In Rainbows

All the colors of L̶o̶v̶e̶,̶ ̶F̶a̶u̶s̶t̶,̶ ̶H̶u̶m̶a̶n̶k̶i̶n̶d̶ Radiohead.

In rainbows is an intensely emotional album, surrounded by the multiplicity of human lives. The leitmotif of the number 10: 10 tracks released on the 10th of October (the tenth month). It is a critique of the binary human, mentioned many times even within “OK computer” or “Amnesiac”. Humans as we are tend to be very binary, viewing perspectives and “facts” as either one or the other. Within this album many references of Buddha's view of perception and reality, will appear as critique. Thom has a very strong understanding of political apathy, but importantly how that relates to the individual; apathy towards his own innate human feelings. Although there are a million different concepts that whizz past our head in trying to understand this 10 track album, the general idea involves the importance of the listener. Thom and this narrator pleading to us, sharing with us the nature of our astray god-forsakenness, imperative in the 21st century and our denying that conscious exploration should be important to people. 

In Rainbows comes in between a journey of consciousness and color, Thom’s complex lyrics are the rawest emotional power within the making of a whole album; telling a singular linear story is not how he does things. However, when attempting to create a linear story in the album both lyrically and musically you can track the emotional arc of a biblical character named Faust, whose story is directly referenced twice on the album. In German religious folklore, Faust is a character often associated with the ideas of hubris and human desire. Most recognizable from the use of the adjective “faustian” or a “faustian bargain”, describing a deal in which one denies moral or spiritual values to gain wealth or worldly bounties, leading to  their downfall. The character of Faust was a man who finds himself bored with his life and his accomplishments. This changes when Mephistopheles, representative of the devil, visits Faust and proposes a deal: Faust will receive infinite knowledge and worldly pleasures, but only for a set number of years. Once the time is up, Mephistopheles will take Faust and his soul to hell. The emotional arc of In Rainbows begins with a protagonist feeling limited and trapped with the cycles and mediocrity of their life, similar to Faust.

"15 Step"

The first track's title has an interesting connotation when you consider what these steps are, or what they symbolize to the narrator. Fifteen steps to the gallows and a sheer drop, a hanging; or perhaps it may mean something more. Understanding and accepting the Judaic influence of Radiohead, we can look at the Hebrew word “Yah” for God with a numerical value of 15, and the 15 Psalms of ascent sung by the Levites. More interestingly, the Temple mount in Jerusalem’s southern main entrance to reach the dome of the rock contains 15 steps. These were done especially for the relation of the Psalms of ascent and how Jesus would lead his disciples on those very “teaching steps”. Understanding this, fifteen steps becomes an aching tale of death, and the spiritual ascension of one’s mortal body. “Fifteen steps and a sheer drop” becomes the failing mortality and the hopeful freeing of the soul. 

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

At its surface, the narrator is discussing a relationship problem, in this form of a conversation between two. It is interesting to note that the introductory line of In Rainbows is this idea of chasing what you ran from, or ending back to the point of where your growth started. Conversationally, it feels as if the narrator is struggling to emotionally convey himself to the other, to himself perhaps; opening up the existential dread and dissatisfaction he attempts journeys of self discovery, or some specific growth yet he finds himself back to the point of conflict. 

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

Although he repeats himself again, something is different here. His emphasis on him not taking the “eyes off the ball again”, clearly referring to his attempt at an unwavering focus. Secondly, he describes what this alternate does to him– whether it truly is another person, or himself, or the divine for that matter. The narrator finds himself caught in the line that the other has thrown for them, he clings to them yet is cut off not by his own volition; rather he is emotional, confused why he has to submerge back into the waters where he started. Whatever he requires, he needs this alternate to reel him out, and keep him connected. 

You used to be alright

What happened?

Did the cat get your tongue?

Did your string come undone?

