realized the closest analogue to the REM-backed alt-Mellencamp of 'Stop Whispering' is any Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song, and that means that any Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song is my vote for best song on Pablo Honey
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 16:24 (five years ago) link
Nah, I disagree. 'Stop Whispering' is a good song that people have often falsely believed is shite, whereas Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are legitimately shite and always were.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 16:30 (five years ago) link
I appreciate that this poll convinced me to finally listen to the whole album, and it's not all bad. but the Ripcord-Vegetable-Prove Yourself run hasn't gotten better with repetition. I would have voted 'blow out' if the ending wasn't so on the nose and bad.
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 16:46 (five years ago) link
Aeroplane do I mean what I mean?Oh it's inevitable, inevitable, oh aeroplaneA thousand miles an hourOn politics and powerThat she don't understandNo ripcord, no ripcordNo ripcord, no ripcord
thom yorke is canceled btw
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 16:48 (five years ago) link
To be fair, Yorke's lyrics have always been one of the lesser parts of the Radiohead experience, even on their most well-regarded works. It's always been a feature of the band that most have been willing to overlook. For example: "he used to do surgery for girls in the '80s/but gravity always wins" - great fake tits reference there, Thomas!
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 16:59 (five years ago) link
The ending section to 'Blow Out' is the best part, IMO!
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:00 (five years ago) link
always thought he was talking about someone's face
his lyrics are especially bad on this record, he actually developed a lyrical voice on the bends
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:00 (five years ago) link
I agree that he got better at it, but still...
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:06 (five years ago) link
xxp it's not terrible. it should probably stop at 3:40
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:11 (five years ago) link
the way it drags on and kinda fades out also doesn't read as a 'blow out'
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:14 (five years ago) link
his lyrics are still pretty inconsistent on The Bends but a big step up from Pablo Honey, and from OK Computer onwards his lyrics are generally good to great. not sure what there is complain about with them
― ufo, Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:14 (five years ago) link
yep
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:15 (five years ago) link
i agree
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:17 (five years ago) link
There's the occasional pearl, but just as often they're unremarkable (sometimes purposefully so) and sometimes a little silly when looked at cold.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:21 (five years ago) link
you're gonna have to expand on that
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:25 (five years ago) link
Yorke's approach to writing lyrics on Kid A and Amnesiac is well documented and pretty much common knowledge - I don't have to expand on that at all, they're basically there to vaguely push buttons and not shake the tree*. Personally, I think "jumped into the river, what did I see/black clad angels swam with me" to be a really silly lyric when read cold off paper, basically sixth-form poetry nonsense, although I appreciate that the person who once wrote "These are the brake lights bruising the dark, making impressionistic arcs in time with your cigarette" might not see this.
*'Agadoo' - Black Lace.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:47 (five years ago) link
ayo, you're a huge piece of shit for bringing a lyric i wrote into this
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:48 (five years ago) link
a huge piece of shit
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:49 (five years ago) link
please get your dumb ass banned and join your intellectual equals on the steve hoffman boards
Well, we are talking about the topic of lyrics here, and you did ask me to expand. What better way of understanding what a person sees as a yardstick for a great lyric than an example of what they've created themselves? By the way, being a critic and being unable to take it quite as well as you give it is not a good look.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:57 (five years ago) link
what the fuck is wrong with you
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 June 2019 17:58 (five years ago) link
that wasn't criticism, you've never written something that qualifies as "criticism" in your entire fucking life, that was a jibe at something i wrote
FUCK OFF TURRICAN
― i will never make a typo ever again (Karl Malone), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:02 (five years ago) link
However you perceive it, the same thing applies.
(x-post)
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:03 (five years ago) link
If you feel that you’ve been misunderstood during this one particular incident, you are failing to remember the last trillion times you’ve been a fucking prick. You don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore because everyone saw through your disingenuous bullshit the 10th time you puked it out
― i will never make a typo ever again (Karl Malone), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:05 (five years ago) link
Only one way to get this pestilent off the board.
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:08 (five years ago) link
In retrospect, evangelizing Pablo Honey as a misunderstood masterpiece album probably should have been seen as an attempt to goad the mods into banning him
― Arugula Raccoon (DJP), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:09 (five years ago) link
ending your thread with a protracted and unpleasant blow out is a bit on the nose, Turrican
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:11 (five years ago) link
LOL
― John Harris is a Guardian columnist (Tom D.), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:11 (five years ago) link
Putting aside the fact that I could wax lyrical about how interloping guitars evoke a miasma of anguish like a piece of unwelcome correspondence puncturing the false comfort of the ante meridiam or how a lone brass line swells and splinters into chords like light from a sunrise bursting through a prism placed just beyond a crack in the curtains or how hi-hats flicker across the stereo field like a canine tongue on its own testicles, but I very much choose not to, would you guys like to put forward some examples of legitimately great lyrics you think that Yorke wrote?
