Radiohead and Philosophy by Brandon Forbes; George Reisch

Author:Brandon Forbes; George Reisch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Perseus
Published: 2010-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

What You’ll Get when You Mess with Us

This theme of the absurd is present throughout Radiohead’s work. What they ask at the very beginning of OK Computer is whether or not it’s worth trying to change our situation. “Airbag” tells us about surviving an accident and being born again—this time, with a mission. This near-death experience makes Yorke turn back toward others, toward his past. But it also reverberates throughout the album as the temptation to simply let go in face of the absurdity of any effort.

Two images in OK Computer illustrate the absurdity and the malaise of despair that plague us. The first image is the android, desiring rest from voices in his head he can’t even understand. In “Fitter Happier,” the computerized voice of the android lists the characteristics of his life in a monotone that dissipates in the directionless music that accompanies him. This list of rules, sounding at first like a wise and reasonable road to happiness, includes hints of the temptation to despair. There’s fondness, but there’s no love, no chance of escape as the voice drones on. The android is concerned but powerless, even though he’s “an empowered and informed member of society.” Finally, he compares himself, in all his health and productivity, to “a pig in a cage on antibiotics.” And he does it without emotion. This android is exactly who he’s supposed to be.

Yet this is not the voice that dominates the album. Besides the android’s voice, a human voice emerges to sing about an alien, about the wish to be someone else, something completely other than the human being he’s supposed to be. This wish comes from the experience of feeling like an android, of being uptight, of being locked from understanding himself, unable to communicate with others. Seeing the world from an alien’s perspective would allow him to be at peace with this distance. Having the experience of seeing the meaning of life from the point of view of outsider, he could even be happy with being ignored or shut away.

In fact, he does see humans as aliens do. He sees others like bugs in the ground, “starting and then stopping.” He sees their emptiness, their disappointment. Yet even then there’s hope, because as a bug he sees himself grow wings (just as he saw himself abducted, just as the android sees himself king). He longs to be hysterical and useless, because being useful and serious—as he’s trying to be and as it is being asked of him—is the problem in the first place. Trying to see everything—as an alien might—would overwhelm his sense and make him blind to anything.

“Karma Police” talks about others—Yorke in an interview alludes to “bosses”—who buzz like fridges, who don’t quite sing in tune with him, and who don’t even try. He gives them all he can, he does all he can, but that’s not enough to get him off the hook. More and more will be asked of him despite his objections. It’s not who he is that matters to those who threaten him if he “messes with us.

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