It is imperative to understand certain lyrics from broader perspectives and comprehending it from varied context. The genuine lines of concern that he expresses when approaching this alternate, it’s as if he cannot understand what made them do what they did. (For a majority of this analysis I will be referring to different points of conversation, the narrator speaking to people, himself, and God.) Interpersonally, it seems the growth he had made in relation to this person reached a reversal, just as we learn from the first line. It’s as if he is speaking to himself though, like he had been living an ignorantly content life as some sort of hedonist, blissfully unaware of the end. Now however, in the remembrance of death, and in its dreaded fear he becomes silenced. The reintroduction of the string from the previous lines gives us a new perspective on what he may be indicating, before speaking of the string that he is cut from; now the string becomes undone unknowingly. I think that this has as much to do with death as many other themes of interpersonal relationships, but this string may be his life itself; the narrator feels as though someone reels him in granting hope from his misery only for it to be cut. Now however, this string came undone, unwillingly yet the outcome remains the same, back into the waters he descends, into death now. 

One by one

One by one

It comes to us all

It's as soft as your pillow

Death, a peaceful certainty in your sleep. It is the only constant of our life, as the string may vary, the undoing of it always follows.

You used to be alright

What happened

Et cetera, et cetera

Fads for whatever

Fifteen steps

Then a sheer drop

This is one of the recurring dynamics of the album, and the conflict of “what am I doing in this forsaken place” and the chasing of human desires to find solace within the fifteen steps we all walk upon. Here it’s as if the narrator has developed into a state of senility or lunatic craze where he has given up the effort of his words– unable to even repeat himself once again, that incessant return to where he started. Until he reaches the top of the steps, he will continue repeating the same mistakes, of intellectual dread and yearning within the interpersonal relationships he carries. He becomes the sheer drop, hung from the gallows and cut into a motionless pool of water. 

"Bodysnatchers"

Devolving from the existential dread in fifteen steps, Bodysnatchers drags us further to this manic state of full terror and psychosis. It is a gritty personal reflection of the skin he cannot find comfort in, emphasising the desire of reaching those fifteen steps previously. As I will repeat many times, In Rainbows is the narrator’s attempt to encompass as many faces of the human and the multiplicity in our opinions. Just as the narrator often spoke of in his previous albums such as “Pablo Honey” he is so discontent within his skin, it is a suffocation and one that cannot even comprehend spiritual enlightenment. Here we are only looking at the physical form and innate being that does not wish, or is unable to comprehend the idea that he has a soul; rather his spirit fused within the nerves of his body feeling the burning fire of mortality. 

I do not

Understand

What it is

I've done wrong

Being familiar with dissociation this line immediately feels so relatable, in the broader context of being unsafe in your skin you become unrelated, not understanding. I think that every person living today can understand the feeling of complete disconnection living our day to day lives, engaging in meaningless conversations that provide stimulation to our vocal muscles, yet our soul’s rot within. 

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

In an article in the New York Times December 9, 2007, Thom Yorke said this song was inspired by Victorian ghost stories, The Stepford Wives and his own feeling of “your physical consciousness trapped without being able to connect fully with anything else.” The theme surrounding bodysnatchers becomes irrelevant of the underlying sexual connotations and more about the fierce damage we do to our own bodies in order to feel something or perhaps forget that we feel anything. 

You killed the sound

Removed backbone

A pale imitation

With the edges sawn off

That toxic damage mentioned just briefly becomes a lot more relevant with this brightened imagery, we allow our body to be snatched by the nauseating societal behaviors and mannerisms that we must uphold. An idea that comes to relevance is observing when people are told to sit straight, with shoulders out. It’s such a bizarre remark to tell someone the manner they may conduct their body in, regardless we shouldn’t begin to act and live like apes, but no one attempts to straighten out the soul’s posture. I think the narrator has a very strong interpretation of the fearful idea that we are losing ourselves to our bodies, our identities being drowned out into an indistinguishable blend of shared mediocrity. We will continue to engage in the meaningless, and entertain the vices of our vessels while our soul remains malnourished, collecting only unknowing fear of hedonism. 

