In 2001, only a year after Radiohead's
groundbreaking Kid A the band would release another album titled “Amnesiac” it
was full of songs mostly recorded from the same sessions as Kid A , Some brushed the album
off as Kid A B-sides, but the album truly is its own thing. In today's video I'm going
to be analysing all of Amnesiac's tracks, not if the songs are necessarily good or bad, but
an in depth look at the lyrics, its meaning, and how the song was made. My Names Stemp, and this
Is a tribute to amnesiac. Packt Like Sardines in a crushd tin box: Originally titled “Po Pad” The intro track
to Amnesiac is interesting to say the least. It's somewhat cold, the instrumentation feels
alien, the song is made up of manipulated compressed audio loops, almost none of it
is too familiar until thoms voice kicks in, but yet his voice is still distorted, not
incredibly noticeable, but its definitely there. “After years of waiting nothing came
As your life flashed before your eyes, you realize” The narrator is stuck in this place for years on
end hoping it would bring him to where he wanted to go only for this place to mislead him. As the
songs title implies were all sardines crushed into little boxes, stuck in our meaningless
lives with no means of escape, because we were looking in the wrong place the whole time.
The corus kicks in, “I'm a reasonable man, get off my case” The narrator is not a bad person
truly, but society may set him up to be one, a somewhat relevant lyric in today's context,
with celebrities often being “Cancelled” for things that the public may not like but in the
grand scheme of things might not be all that bad. It's a great opener, but the next track
really sets the mood for the album PYRAMID SONG
According to Colin The inception of the song was when we were in Copenhagen, and Thom went
‘round the museum of culture. And there was an exhibition of Egyptian underworld and tomb art Of
people being ferried across the river of death and he was very affected by it and he went back
and sat behind the piano and wrote it”The working title of this song was “Egyptian song”,
and it originally premiered on June 13th 1999 at the Tibetan Freedom concert, with the
most notable change being the opening lyrics. In 2001, Ed O’Brien said that Pyramid song
was “Probably the best song they’ve recorded”, and its hard to argue with that.The tracks
lyrics are dark but memorable, thom said when asked about the song "Stephen Hawking talks
about the theory that time is another force, that time is completely cyclical ... It's
something that I found in Buddhism as well. That's what 'Pyramid Song' is about, the
fact that everything is going in circles." Even with everything going in circles being the
point of the track, a lot of peoples theories around the song are that its about suicide,
and The music video backs up this idea. It follows a character going into this underwater
town and sitting in a chair before disconnecting his oxygen tank. Also speaking of which, there's a
side quest in Cyberpunk 2077 called Pyramid song, where you swim around in a sunken city,
i don't wanna spoil too much because the games fairly new but it's a beautiful mission
and was one of my favorites from the game. Throughout the track a wailing sound is heard
in the back which was created by Jonny bowing the guitar strings while running his fingers down
the fretboard which is supposed to emulate whale cries, this same effect was later used for Burn
the Witch in 2016 as well. The track's rhythm is also played so that it makes a pyramid. The
track like many of radioheads is Haunting, yet beautiful, The band perfectly encapsulated
the feeling they were going for and then PULK/PULL
I think this song is about doors. MAYBE. A rather odd track, The song is built around a
rhythm pattern made with the MC-505 drum machine, along with some loops from Ok Computer sessions,
these can actually be heard on the OKNOTOK cassette released in 2017, on the True love
tape loop. Also Thom’s vocals are vocoderised through a synth, similar to the way his vocals
were distorted on the title track for Kid A. The main interpretation of the track
is that it's about life choices, and how these choices could be like doors,
letting you in and out, or trapping you, and not being able to come back from it. The
track is extremely similar to Kid As Title track with the distorted vocals, and somewhat creepy
instrumental. The track is often overlooked but I think without it the album wouldn't feel quite
right. But after all the doors have been opened, YOU AND WHOSE ARMY This track is, according to thom about someone
being elected into power by people and who then blatantly betray them, specifically when the song
released it related to Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister at the time. I won't dive into
the specifics of thoms distaste for the man to stay out of political discussions, i'd rather save
that for when i inevitably do Hail to the Thief. The tracks sound was trying to capture the soft,
warm proto-doowop sound of the 1940s harmony group the Ink Spots, to capture this the band muffled
the microphones with egg boxes and and used the Ondes martenot resonating palme diffuseur
loudspeaker to treat the vocals. The songs debut was during a live performance in 2000
before even kid a had been released. The track was also a return to the band playing the song all
together in a room, which had not previously been done since Ok Computer for the band. The
song is very soft, and warm up until about the halfway point when the drums and piano kick
in, and everything crescendos to a boom, as thom wails out his lyrics. The lyrics on this track are
rather simple, and serve as somewhat of an insult to who the narrator is singing to, thom taunts
them and tries to undercut their abilities. He asks, “You and whose army?, You and your cronies?”
