This thread is inspired by moes' post yesterday about "Codex". What is or are your favorite Radiohead songs ever? My top 5 as of right now (might be different a week from now): 1) How to Disappear Completely 2) Codex 3) Videotape 4) Black Star 5) No Surprises
1. Let Down 2. Fake Plastic Trees 3. 2+2=5 4. Everything in its Right Place 5. Reckoner My list changes all the time as well, except for #1. Let Down has always been my favorite.
Great question. Its a really tough one. For now I'd say, after ten minutes of mental debate of course, in no particular order - Black Star There There Knives Out Subterranean Homesick Alien Weird Fishes/Arpeggi The last one was a toss up with Codex. Honorable Mentions - Anyone Can Play Guitar Gagging Order True Love Waits Nude Idioteque
This was the list last time I made it, but it evolves so many times. 1.) No Surprises 2.) Codex 3.) Reckoner 4.) Idioteque 5.) Motion Picture Soundtrack 6.) How to Disappear Completely (And Never be Found Again) 7.) Paranoid Android 8.) Airbag 9.) Jigsaw Falling Into Place 10.) Fake Plastic Trees Also - Nude, All I Need, Karma Police, Let Down, High and Dry, Pyramid Song,
1) Exit Music 2) Paranoid Android 3) Nude 4) All I Need 5) There There 6) Creep 7) Idioteque 8) How To Disappear Completely 9) High and Dry 10) Fake Plastic Trees 11) Nice Dream 12) Lucky 13) Lotus Flower 14) Pyramid Song 15) Optimistic 16) Karma Police 17) Videotape 18) Codex 19) 2 + 2 =5 20) Been Thinking About You
1) Street Spirit (Fade Out) 2) Exit Music (For a Film) 3) Paranoid Android 4) Motion Picture Soundtrack 5) Life in a Glass House 6) No Surprises 7) Fake Plastic Trees 8) Idioteque 9) Videotape 10) Karma Police 11) High and Dry 12) Codex 13) Lucky 14) True Love Waits 15) Nude
No. Its bad that you may reproduce. Just kidding. Though you are likely to get more of the same from others. If you're serious and like great music, you should get the songs on these lists immediately.
A while back my wife pointed me to this quote by Thom Yorke where he is talking about the song Street Spirit. I've read it a hundred times but it still give me chills: "'Street Spirit' is our purest song, but I didn't write it. It wrote itself. We were just its messengers; its biological catalysts. Its core is a complete mystery to me, and, 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 you'll one day swallow whole'. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn't have it in me to articulate the emotion. I'd crack... Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don't realise what they're listening to. They don't realise that 'Street Spirit' is about staring the ****ing 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 every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you're going to have your dog put down and it's wagging its 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. I didn't write that song."
Since others are going with more than 5, let me expand my list: 1 - How to Disappear Completely 2 - Codex 3 - Videotape 4 - Black Star 5 - No Surprises 6 - Anyone Can Play Guitar 7 - All I Need 8 - Kid A 9 - Go to Sleep 10 - High and Dry 11 - House of Cards 12 - The Bends 13 - Airbag 14 - Pyramid Song 15 - A Punch Up at a Wedding 16 - 15 Steps 17 - Motion Picture Soundtrack 18 - Climbing Up the Walls 19 - Bloom 20 - Knives Out
Thanks. I'm listening to "Let Down" and it is freaking ridiculous how great that song is! Forget 20 favorites - may have to go with 50, considering how many more are out there that are not on my list (Let Down, Fake Plastic Trees, Wolf at the Door, Street Spirit, Paranoid Android, Everything in its Right Place, etc.).