I have no idea what you are talking about

Your mouth moves only with someone's hand up your ass

This. Now has anyone ever had a moment of complete emotional human reflection, within an office meeting or school? Discussing with another person so far removed from their rationale, like a hollowed out vessel made only for the slave work of neo-liberalism. Like a puppet that only understands what their master, vices and ideals tell them– all they can do is regurgitate the education and false truths they have been spoonfed (up the ass). 

Has the light gone out for you?

Because the light's gone out 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

On the lines wrapped around my face

On the lines wrapped around my face

Are for anyone else to see

Are for anyone else to see

What may this light be for the narrator, we incapable of understanding what may be his light can only derive answers of our own for sake of the broader context. This light that the narrator has lost seems to be blamed by the coming 21st century, it’s the loss of hope and the failing divine illumination that he no longer feels the warmth of. More importantly, fitting with the theme it seems that the narrator sees himself as blinded in his own skin, and as he becomes wrapped in this suffocating parchment of his mortal body he loses the light that he once saw. “Follow you like a dog.. Brought me to my knees” feel truly biblical in their statements. Whether the narrator is referring to the 21st century as this dog or something else, time is constantly following our trail, never letting us forget its unruly presence. He is brought to his knees, a sinner that is wrapped in his sins– leaving him blinded while he has to carry on attempting to find the light in the dimmed modern period of soulless decrepitude. 

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 lie, he becomes all the false truths and superficial farce that he has been living. The previous lines that wrapped his face were for anyone else to see, but now he sees. Seeing the other false wraps and masks that we all wear, mirrors that we all hold up reflecting lessons for one another; but more importantly reminding each other of the nasty scars embedded in our cushioned psyche.

"Nude"

Moving from “Bodysnatchers” to “Nude” is like stepping off a crowded Manhattan sidewalk in the middle of rush hour and entering your cozy studio apartment with a warm heart. The windowsill leaks the calming rainfall, taking your shoes and wet socks off to find your lover in the other room. The bed, already warmed up by slumber. As you walk along the foot of the bed to wake them with a planted sweet kiss, sandalwood fills the warm room as you hide under covers together. That. Is how Nude sounds to me.

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

As the constant theme of In Rainbows unfolds as this sort of encompassing human experience fighting itself to attain spiritual solace, but at the same time being disgustingly complacent, it’s the constant internal struggle and in Nude we see another side. Don't get any big ideas, because they won't happen, is an oddly mellow phrasing however disheartening it is compared to the previous two tracks. It feels as if the narrator is trying to tell us they are slowly moving past the human emotions of jealousy, and desire with a bit of Murphy's law. Before going deeper into the first few lines, the narrator’s next few lines are very interesting, as if describing someone trying to be seen. Relative to the previous track of being suffocated in your own skin and behaviors, this is more of wanting to be seen. Painting yourself of the highest contrast, white and trying your hardest to be seen filling yourself with pleading attention like a balloon. I find it interesting that the narrator portrays it in such a way, it also feels as if this person is distracting people from what is truly underlying or what is missing. Perhaps both, as we live among people wanting to be seen in such specific lights that we hide and diminish parts of us and illuminate others loudly. 

Now that you've found it, it's gone

Now that you feel it, you don't

You've gone off the rails

This line in question reminds me of a psilocybin trip, although Nude as a whole has very sexual self-gratificating symbolism, I want to focus more on the idea of mental thought. As you are trying to understand a specific dread in your heart or idea, it always feels like it slips away and even attempting to find the logic behind it makes you feel like a lunatic. The psychedelic loop that leaves you in a paradoxical state of viewing your life as the ideal beauty you wish it to be, wholly content like an infant to the other extreme of nausea. The sickening feeling that makes enlightenment look like a stone in stillwater, grasping something you believe you must have, but once you grab it (if it isn’t already an illusion) you do not wish to possess it. 