almost as a scoff towards the opposition. The final verse thoms sings about ghost
horses, possibly talking about a false, transparent threat. This song was
also featured in Peaky Blinders, two other tracks from amnesiac also made an
appearance in the show, life in a glasshouse, and I MIGHT BE WRONG
I might be wrong, it is a guitar oriented track that uses a blues riff written by Jonny, The
track made its debut in 2000, as a solo acoustic track which at the time was much slower than the
album version. I might be wrong is another track with thoms vocals somewhat distorted, he sings of,
as the song title suggests, being wrong, in the chorus he sings of thinking about the good times,
and never looking back. A contradiction of itself. "'I used to think there was nothing left at all.
According to thom' It's a document of a complete crisis point, he lived on a beach and one night he
went out on his own and looked back at the house and even though he knew there was nobody there,
he could see a figure walking about inside. Then he went back to the house and recorded
that track with this presence still there." The song really comes as much from
what my long-term partner Rachel was saying to me, like she does all the
time, "Be proud of what you've done. Don't look back and just carry on like nothing's
happened. Just let the bad stuff go." When someone's constantly trying to help you out and
you're trying to express something really awful, you're desperately trying to sort yourself out
and you can't - you just can't. And then one day you finally hear them - you finally understand,
after months and months of utter fucking torment: that's what that song is about." when prompted
with a theory about the song stating ”The song is about the merging of life and death and getting
past your mistakes. Yorke questions what comes in the afterlife. The waterfall represents moving on
to the next world, and when he sees the light he thinks he May have seen death. but then he
realizes there is a future and that he wants to live life to the fullest." Thom gave this
theory and 11/10 saying that he spent a lot of time watching things die, watching the seasons
change, flowers blossom, rivers gurgle, and he was also reading the Tibetan book of the dead
at the time. The title “I might be wrong” is thought to have been taken from a quote by British
mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russel, “I would never die for my beliefs
because I might be wrong.” Thom said he likes his songs to have multiple
meanings and the relationship angle is one of them. He also said that the "light coming
on" and "no future left at all" parts were talking about dying. He used to think there was
no afterlife and nothing he did in his lifetime mattered but now that's all different. His
life has meaning now, so he can be happy and enjoy the good times because he can look back
on those times after his mortal life has ended. The track has plenty of history behind it,
but from here the band amps it up to 10 with, KNIVES OUT Knives out it a Chillingly beautiful track,
with a kick ass music video, and was even one of the singles for amnesiac. The song was
made during the Kid A sessions when the band and thom still felt everything they made wasn't
good enough, it took time for them to realize how good the track actually was. thom said “We
just lost our nerve. It was so straight-ahead. We thought, ‘We’ve gotta put that in the bin,
it’s too straight.’ We couldn’t possibly do anything that straight until we’d gone and been
completely arse about face with everything else, in order to feel good about doing something
straight like that. It took 373 days to be arse-about-face enough to realise it was alright
the way it was. The song made its debut on one of radiohead's live broadcasts on their website
in 1999, sounding very similar to the album's release. According to thom the meaning of the song
is that “It’s partly the idea of the businessman walking out on his wife and kids and never
coming back. It’s also the thousand yard stare when you look at someone close to you and you know
they’re gonna die. It’s like a shadow over them, or the way they look straight through you.
The shine goes out of their eyes.`He's also said that ““Knives Out” was
inspired by several different situations. I think the important thing is not
that it sounds violent but rather that I try to express specific moments that I have experienced
in my life: I transcribe them again, especially those I’ve been through in the music business. It
doesn’t hurt many people when someone disappears, they can always take advantage of what
remains. In short, the lyrics are more violent than the feelings behind them. The song
is also about the death of the people close to me. Each song tries to elucidate things that I don’t
understand. “Knives Out” is especially brutal because it is a desperate attempt at solving
something very complicated for me.” This track is definitely one of my top three track on the
album, and is the song that really got me into amnesiac in the first place, but after this track
is something that feels like a distant memory, MORNING BELL/AMNESIAC This track was previously seen in KID A, a
distinctly different version but both share similar lyrics, but with the tonal shift the
song takes on a different vibe, it sounds like a distant memory, its less energetic and slower
than the Kid A version, when asked about why this version was included on Amnesiac Ed O'brien
said that We often record different versions of songs and the new one is the first time it
has been strong enough to bear hearing again. Most of the other versions often get scrapped
halfway through. Thom on the matter said that Morning Bell/Amnesiac” [was included] because
it came from such a different place from the other version. Because we only found it again
by accident after having forgotten about it. Because it sounds like a recurring dream.
