Has The Light Gone Out For You?

If you've never listened to Thom Yorke and his band before, then you may need to start somewhere prior to this jam to understand (or not understand, but accept) the sometimes dysfunctional, melodic journey that is Radiohead.  If you're a fan, you're on the right side of the fence - and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.  In my experience, you either get them or you don't.  To say this is one of the greatest experimental bands of our times is an understatement.

Bodysnatchers comes to us off the band's seventh album, In Rainbows, released in 2007.  This song jumped off the album at me immediately - I didn't have to listen twice to get it.  It grabs you with Radiohead's proven ability to write incredible, driving guitar songs that take you in and don't let you go until the final note.  It's the most rocking track on the album and as you continue through the tune, it just gets better and better - driven by Yorke's incredibly melodic voice and lyrics and some amazing lead guitar parts by the multi-talented Jonny Greenwood .

I love Radiohead for too many reasons to name - but one of them is for their lyrics.  If the songs makes sense to you - go for it.  If it doesn't - go for it anyway.  Some notable lyrics from some classics by the band:

"Please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken voices in my head."

 "In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe."

"We've got heads on sticks.  You've got ventriloquists."

Bodysnatchers does not disappoint on the lyrical side either.  The song could have many interpretations, but for me, its about "abduction" - but not in the physical sense.  It's about take-over through manipulation.  You can plug in just about anything for the lead "character" of the story - corporate politics, insensible rules, relationships, government, niche industry - it all works.  At the end of the song, the lead just gets fed up when he realizes he's become someone he doesn't even recognize or understand anymore.  It's as if his body was snatched by an alien, reprogrammed, and then left for eternal disappointment.  The song is the main character's self evaluation after realizing what he's become.

One of my favorite performance's of the tune is from the In Rainbows - From the Basement live video album release.  Sit back and enjoy the always-entertaining Thom Yorke and Radiohead rock out another classic:

Lyrics:

I do not
Understand
What it is
I've done wrong

Full of holes
Check for pulse
Blink your eyes
One for yes
Two for no

I have no idea what I am talking about
I am trapped in this body and can't get out
Oh

You killed the sound
Removed backbone
A pale imitation
With the edges sawn off

I have no idea what you are talking about
Your mouth moves only with someone's hand up your ass
Oh

Has the light gone out for you?
'Cause the light's gone for me
It is the 21st century
It is the 21st century
It can follow you like a dog
It brought me to my knees
They got a skin and they put me in
They got a skin and they put me in
All the lines wrapped around my face
All the lines wrapped around my face
And for anyone else to see
And for anyone else to see

I'm a lie

I've seen it coming
I've seen it coming
I've seen it coming
I've seen it coming

A Ballad For Me?

So it's been some time since my last post - err...like a few months shy of two years. Let's just say I've taken a little journey. Yeah, yeah - that's it. A journey...

OK. Off the top, the lyrics grabbed me first on this one.  It's funny how some songs grab your attention for different reasons - but it always comes back to the music in the end.  Deep, relevant lyrics that you can connect to on some level are just a plus.  Anyway, I connected with this one for one reason or another.

Riot Act by Pearl Jam

"All or None" is the dark, moody ballad that closes up Pearl Jam's seventh studio album "Riot Act". As music and songs are always open to different interpretations by every new person who listens, here is my take on this one:  life is cyclical.  Sometimes you feel like you just move in circles - never really getting anywhere.  It's about frustration.  Getting caught up. 

Eddie Vedder's melodic voice over-top Stone Gossard's cyclical (there's that word again), musical arrangement brings the lyrics to life and ties the whole song together.  This is one of those Pearl Jam songs that is filled with hidden energy that becomes unlocked when you listen through your headphones.  It's pretty fun to play on an acoustic as well...

By the way, the answer to fixing the cyclical problem in life - it's in the song.  For me, it's about this verse:

"To myself I surrender,
To the one I'll never please."

Anyway, if you haven't heard this tune, give it a listen:

All or None Lyrics:

It's a hopeless... situation
And I'm starting to believe
That this hopeless... situation
Is what I'm trying to achieve

But I try
To run on
Is all or none,... all or none

Here's the selfless confession
Leading me back to war
Can we help that,.. our destinations
Are the ones we've been before

I still try
To run on
But is all or none,... all or none

To myself I... surrender
To the one I'll never please

But I still try to run on
Oh I still try to run on
But it's all or none, all or none