So don't get any big ideas

They're not gonna happen

You'll go to hell

For what your dirty mind is thinking

Briefly coming back to the undertones of self gratification within this track, the final line gives us a new outlook on the entire song as a whole, in grander meaning, but also specifically the line "don't get any big ideas”. It’s like a person who is so blinded in lust they believe scenarios that will never unfold, this dirty mind that willfully perceives the object of their desire or whatever it may be as something that is certainly attainable. However, it is not going to happen, and the narrator pleads with us to remember that it won't. It is the narrator trying to reveal his failed sexual intimacy, but only to relate it to the ideas of sin in general and the desires of man that hold us back from reaching peace within our minds, and thus spiritual satisfaction. Understanding the Faustian fable as well, this line resonates one of the grandest themes throughout this multi-layered album, and that being Faust’s deal to give up his moral goodness.

"Weird Fishes / Arpeggi"

In the deepest ocean

The bottom of the sea

Your eyes

They turn me

As the rest of In Rainbows discusses many interpersonal issues, here we see a similar regard of this faulty relationship, one in which the narrator feels captive to; obligated to return back this love or idea of a person. He is blinded by this person, following the eyes that capture him. This deepest part of the ocean is where his unconscious lies, constantly following this love. I believe that throughout all the themes within In Rainbows, this is the most potent in terms of tragic love, greater than just existential dread. This is a story of the Little Mermaid, and the truer far more aching fable. The mermaid finds the artifacts of the humans from above within her cave, she idolizes the eyes of sculptures and follows the noise above. 

Why should I stay here?

Why should I stay?

Again this faulty relationship forces both parties to question where they are and if they must truly belong. They fight with themselves, understanding there is love between, but will it suffice for all the external fears that societally cloud them. The mermaid finds the ship above, the place where the prince and his crew celebrated. She wishes to continue seeing him, yet questions if she should return back to the bottom of the sea, uncertain of where she should go. 

I'd be crazy not to follow

Follow where you lead

Your eyes

They turn me

The acceptance that the other person’s life has to be together in love the narrator claims to be crazy if he does not listen to the will of his heart. This desire that so pressingly turns you to a rationale you wouldn’t ever imagine. As the mermaid cannot deny her heart’s desire she understands she must follow the prince to lands she cannot even venture to. Saving him from the shipwreck and risking her own life as a hidden seaperson. It's the separation of fated lovers, how can you be destined for each other when the rest of the world conspires against you? Does that make the love for each other that much sweeter, worth it? Within the original fable, mermaids are not given souls, and thus are not eternal beings, turning into sea foam when they die. Unable to commune with the above until they are given a human soul thus permanently renouncing their life at sea, central to the little mermaid's longing.

Turn me into phantoms

I follow to the edge of the earth

And fall off

Everybody leaves

If they get the chance

And this is my chance

The little mermaid's determination to be with the prince she saved, she visits the Sea witch. In return for granting her a human soul and legs she must lose her beautiful voice. Along with her voice, she is forced to walk painfully on land (like sharp knives) and if the prince does not marry her, she must return to the sea foam and dissolve. “Turn me” is uttered many times, but here we see the narrator truly go through a transformation. In faulted relationships and in cases of unrequited love, the person is constantly changing, turning themselves into different, malleable versions to please the other. Everybody leaves, and so would the prince if the little mermaid didn’t pleadingly follow him to the surface, sacrificing her own identity as a seaperson. In the story the prince does not see her romantically and as more of a companionlike figure, leading him to marry another woman (the one he thinks saved him). Desperate, the little mermaid is given a special knife by the sea witch, if she stabs the prince on his wedding night she will have her tail back and be able to return to the sea. “And this is my chance”  this line feels very Faustian in a sense as well, while the little mermaid gives up her identity as a seaperson, Faust gives up his moral sensibility for his own desires, both ripping themselves apart and leading to failure only for their blinded desire.

