Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass); Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals); and Philip Selway (drums, percussion). They have worked with the producer Nigel Godrich and the cover artist Stanley Donwood since 1994. Radiohead's experimental approach is credited with advancing the sound of alternative rock into post-rock.
Song lyrics
[edit]Pablo Honey (1993)
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- All lyrics are written by Thom Yorke.
- When you were here before,
Couldn't look you in the eye.
You're just like an angel,
Your skin makes me cry.
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world.
I wish I was special.
You're so fuckin' special.But I'm a creep.
I'm a weirdo.
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here.- "Creep"
- I don't care if it hurts.
I wanna have control.
I want a perfect body,
I want a perfect soul.
I want you to notice
When I'm not around.
You're so fuckin' special.
I wish I was special.- "Creep"
- And the wise man said, "I don't want to hear your voice."
And the thin man said, "I don't want to hear your voice."
And they're cursing me and they won't let me be.
And there's nothing to say and there's nothing to do.Stop whispering, start shouting.
Stop whispering, start shouting.
- And if the world does turn,
And if London burns,
I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar.
I wanna be in a band when I get to heaven.
Anyone can play guitar
And they won't be a nothing anymore.- "Anyone Can Play Guitar"
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- You can force it but it will not come.
You can taste it but it will not form.
You can crush it but it's always here.
You can crush it but it's always near.
Chasing you home
SayingEverything is
Broken.
Everyone is
Broken.
- I need to wash myself again
To hide all the dirt and pain.
'Cause I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath.
And who are my real friends?
Have they all got the bends?
Am I really sinking this low?
- Drying up in conversation,
You will be the one who cannot talk.
All your insides fall to pieces.
You just sit there wishing you could still make love.
They're the ones who'll hate you
When you think you've got the world all sussed out.
They're the ones who'll spit at you.
You will be the one screaming out.Don't leave me high.
Don't leave me dry.
Don't leave me high.
Don't leave me dry.
- She looks like the real thing,
She tastes like the real thing.
My fake plastic love.
But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run.And it wears me out,
It wears me out.
- They love me like I was a brother.
They protect me, listen to me.
They dug me my very own garden,
Gave me sunshine, made me happy.Nice dream.
Nice dream.
Nice dream.- "(Nice Dream)"
- Don't get my sympathy
Hanging out the fifteenth floor.
You've changed the locks three times
He still come reeling through the door.
One day I'll get to you
And teach you how to get to purest hell.You do it to yourself, you do.
And that's what really hurts
Is that you do it to yourself, just you.
You and no one else.
You do it to yourself.
You do it to yourself, ah.- "Just"
- We're too young to fall asleep,
Too cynical to speak.
We are losing it, can't you tell?
We scratch our eternal itch,
Our twentieth century bitch.
We are grateful for our iron lung.
- Limb by limb and tooth by tooth,
Stirring up inside of me.
Every day, every hour,
Wish that I... was bulletproof.- "Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was"
- Blame it on the black star,
Blame it on the falling sky,
Blame it on the satellite
That beams me home.- "Black Star"
- Sometimes you sulk, sometimes you burn.
God rest your soul.
Oh, when the loving comes and we've already gone
Just like your dad, you'll never change.- "Sulk"
- Rows of houses all bearing down on me,
I can feel their blue hands touching me.
All these things into position,
All these things we'll one day swallow whole.And fade out again.
And fade out.
OK Computer (1997)
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- In the next world war, jackknifed juggernaut,
I am born again.
In a neon sign scrolling up and down,
I am born again.In an interstellar burst,
I'm back to save the universe.- "Airbag"
- When I am king,
You will be first against the wall.
With your opinion,
Which is of no consequence at all.What's that?
(I may be paranoid, but not an android)
- I'd tell all my friends, but they'd never believe me.
They'd think that I'd finally lost it completely.
I'd show them the stars and the meaning of life.
They'd shut me away, but I'd be alright.
Alright, I'm alright, alright.
- Breathe, keep breathing,
Don't lose your nerve.
Breathe, keep breathing,
I can't do this alone.
- Transport, motorways and tramlines,
Starting and then stopping,
Taking off and landing.
The emptiest of feelings.
Disappointed people
Clinging onto bottles.
And when it comes,
It's so, so disappointing.Let down and hanging around
Crushed like a bug in the ground
Let down and hanging around.- "Let Down"
- This is what you get.
This is what you get.
This is what you get.
When you mess with us.
- When I go forwards, you go backwards,
And somewhere we will meet.- "Electioneering"
- I am the key to the lock in your house
That keeps your toys in the basement.
But if you get too far inside,
You'll only see my reflection.- "Climbing Up the Walls"
- 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.
- Pull me out of the aircrash,
Pull me out of the lake.
'Cause I'm your superhero.
We are standing on the edge.- "Lucky"
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- Flies are buzzing 'round my head,
Vultures circling the dead.
Picking up every last crumb,
The big fish eat the little ones.
Big fish eat the little ones,
Not my problem, give me some.You can try the best you can,
You can try the best you can.
The best you can is good enough.
- Stop sending letters.
Letters always get burned.
It's not like the movies;
They fed us on little white lies.I think you're crazy, maybe.
I think you're crazy, maybe.I will see you in the next life.
- "Motion Picture Soundtrack"
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- After years of waiting,
Nothing came.
As your life flashed before your eyes,
You realizeI'm a reasonable man.
Get off, get off, get off my case.- "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box"
- I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me.
A moon full of stars and astral cars,
And all the figures I used to see.
All my lovers were there with me,
All my past and futures.
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat.There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt.
- I want you to know
He's not coming back.
Look into my eyes,
I'm not coming back.So knives out,
Catch the mouse.
Don't look down,
Shove it in your mouth.
