Rows of houses all bearing down on me
I can feel their blue hands touching me
All these things into position
All these things we'll one day swallow whole
And fade out again
And fade out
This machine will, will not communicate
These thoughts and the strain I am under
Be a world child, form a circle
Before we all go under
And fade out again
And fade out again
Cracked eggs, dead birds scream as they fight for life
I can feel death, can see it's beady eyes
All these things into position
All these things we'll one day swallow whole
And fade out again
And fade out again
Immerse your soul in love
Immerse your soul in love
Up there as one of my favourite Radiohead songs of all time. If you listen to it, there's no need to explain why it's such an immensely powerful song... it just is.
Thom: "'Street Spirit' is our purest song, but I didn't write
it.... It wrote itself. We were just its messengers...
Its biological catylysts. It's core is a complete mystery to me...
and (pause) you know, I wouldn't ever try to write something that
hopeless... All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least
a glimmer of resolve... 'Street Spirit' has no resolve... It is the dark
tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion
that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition.
We all have a way of dealing with that song... It's called detachment...
Especially me.. I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn't
play it... I'd crack. I'd break down on stage... that's why its lyrics
are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive
explanation of its meaning... I used images set to the music that I thought
would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together...
That's what's meant by 'all these things we'll one day swallow whole'..
I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn't have it in me to articulate
the emotion... (pause) I'd crack.... Our fans are braver than I to let
that song penetrate them, or maybe they don't realize what they're listening
to.. They don't realize that 'Street Spirit' is about staring the
fucking devil right in the eyes...and knowing, no matter what the hell
you do, he'll get the last laugh...and it's real...and true. The
devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and
if I let myself think about that too long, I'd crack. I can't
believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song...
That's why I'm convinced that they don't know what it's about. It's
why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes
me, and hurts like hell everytime I play it, looking out at thousands of
people cheering and smiling,oblivious to the tragedy of it's meaning, like
when you're going to have your dog put down and it's wagging it's tail
on the way there. That's what they all look like, and it breaks my heart.
I wish that song hadn't picked us as its catalysts, and so I don't claim
it. It asks too much. (very long pause). I didn't write that
song."