I get eaten by the worms

And weird fishes

Picked over by the worms

And weird fishes

Weird fishes

Weird fishes

This love that has fallen through, perhaps by the self-doubt of the narrator or even the false promises that they had convinced themselves of like Faust or the mermaid. He is eaten, tragically descending back to despair and decay, yet there is a sense of contentment knowing he is facing reality once again and outside of the deluded realm. Back within the waters of his unconscious away from the phantoms he had turned to, he becomes part of the natural course of the animals and his body decays for the nourishment of others.

Yeah I

I hit the bottom

Hit the bottom and escape

Escape

And I

I hit the bottom

Hit the bottom

Hit the bottom and escape

Escape

Unable to kill the prince, her idolized lover, she jumps into the sea at dawn expecting to be turned into sea foam as the Sea witch / Mephistopheles gave her warning, instead she turns into a spirit trapped. Waiting a century of committed good deeds to free herself into an eternal soul. Ultimately, following a faulty love that takes the narrator back to his depression, within the depths of the sea, but the other option is to escape this cycle and embrace the truth of the situation without false hope. While escape could be the death that released Faust or the little mermaid, it can also be an escape from his own mentality, of the deep depression he allowed himself to drown in. Escaping his lover means escaping himself, and the past beliefs he clinged onto, on his way to find a new surface willing to embrace him.

"All I Need"

I'm the next act

Waiting in the wings

I'm an animal

Trapped in your hot car

I am all of the days

That you choose to ignore

If the yearning in the previous track wasn't potent imagery, the narrator lands us with “All I need” completely focused on unrequited love. Using evocative metaphors such as waiting in the wings, watching his love perform while he is at the side often forgotten without the spotlight. Forgotten like an animal within a hot car or as he so blatantly says in the next line, the days they “choose” to ignore. It is an all too real, yet uniquely phrased story of wishing so badly for another's attention to the threshold of it returning as nourishment, and a supplication that becomes all you need.

You are all I need

You are all I need

I'm in the middle of your picture

Lying in the reeds

I am a moth

Who just wants to share your light

I'm just an insect

Trying to get out of the night

I only stick with you

Because there are no others

One of the most important lines within this track is “middle of your picture, lying in the reeds”. What initially I am reminded of is Ophelia within the hamlet, and how she jumps into the river upon her final moments, as she is portrayed in the middle of contemporary paintings lying in the reeds. Another idea being Moses being held within the basket as he traveled alongside the reeds, granting him a level of shade away from the Pharaoh and his people. In Ophelia’s case it was an act of tragic love and a conclusion to her story, while it symbolized the beginning of Moses’s prophetic journey, both lying in the reeds unseen by eyes that may have granted them attention. 

Learning how to allow conscious experience of the world to be enough to make you happy, since it's all you really have "I only stick with you because there are no others" you can't jump into another person, so you have to learn to love yourself.

It's all wrong

It's alright

It's all wrong

It's alright

This reminds me heavily of the feeling it achingly is to be with someone who cannot grant you unconditionally all the love you require and more. In the moments where they see you, love you, it’s as if the brightest sun shines on your face, and then within the next minute they are gone, and you are left so bitterly cold. At least, that is what my interpretation of what the narrator meant to portray by his wishy-washy attitude of being totally uncertain of his mental state. This love is more than a desire in the traditional sense, it is something so all-consuming that the man depicted finds himself begging for it.

