Review Summary: I'm lost at sea
Duna duna dunnnnnn dun dun dun duna duna dunnnnnnn dun dun... The opening synth chords wash over you like warm honey, uncomfortable and sweet and suffocating; Thom’s chopped and skewed vocal line puts the nail in the coffin. This is much different than how
OK Computer started. The guitars that sliced and whirred through “Airbag” have rusted and left in their place a soft hum that resembles the last breaths of a dying machine. “Everything In Its Right Place” is an accurate depiction of what’s to come. The electronics seem straight out of an Aphex Twin record; there’s a much bigger focus on atmosphere and voice overdubs and modulations are tinkered and toyed with. This is much different.
“Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon”. Well, I guess some things never change.
Thom’s depression and paranoia still lingers in the air, but rather than being masked by the jittery and uplifting instrumentals on
OK Computer (see “Let Down” and “No Surprises”),
Kid A chooses to fully embrace the fear of isolation both lyrically and instrumentally. Lines like ‘Everyone is so near/Everyone has got the fear/It’s holding on’ from “The National Anthem” reflect the anxiety that Radiohead, and Thom especially, must’ve felt was created as a byproduct of the band’s commercial success.
“Treefingers” especially holds true to the themes of loneliness that flood the record; when listening to the mid-album instrumental you can’t help but feel like you’re floating through the cosmos, watching the world spin below you, thinking how insignificant it all is and realizing that whether you are there or not, life goes on.
Kid A lures you out to the shore (‘Rats and children follow me out of town/Come on kids/Come on kids’) and then invites you to purge yourself in its murky waters (‘I float down the Liffey’) only to make you watch as the surface above you freezes over (‘Ice age coming/Ice age coming’) and you sink like a balloon (‘Trapdoors that open/I spiral down’), trapped in the same discomfort and gloom as Thom is.
Finally you can’t help but admit it; the devil on your shoulder has won. The loathing has eaten away at you and stripped you of any resilience that might have remained. You lie silently at the bottom of the ocean floor and accept what you’ve been afraid to all along: ‘I'm lost at sea’.
“Optimistic” manages to boast a chorus true to its name, as Thom makes one final endeavor to remain positive. He tries to coax himself that ‘You can try the best you can/You can try the best you can/The best you can is good enough’. He fails however, later learning that the song’s title is a misnomer, as Yorke sneers ‘Dinosaurs roaming the Earth’ over and over, a mantra that mocks Thom’s previous attempt to keep his head above water. The words appear to convey as much anger as they do hopelessness and misery.
“Idioteque” marks a shift in Thom’s disposition. No longer is this the scared boy we saw in “The National Anthem” nor is it the morose child we listen to on “How to Disappear Completely”. No no no. This is a new beast altogether. He is manic now as he proclaims ‘I’ll laugh until my head comes off/I’ll swallow until I burst’. He is confused and begins to watch as fantasy and reality melt together into one single blur (‘I’ve seen too much/I haven’t seen enough/You haven’t seen enough). He breaks the fourth wall in the last line, addressing us, the fly on the wall that has been listening in on his deepest thoughts and sentiments, confessing that he’s known we’ve been there the whole time. He finds acceptance in his insanity (‘Here I’m allowed/Everything all of the time), and in the end, becomes fully incapable of discerning between fact and fiction as the other voices inside him fully take over and try to convince himself, as much as us, that ‘We’re not scaremongering/This is really happening’.
By ”Morning Bell”, Thom Yorke is merely a shell of a man (‘The lights are on but nobody’s home’). He can’t take whatever sort of limbo between fantasy and reality that he’s in and pleads to ‘Release me/Release me/Please/Release me/Release me’. He begs to God, to us, to himself, to the sky, and to whoever might be listening to save him from this purgatory that he has created for himself. Eventually he realizes there is no hope and is cast out of Eden and forced to wander. ‘Walking/Walking/Walking’.
“Motion Picture Soundtrack” marks the ending of
Kid A. Thom’s psychosis has fully enslaved him. He finds a sliver of clarity amongst his internal tumult and remarks that the voices inside tricked him (‘They fed us on little white lies’), finally coming to the conclusion that he can’t even trust himself anymore (‘I think you’re crazy, maybe/I think you’re crazy, maybe’). Thom still does not know whether what he is experiencing is concrete. We as the listener learn during “Motion Picture Soundtrack” that this is Thom’s punishment; he must piece this puzzle together for the rest of eternity, never quite coming to any absolution.
Kid A doesn’t try to sugar coat things. It merely tells you to accept things as they are, good or bad. But even after all that precedes it,
Kid A leaves us with a promise. It’s the light that travels through each and every part of the ocean, slowly becoming thinner and thinner until it’s merely a flicker amongst the complete darkness of the deepest trenches. It’s the ephemeral clarity that visits Thom right before his imminent downfall.
‘I will see you in the next life’.
