Radiohead Revisited

Last month a commentor from Vancouver took me to task for not perceiving the virtues of Radiohead in this post. Guilty as charged, I'm afraid! But he was very helpful, as all my commentors seem to be, and offered specific things to listen for in specific songs. This is just what I would have done. So let's have another listen to Radiohead and see what we turn up. For a sense of their variety (I complained of a lack of it) he suggests comparing two albums: "Kid A" and "In Rainbows". The former was released in 2000 and the latter in 2007, so they represent different periods. Here is the first song from Kid A, "Everything In Its Right Place":

Set in a quintuple time signature, the instrumentation is electric piano, drum machine and electronically-processed voice. Here are the lyrics:

Kid A, Kid A, Kid A, Kid A
Everything, everything, everything, everything..
In its right place
In its right place
In its right place
Right place

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon

Everything, everything, everything..
In its right place
In its right place
Right place

There are two colours in my head
There are two colours in my head
What is that you tried to say?

The first track on the album In Rainbows is "15 Step":

And here are the lyrics:

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

How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong?
I won't take my eyes off the ball again
First you reel me out and then you cut the string

You used to be alright
What happened?
Did the cat get your tongue?
Did your string come undone?

One by one
One by one
It comes to us all
It's as soft as your pillow

 The first thing I notice about "15 Step" is that, yep, it is also in a quintuple time signature. Most discussions of "Everything..." say it is in 10/4, but it sounds like 5/4 to me (a difference without much distinction), as does "15 Step". Hmmm, the same unusual time signature used in both songs. While the textures of the two songs are different, "15 Step" having a guitar dominated accompaniment, both songs have essentially the same texture throughout, which I think was another reason I accused them of lack of variety--within songs and among songs. I'm not going to try and make much sense of the lyrics except to say that you can't actually reel something out, only in. But since Bob Dylan, obscure lyrics are totally cool, so ok.

My commentator provided several other examples, which I will take up in another post. But I have to say that so far, I'm not won over!