- Oh, why don't you quiet down?
(Maybe I want peace and honesty)
Why don't you quiet down?
(Maybe I want to live in the children's land
And you know maybe, maybe I)
Why don't you quiet down?
(Maybe I'll wander the promised land
I want peace and honesty)
Why don't you quiet down?
(I want to live in the promised land
And maybe wander the children's land)
Quiet down!
(Yeah, and there, there we can free)- "Dollars and Cents"
Hail to the Thief (2003)
[edit]- Are you such a dreamer
To put the world to rights?
I'll stay home forever
Where two and two always makes a five.
- Maybe you'll be president,
But know right from wrong.
Or in the flood you'll build an ark
And sail us to the moon.- "Sail to the Moon." ("Brush the Cobwebs Out of the Sky.")
- Yesterday's headlines
Blown by the wind.
Yesterday's people end up
Scatterbrain there.
Any fool can easy pick a hole
I only wish I could fall in
A moving target in a firing range.- "Scatterbrain." ("As Dead as Leaves.")
- I keep the wolf from the door, but he calls me up.
Calls me on the phone, tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up.
Steal all my children if I don't pay the ransom
And I'll never see them again if I squeal to the cops.- "A Wolf at the Door." ("It Girl. Rag Doll.")
In Rainbows (2007)
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- How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong?
Won't take my eyes off the ball again.
You reel me out, then you cut the string.- "15 Step"
- I have no idea what I am talking about.
I am trapped in this body and can't get out.
- Don't get any big ideas,
They're not gonna happen.
You paint yourself white
And fill up with noise,
But there'll be something missing.Now that you've found it, it's gone.
Now that you feel it, you don't.
You've gone off the rails.- "Nude"
- I'm the next act waiting in the wings.
I'm an animal trapped in your hot car.
I am all the days that you choose to ignore.You are all I need.
You're all I need.
I'm in the middle of your picture,
Lying in the reeds.
- Because we separate like ripples on a blank shore
(In rainbows)- "Reckoner"
- I don't want to be your friend.
I just want to be your lover.
No matter how it ends,
No matter how it starts.Forget about your house of cards,
And I'll do mine.
Forget about your house of cards,
And I'll do mine.
And fall off the table, get swept under
Denial, denial.
- Just as you take my hand,
Just as you write my number down,
Just as the drinks arrive,
Just as they play your favourite song.
As your bad day disappears
No longer wound up like a spring
Before you've had too much
Come back in focus again.
- This is my way of saying goodbye
Because I can't do it face to face.
So I'm talking to you before-
No matter what happens now
You shouldn't be afraid
Because I know today has been
The most perfect day
I've ever seen.- "Videotape"
The King of Limbs (2011)
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- Open your mouth wide,
A universal sigh.
And while the ocean blooms,
It's what keeps me alive.
So why does this still hurt?
Don't blow your mind with whys.- "Bloom"
- There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root, so now I'll set you free.
I'll set you free.
- Gather up the lost and their souls (Don't hurt me)
Into your arms (Don't hurt me)
Into your arms (Don't hurt me)
Gather up the pitiful (Don't hurt me, don't hurt me)
Into your arms (Don't hurt me)
Into your arms (Don't hurt me)- "Give Up the Ghost"
- Like I've fallen out of bed from a long and vivid dream,
Finally I'm free of all the weight I've been carrying.- "Separator"
A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
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- Then into your life, there comes a darkness,
There's a spacecraft blocking out the sky.
And there's nowhere to hide.
You run to the back, and you cover your ears,
But it's the loudest sound you've ever heard.
And all we trapped, ragdoll cloth people,
We are helpless to resist
Into our darkest hour.- "Decks Dark"
- Now as I go upon my way
So let me go upon my way
Born of a light, born of a light
The wind rushing 'round my open heart
An open ravine with my spirit wide
Totally alive and my spirit light
Through an open doorway
Across a street to another life
And catching my reflection
In a window, switching on a light
One I didn't know, totally alive, totally released.- "Desert Island Disk"
- Hey, it's me, I just got off the train
A frightening place, the faces are concrete grey
And I'm wondering, should I turn around?
Buy another ticket?- "Glass Eyes"
Quotes about Radiohead
[edit]- From roughly 1995 to about 2002, there was arguably no hotter band on the planet than Radiohead. It got to the point that fans worldwide could not wait to hear what was next from Thom Yorke and Co. Radiohead went from a true rock outfit to excelling within the alternative and art rock scenes while also not being afraid to throw in some electronica. There is not a better run of albums with The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac in alternative rock history. Even today, Radiohead still has a major influence on the music scene.
- Jeff Mezydlo of Yardbarker (February 2025) [1]
- OK Computer was the last gasp of the rock monoculture: an incontestable, unrepeatable, and critically consecrated masterpiece of a genre that was too big to fail, yet too limp to preside over a new century. Picking up grunge’s challenge to macho rock orthodoxy, the bookish Oxford five-piece parlayed corporate resistance and righteous angst into an infernal assessment of mainstream conformism, petit bourgeois inertia, and cartoonish celebrity culture. But where grunge despaired at the gravity of it all, and Britpop buried its head in hedonism, Radiohead made a crucial distinction: Seeing the inferno of modern life in all its grotesque glory was not a curse to endure or escape, but a superpower to wield.
- Radiohead’s OK Computer would become such a resounding popular and critical success that it would essentially destroy an important subgenre — the Britpop of Oasis, Blur, and Suede — with the force of its implication: Three-minute songs about drunken nights or critiques of the English suburbs now seemed unspeakably tiny, and American grunge sounded noisy and antique.
- The melancholic wonder and mesmerization provided from the UK’s own Radiohead has always been second to none.