"Faust Arp"

Wakey wakey

Rise and shine

It's on again off again on again

Watch me fall

Like dominoes

In pretty patterns

the tender and lyrically bizarre interlude track “Faust Arp”, realizing that Faust has hit the bottom and escaped, and is now in some sort of afterlife horribly confused and lost. Faust has fallen to the bottom of an emotional well in search of love and lust, and now he must face the consequences of his actions and his fate. He already met Mephistopheles, now it's time to meet God. The name Faust Arp is a combination of, obviously, Faust and Hans Arp, a Dadaist sculptor. It creates a theme of soul searching, artistic struggle, and the monotonous grind of the modern world as we saw in earlier tracks. I believe many of the bizarre lyrics speak to Thom's own artistic struggle especially in regards to creating music and aching peace when he has become complacent within his own life. Can he even exhaust any new metaphors and extrapolate new meanings of sadness and depression? He feels like Faust Arp, an artist confronted with a creative block and he feels the demise of perhaps some Faustian bargain.

Fingers in

The blackbird pie

I'm tingling tingling tingling

It's what you feel not

What you ought to what you ought to

Reasonable and sensible

Fingers in the blackbird pie, is a powerful imagery, but can be often overlooked. In the 16th century it was a form of amusement to put live birds in a pie. Putting your fingers in pies would be a way to tell if the birds are alive or not, relating to Thom's creative nature and whether the narrator’s brain still had those ideas and concepts floating around to write from. Would he still be able to write, that creative bird still lingering within the pie tingling.

Dead from the neck up

I guess I'm stuffed, stuffed, stuffed

We thought you had it in you

But not not not

For no real reason

Another line that alludes to his struggle as a creative writer and general artist, he believes that the critics will stuff him up and pack him away once he loses “the magic”. Artists all understand that their gift is from a divine source and not from their own fruition, Bob Dylan often said that he cannot even write the way he used to because he just “doesn’t have it”, obviously an extremely simplified statement than what he had truly said. The point still being, the narrator feels worried that he will lose this divine gift, just as Faust lost the gifts he bargained for and was thrown into hell.

Squeeze the tubes and empty bottles

I take a bow take a bow take a bow

It's what you feel not

What you ought to what you ought to

The elephant that's in the room is

Tumbling tumbling tumbling

Duplicate and triplicate

Plastic bags and

In duplicate and triplicate

There is so much to unpack with the bizarre quality of the narrator's symbolism, but the common themes that we discussed still appear. As if he squeezes his final genius out of tubes and empty bottles, all he can do is bow and be thankful for the screentime that he was allotted. A tumbling elephant feels ungraceful, as if those who have lived past their creative prime become dissonant cacophonous thinkers, only replicating what their former glory was, as artificial as plastic bags, that also tumble. He feels like the plastic bag and elephant, a weightless manipulated mess that flies to the wind, but this heavy burden, unpleasant to the audience.  

Dead from the neck up

I guess I'm stuffed stuffed stuffed

We thought you had it in you

But not not not

Exactly where do you get off

Is enough is enough

I love you but enough is enough, enough of that stuff

There's no real reason

You've got a head full of feathers

You're gonna melt into butter

There is a very clear symbolism of a turkey, or perhaps any bird being readied for a meal. Maybe he relates to the blackbird pie, and his creative loss becomes him being stuffed like a bird presented for dinner, his death and the loss of his art being the feast for others. This track does an excellent job at encompassing all the themes such as political apathy in such brightened, new colors that the narrator had yet to introduce to us. Not only does the narrator introduce all the colors of man, and emotion he brings in all the shades within each light. 

"Reckoner"

Reckoner

You can't take it with yer

Dancing for your pleasure

The idea of you can’t take it with you, the reckoner is god or this divine buddha figure that is reminding us that all these desires and material things are not ours. We may dance in objective experience, but to be fulfilled means to understand the deepest desires, and let go of them. In the promised grave that we will all return to we cannot take anything with us to the other side, not even our bodies. So seek happiness in experience, not material.

You are not to blame for

Bittersweet dis-tractor

Dare not speak its name

Dedicated to all human beings

“Reckoner” is the most explicitly biblical song on the album, as Thom sings from the perspective of a deity figure offering forgiveness to Faust. One of the most gorgeous songs of the band’s career, in this ballad Faust is forgiven for falling victim to human wants and desires, and in return his forgiveness is extended to all of the human race. 