It felt right. With the memory and forgetful themes across Amnesiac it only made sense to
include the track. I have previously covered the meaning behind the lyrics in my A Tribute To
Kid A series, so i'm gonna give a brief rundown of the track and if you’d like a more in depth
analysis be sure to check out the original video, Basically the idea of the track is that Thom
Yorke bought a house after Ok Computer’s touring and felt as if there was a ghost in the house. He
said it was something he just knew, during this time he had filled up a whole minidisc of songs,
ramblings, and whatever else, then there was a power outage that erased the disc. On that disc
was the original version of morning bell, lyrics and all. When the disc was wiped he was bummed
out but didn't think to much of it as according to him that was the “general vibe of the house at
the time” He forgot all about morning bell and then about six months later being sleep deprived
the song came back to him, exactly as he had originally written it, it was about that house he
was in, and how he felt living in it. There was also a popular theory for the track being about
a break up, which you can interpret it that way if you’d like, as while thom and the band may
have a meaning for the track, it doesn't mean you can have your own meaning for it, i think
that's just part of the magic of Radiohead. DOLLARS AND CENTS This track started as a Live
jam, a section of an 11 minute improvisation that edited down the best
bits, with thoms lyrics being a one take, he said they came out as sort of a
gibberish but he likes it that way, the lyrics seem to always be slightly different in
live performances and because of their gibberish nature they aren't 100% understandable in the
album version, causing discorouse among fans over the tracks meaning. But the general idea is
that it's anti-government in nature, similar to the themes seen on Ok Computer. The general idea
of the title and the lyrics of the chorus is that we the people are no longer individuals to
the government but rather economic statistics, and just target markets for big corporations.
From here comes HUNTING BEARS
This interlude instrumental track binds together Dollars and Cents and Like Spinning plates, two
tracks incredibly different from each other. The tracks title is most likely a reference to the
imagery of bears that have become a mainstay for radiohead, when asked about all the bear imagery
in their music thom said “it stemmed initially from a deep paranoia of genetic engineering. And
then from a children's book. You know: creating monsters, only to awaken one morning to the
terrible truth that there is nothing at all you can do to stop them.” but as i suggested early
this track binds together Dollars and cents with LIKE SPINNING PLATES The second to last track is A rather experimental
one, very similar in sound to many tracks off Kid A, the song is made up of distorted vocals
from thom that are actually played backwards, because he sang them backwards. In fact
this track was made out of frustration over an electric version of “I Will” that
would later make an appearance on HTTT, the version was the like spinning plates
instrumental backwards with the lyrics of I will over top, the band being dissatisfied
they came up with like spinning plates, reversed they felt it gave off an eerie feeling
so thom pieced together lyrics and to match the instrumentals sung them backwards to keep
the Ominous vibe, but only the first verse is reversed, the chorus of the track is a normal
recording which is why it doesn't sound as odd. In another reference to tony blair, before
a live performance of the track thom stated “This is dedicated to our glorious leaders, or
at least some of them who saw fit to take us to a war that nobody wanted, kill thousands,
if not tens of thousands of innocent people. And they should go to their graves
with that in their consciousness.” This track leads to my personal favorite track
off Amnesiac and the closer of the album, LIFE IN A GLASSHOUSE This jazzy track was born slightly after Ok
Computers released but wasn't recorded for quite some time as they didnt know how to do
it right. They enlisted Humphrey Lyttelton, a renowned English trumpeter to help make
the song. Jonny wrote to him asking for his help as they were stuck, and he really wanted
it to sound like a New Orleans jazz funeral. A feeling of both morose and liveliness was the
idea and I think they captured it magnificently. It's an absolutely beautiful track and is one of
my all time favorite Radiohead tracks. Thom said that On 'Life In A Glasshouse' I'm desperate for
people to understand all the words because they're really important. It began after I read this
interview with the wife of a very famous actor who the tabloids completely hounded for three
months like dogs from hell. She got the copies of the papers with her picture and she posted them up
all over the house, over all the windows so that all the cameras that were outside on her lawn
only had their own images to photograph. I thought that was brilliant, and that's where
the song started from. It was just a really sad, awful story about her desperately trying to cope
while he's off filming, and the only reason she was being hounded was because it was rumoured he
was having an affair with his leading actress. I just thought, 'Nobody deserves this'. Especially
when they're a completely innocent party. From there, it developed into a complete rant about
tabloid journalism destroying people at will, tying people to the stake and watching them burn.. The track is the perfect closer, it wraps up
the album with a bang solidifying its place in radiohead's discography. This album as a whole
was received mostly positively, but some felt the album was lacking compared to Kid A, and while
I personally prefer Kid A, I love amnesiac and think Radioheads Discography wouldnt be anywhere
near complete with out. And with that being said, This concludes, A Tribute to Amnesiac. This
has been stemp. Thank you for watching.