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:17 (five years ago) link
first of all, i don't take requests from thom-yorke-didn't-write-his-own-lyrics truthers
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:20 (five years ago) link
In retrospect, evangelizing Pablo Honey as a misunderstood masterpiece album probably should have been seen as an attempt to goad the mods into banning him― Arugula Raccoon (DJP), Thursday, June 6, 2019 6:09 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Arugula Raccoon (DJP), Thursday, June 6, 2019 6:09 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Who was evangelizing this album as a misunderstood masterpiece? Nobody was saying that, least of all me. I do think it's better than its reputation, though, and I felt we'd reached a point in time where it was worth discussing.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:20 (five years ago) link
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, June 6, 2019 11:17 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
aiiight i'm out, enjoy your own personal music message board turrican
― american bradass (BradNelson), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:22 (five years ago) link
pablo honey is better than its reputation. now please be like pablo honey.
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:28 (five years ago) link
it's not terrible. it should probably stop at 3:40― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, June 6, 2019 5:11 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalinkthe way it drags on and kinda fades out also doesn't read as a 'blow out'― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, June 6, 2019 5:14 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, June 6, 2019 5:11 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, June 6, 2019 5:14 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Really? I'm not sure I couldn't imagine it any shorter, it would just feel wrong to me. The band themselves haven't really felt the need to chop any bits of it or rearrange it in a radically different way, so I'm assuming they feel the ending appropriate. I agree that the lengthy ending doesn't read as a 'blow out', but whoever said the title was a description of the contents?
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 18:41 (five years ago) link
i suppose it could be a reference to turning everything to stone. it's just not a very interesting bit for me. it's not beautiful or jarring. the particular sound is like something you'd get from turning on every effect in your built-in amplifier effects box. reverb and distortion kind of cancel each other.
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 19:05 (five years ago) link
as a closer, it also has this "we've given you everything we've got!" feel, which is a bit embarrassing because they just gave us Pablo Honey
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 19:06 (five years ago) link
would go over better with me as a set closer today, for sure
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 19:07 (five years ago) link
re: thom's lyrics - i think most lyrics suffer when taken out of their musical context. so i doubt i can grab an ok computer lyric that will wow you in isolation the same way i doubt i could serve you sesame seeds with a glass of sherry vinegar for lunch and wow you. ok computer on, thom's lyrics serve the songs well, and nothing is jarringly bad. you could take the sherry vinegar and sesame seeds and make something fantastic with them. some of these pablo honey lyrics are real turds, and you cannot dress a salad with a turd.
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 19:26 (five years ago) link
it is lunch time here
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 19:27 (five years ago) link
I'll admit that when Yorke sings "I'm playing with myself" on 'Thinking About You' it stands out in a glaringly unnecessary way, like a juggalo's fashion sense at a funeral, but I can't think of any other lyrical moments like that which interrupt the listening experience for me. I find the lyrics on this album, on the whole, just as easy to ignore as any other Radiohead album, and upon closer listen they mostly don't strike me as being any better or worse than Yorke's usual standard.
― Le Baton Rose (Turrican), Thursday, 6 June 2019 19:34 (five years ago) link
As lyricist:
Bernard Sumner >>>>>>>>> Thom Yorke
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 6 June 2019 20:02 (five years ago) link
but where does Mellencamp fall in there?
― Cecil replies to your e-mails (Sufjan Grafton), Thursday, 6 June 2019 20:23 (five years ago) link
fwiw, Genius and others (and my memory) have the Ripcord lyric as "that you don't understand". Where does Google pull lyrics from? That's the only place I'm seeing "she"
― maffew12, Thursday, 6 June 2019 20:32 (five years ago) link
Bernard Sumner >>>>>>>>> everyone, this is settled ILM law.
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Sunday, 9 June 2019 00:01 (five years ago) link
i almost didn't read this thread because radiohead but then i heard there was a flagworthy post and boy howdy
― Vape Store (crüt), Sunday, 9 June 2019 03:14 (five years ago) link
Yeah I haven't been following this thread but...I kinda agree with Turrican about the lyrics?
Thom's shallows have been my major obstacle in enjoying this band, although it's usually not a big deal because the music (and Jonny's melodic touch) is lyrical enough that the words are just icing. But generally I have a hard time with fragmentary post-Stipe rock lyrics unless I can find humor or pathos or a writerly sense of craft that elevates them above refrigerator magnet poetry. It usually sounds good enough and suits the music but I often get the feeling that he's just stringing phrases together hoping that a subject will appear
― bunny slopes, Sunday, 9 June 2019 07:22 (five years ago) link
He might have a point about Radiohead lyrics but throwing in a jab at Brad's own writing was p uncalled for.
Weirdly, my partner put on this cassette yesterday. I voted for "Anyone Can Play Guitar".
― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Sunday, 9 June 2019 12:23 (five years ago) link
my point was never "thom yorke is a good lyricist," it's that the lyrics are so all over the place on pablo honey that you can't identify a consistent personality behind the lyrics, and that isn't true of later radiohead records even if you think the lyrics are just weird cynical slogans he's stitching together or whatever
― american bradass (BradNelson), Sunday, 9 June 2019 12:53 (five years ago) link