Because we separate

Like ripples on a blank shore

In rainbows

Because we separate

Like ripples on a blank shore

We hear the only use of the album’s title “In Rainbows”, being sung by the backup vocals faintly as the bridge ends. And the use of the title here is appropriate, as this song is the thematic and emotional centerpiece of the album.  It is about forgiveness for the fundamental human attribute of desire. The title itself is meant to describe a state of limbo, constantly stuck between where we were and where we want to be. We as ripples are not separate from the waters of this world, and are subject to the changing currents, and constant desires of dissatisfaction. We aren’t at the bottom of the rainbow, and we aren’t on the mystic other side. We are trapped in it, constantly seeking the worldly pleasures that we think will satisfy our longings.

Reckoner, take me with yer

Dedicated to all human beings

Take me with you god, as divine consciousness merges with the souls who are freed, humans enter the shared essence of the universe, like an individual ripple in the water of God. Although we separate like the narrator mentioned, in the ripples, we are also part of the same exact blank shore, and this ocean of infinity melting into God.

"House Of Cards"

I don't wanna be your friend

I just wanna 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

A house of cards is indeed a fragile one, the fragility of life, of family and of relationships. The narrator discusses each in such a short track, he wishes to be this person's lover, wholly and eternally theirs, but there are worries; their house of cards is their fear. The fragility of their mind is the greatest fear for them, they cannot come together in fear of the collapsing of the lovers' homes, the collapsing of their own psyche. 

Fall off the table

And get swept under

Denial, denial

Whether it be a personal acquaintance, or the weather, many things can cause our fragile egos and minds to crumble, or even our lives. Our life’s end reaches a level of meaninglessness where we become nothing more than crumbs swept off sitting under the dirt of the floor. Its about a relationship collapsing due to the constraints of the two’s minds, wishing to be well together, but knowing that the infrastructure will collapse.

The infrastructure will collapse

From voltage spikes

Throw your keys in the bowl

Kiss your husband 'goodnight'

Here we are introduced to the narrator’s affair that has been happening. Perhaps the reason why this fragile foundation has so predictably collapsed. Their love is electricity, and he wishes that she returns to him every night, threatening their fragility and selfish lust they devolve into, maintaining this relationship. 

Your ears should be burning

Denial, denial

Your ears should be burning

(Denial...)

When someone, especially children do something wrong and sinful, they turn red, in embarrassment and in confiding regret. Here it seems that the narrator is speaking to perhaps only the other person who has a husband or to the couple as a whole, who have remained unfaithful for their own benefiting lust. Again, Faust plays such an imperative role, becoming the central theme to this track as well, people who abandoned their moral glasshomes and fragility unguarded to be with each other, knowing the demise it will lead to.

"Jigsaw Falling Into Place"

