural state of humanity and the earth. As Thom would proudly and coldly state at many of their earliest gigs, this is a song highlighting the greed and gluttony of the 1980’s and it’s continued economic and ecological impact still being felt to this day. “Bones” crashes in soon after with another collective burst of loud and thrashy noise and a continued lament of a body literally falling to pieces before “Nice Dream” veers dramatically away from this with a quiet, melodic if misleading song similar to “No Surprises” as, on first listening, it has a lullaby feel but on closer inspection it’s far more dark and sinister than that as our character, awakening from a nice dream tries to call his friend “a good Angel” but she’s “out with her answerphone” and if she came to his help “the sea would electrocute us all”. Nice dream eh?
Side 2 of The Bends reverts to type with the crashing wall of guitars that is “Just” (and another iconic Radiohead MTV era video that accompanied it) and a lament on relationship breakdowns and of always bringing problems on oneself before “My Iron Lung” keeps the loudness and brashness going with an aggressive wail at their ever growing band of critics but more importantly at their selves. “This is our new song. Just like the last one. A total waste of time. Mr Iron Lung” relates to their (in)famous and best known song “Creep” and how, at this stage in their career, and for far too many more years to follow, they despised their own song and tried to distance themselves from it as a band. Here Thom Yorke screams his antipathy at his own creation but thankfully in more recent years he and the band have re-embraced their own baby and live it sounds as beautiful as ever. “Bullet Proof….I wish I was” returns to the High and Dry/Nice Dream acoustic treatment and with another lament at the fragility of the human body before “Black Star” (one of my favourites on my first ever listen in 1995) laments another failed human relationship and how it’s “killing” the protagonist. More lifelong favourite lyrics here with “Troubled words. Of a troubled mind. I try to understand.
What is eating you?” has always resonated with me. “Sulk” was allegedly written about the Hungerford shooting tragedy of 1987 (at 15 years of age at the time I remember the news coverage and shock/outrage vividly) but I’ve always obsessed over the lyrics “You are so pretty, when you’re on your knees. Disinfected, and eager to please” and this would appear to be far away from the alleged influence for the song, but the album closes on a stone cold classic and yet another iconic Radiohead video of the mid 1990’s and the rise and rise of MTV. “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” is a beautiful anthemic and repetitive guitar riff from the Gods surrounding the very nature of life, death and the natural world as Yorke twists images of the birth of life “cracked eggs”, death and it’s “beady eyes”, humanity as a whole “being a world child” and, as a possible forerunner to OK Computer, another favourite lyric as he laments “This machine will, will not communicate. These thoughts and the strain I am under”. The album as a whole closes with a two line repetition of five words, and five words we could all do well to live by:
“Immerse your soul in love”.
So, did “The Bends” save my life? No, not really, but the musical genius of Radiohead most certainly has over the years and it is to a human story we return in which to close out this first chapter of my personal Radiohead story. The human aspect refers to a character named “Gareth” of whom I was firm friends with at school and into our college years when we jointly (but unknowingly and separately) joined The Britannia Music Club. Now, in those halcyon, pre-internet days of the mid 1990’s, believe it or not, you could simply fill out a form on the back of a magazine that allowed you to pick six (SIX!) CD’s and only pay for one (ONE!) 30 days after receiving your bulk choice of six. Yes, six chosen CD’s would fall through your letterbox for no up front payment and then over a two year period you were obliged to pay for these in instalments(?) and then a further six in the agreed period. One further CD would be sent every month and you decided whether you wished to keep and pay for it, or return it. What innocent days! Gareth, the musical master of his day had chosen the category “Rock” whereas I (still a little musically soft in the head) had chosen “Soft Rock”, so although we signed up almost exactly to the same day, the monthly selection sent to us both were vastly different. Gareth and I became very firm friends, first at school (as I chased the damn bus nearly every morning, late after my gruelling paper round and then at College (when he drove us in his death trap, sorry, “Golden Bullet”) a Vauxhall Viva that was as road worthy as he was worthy as a new driver. In essence, whether it was by bus or by car, it was a perilous if laughter filled journey every day. Gareth was such a kind and lovely character, with a Mother to match, and both of whom shared an openness and warmth that money could never buy and I was always welcomed as though a member of the family, but an “incident” befell Gareth that neither he nor his Mother would fully confirm shortly after we’d left college for pastures new. I tried to stay in contact with them both but life wound differing paths for us all and I have no knowledge where life has taken my old friend, my somewhat mad, crazy yet golden hearted friend and I hope he’s flourished since the incident and made a success of himself and found love, contentment and happiness.
Back in 1995 and the days of the Britannia Music Club we would often share our treasures and Gareth passed me the original Stone Roses album and older classics from Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and “The Boss”, Bruce Springsteen. Gareth was a huge Springsteen fan back then and I’d like to believe he still is, but the crux of this merry tale is: I listened to each and returned each with a flat refusal and “not for me, thanks”. On each occasion, without fail, Gareth would look me in the eye and simply say “Listen again”. So I did, and all four artists named above are firm musical favourites of mine nearly 30 years later.
Gareth also passed me this strange looking CD with the dead looking face on the cover and said “You have to listen to this” and I did and, of course, I returned it with yet another flat “no thanks”. After reading the above, I’m sure you can guess the rest.
I’m now, and have been for nearly 30 years, obsessed about Radiohead and it’s all thanks to my crazy old friend Gareth. Thanks mate. I hope the years have been kind to you old friend and I truly hope you’ve found some peace in this mad world, and as well as Bruce Springsteen, you’re still listening to these five (some would now say six) geniuses from Oxford who, although not saving my life, have enhanced and enriched so very, very much.