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

The walls are bending shape

You got a Cheshire cat grin

All blurring into one

This place is on a mission

Before the night owl

Before the animal noises

Closed circuit cameras

Before you comatose

Before you run away from me

Before you're lost between the notes

The beat goes round and round

The beat goes round and round

I never really got there

I just pretended that I had

Words are blunt instruments

Words are sawn off shotguns

Come on and let it out

Come on and let it out

Come on and let it out

Come on and let it out

Before you run away from me

Before you're lost between the notes

Just as you take the mic

Just as you dance, dance, dance

A jigsaw falling into place

So there is nothing to explain

You eye each other as you pass

She looks back and you look back

Not just once

And not just twice

Wish away your nightmare

Wish away the nightmare

You got the light you can feel it on your back

You got the light you can feel it on your back

Your Jigsaw falling into place

One of the most career defining tracks in Radiohead’s erratic tenure, it is a story as seen by the general consensus of a man pursuing a woman in a nightclub. Animal noises, and walls bending under his intoxication as he takes her hand and follows her. Wishing for the object of his desire to “let it out”. This story is very reminiscent of the rest of the track, especially weird fishes, even musically. Attempting to contort yourself for this figure of a lover, and understanding that you both desire and starvingly need each other, but cannot. Obviously the reason is so hard to obtain from the imagination of the narrator, but we see in the final lines of this track, she looks back at him understanding that she wants him, yet they both do nothing about it. That light is the feeling he had with his past relationships, and as the jigsaws fall into place he realizes that all the past women were just the same. They wanted him and desired him just as he did, yet they chose to walk away from him, leaving the light on his back, where he cannot reach for it or even see it; just acknowledge its fading feeling. I believe that in the Faustian sense, he understands the animal lust and desirous nature he caged himself within, and the seduction of the innocent Margaret, he fully knows the punishment waiting for him on the other side for what dirty thoughts he committed. It feels that the narrator relates his own personal love life to Faust and the way his dirty mind had ruined Margaret's love, who he truly only lusted for. Spending the rest of your unfulfilled days never experiencing the true light

"Videotape"

When I'm at the pearly gates

This'll be on my videotape

My videotape

Although the most criticized track of the album, it recalls back to every subtlety that Thom wanted us to become familiar with, this idea of reckoning from your evil deeds, the lust that overcomes one, the desires that blinds the mermaid and even the mentioning of Faust’s bargain. He understands what waits for him on the other side, the videotape is his evil sins recorded, but a solemn painful goodbye.

When Mephistopheles is just beneath

And he's reaching up to grab me

The first and only time we are actually given the Faustian fable by name, other than of course the titled track of “Faust arp”. Here is a simple confirmation of the narrator’s relative affinity to this character and how he can familiarize himself and his failed relationships to the lust and power seizing Faust. 

This is one for the good days

And I have it all here in

Red blue green, in

Red blue green

You are my center when I spin away

Out of control on videotape

On videotape

On videotape

On videotape

On videotape

On videotape…

He will be recorded, within God's book and under the shadow of Mephisto. Margaret is redeemed from the sins of her lover, but as she moves past, Faust must say goodbye. He cannot face the one whom he caused his ultimate suffering to, he leaves her a final message on videotape, capturing his final words “in red, blue, green” in all the colors of himself, and of the video. The narrator leaves us with one of the few moments of brightness of the album. Free from his human life of chasing joy from one momentary pleasure to another, Faust finally finds peace.

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

This album is a purely emotional experience that truly shifts and changes as the human heart does. Some tracks on this album serve as emotional rocks that calm and center, while others allow the expression of anger and anxiety in a moment of pure catharsis. It reflects the flaws, the instincts, the emotions, and the nuances that make us who we are. A wholehearted and complete rendition of the technicolor human, it is all we are and all we wish to be, all we hate and love. The final goodbye, found on the rainbow pixels of a message Thom Yorke leaves us with the line “Today has been the most perfect day” and it is because he had experienced the total breadth of humanity. He left for the Faustian bargain, yearned like the seapeople, was angry at the mundane and even came face to face with the reckoner. Experiencing, inundated within the rainbows of human understanding. To me, however thought-provoking this album has grown to be in the past few years, there are only subtle truths that we can truly extract from a piece this intensely considered. This album for the band, as well as OK computer, almost caused the early renouncing of the band's mates. The care and even backbreaking consideration from each member of the band created so many nuanced understandings for each track that it would be careless and even disrespectful to say that we have it “figured out” in any sense. We can do our best to understand what In Rainbows truly meant for us, the listeners, but also partly what it meant for the storytelling artists. In Rainbows, is what happens when veteran artists try to fit all their millions of inspired, talented ideas into one cohesive and especially concise 10 track album. An album so bizarrely extraterrestrial, it will be unearthed in the years to come as the foundation of 21st century otherworldly songwriting.