Radiohead lyric debate: Idioteque

[CallMeIshmael]

"Here Im allowed, everything all of the time"

vs

"Here Im alive, everything all of the time"



Case for allowed:

- Makes more sense lyrically
- Greenplastic.com says its allowed (they seem to be a very good site)
- Jgorham swears its allowed

Case for alive:

- Many radiohead lyric sites say its alive
- One concert of theirs I have on my PC makes it sound A LOT like alive


Personally, Ive always thought it was allowed, but I want to get other opinions.

[Quinn Warren]

[ QUOTE ]
"Here Im allowed, everything all of the time"

vs

"Here Im alive, everything all of the time"



Case for allowed:

- Makes more sense lyrically
- Greenplastic.com says its allowed (they seem to be a very good site)
- Jgorham swears its allowed

Case for alive:

- Many radiohead lyric sites say its alive
- One concert of theirs I have on my PC makes it sound A LOT like alive


Personally, Ive always thought it was allowed, but I want to get other opinions.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's alive. I've seen it live and unless he changes it up, it's "alive".

[Soul Daddy]

Having never researched it, I have always assumed it was alive. Allowed definitely makes more sense though. I shall listen and report back.

[jason_t]

On the Kid A studio version and I Might Be Wrong version it's "allowed" and I see no reason to think it's anything else.

I never thought I'd see the day where you start a Radiohead thread.

/images/graemlins/heart.gif

[Soul Daddy]

Well, it certainly *could* be allowed, which is a new perspective to me. But I still think it's alive. When it's sung in the latter portions of the song, it's a very drawn out long 'I' sound. This doesn't necessarily mean anything with Yorke singing, but it's enough for me to stick with my original thought without evidence to the contrary.

Also, that site has plenty of incorrect or incomplete lyrics, at least to my ears.

[Quinn Warren]

Let's put this to rest.

1. Download the SNL version.

2. At 2:16 watch Ed O'Brian (in the foreground, on backup vocals)

It is clearly "alive".

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

Here, I'm alive.

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, that site has plenty of incorrect or incomplete lyrics, at least to my ears.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are multiple lyrics sites so I did the following two searches.

Here I'm Allowed (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=idioteque+radiohead+lyrics+here +i%27m+allowed)

and

Here I'm Alive (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=idioteque+radiohead+lyrics+here +i%27m+alive).

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I never thought I'd see the day where you start a Radiohead thread.

/images/graemlins/heart.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Soul Daddy]

[ QUOTE ]
There are multiple lyrics sites so I did the following two searches.

Here I'm Allowed (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=idioteque+radiohead+lyrics+here +i%27m+allowed)

and

Here I'm Alive (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=idioteque+radiohead+lyrics+here +i%27m+alive).

[/ QUOTE ]
Nice. Based on those results, this is obviously a hotly debated topic.

I was referring to the greenplastic.com site in the OP.

[Quinn Warren]

Again, watch the SNL video. O'Briens upper teeth clearly press aginst his lower lip at the end of the word, indicating either a "v" or an "f".

Unless he's saying, "Here, I'm an elf", or "Here I'm an ALF",

It has to be "alive"

[RacersEdge]

[ QUOTE ]
everything all of the time

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait a minute - this part was stolen from the Eagles (LITFL).

[SippinSoma]

I probably suck at Radiohead, but this is my favorite song. I'm listening to it now for the first time in a while, so thanks.

EDIT: I have no [censored] clue which one it is.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I probably suck at Radiohead, but this is my favorite song. I'm listening to it now for the first time in a while, so thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its their best song, but I thought that went without saying /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Quinn Warren]

I thought I was the only one, and now I find out that two other 2+2ers think this is their best song.

Strange.

[Soul Daddy]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought I was the only one, and now I find out that two other 2+2ers think this is their best song.

Strange.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not strange. And the number is definitely higher than two.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I thought I was the only one, and now I find out that two other 2+2ers think this is their best song.

Strange.

[/ QUOTE ]
Not strange. And the number is definitely higher than two.

[/ QUOTE ]

Jason_T also thinks its their best.

I believe gorham has it as 2 or 3.

[Soul Daddy]

I struggle to say that it's definitively their best, but it's without question top 3.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I struggle to say that it's definitively their best, but it's without question top 3.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would paranoid and let down be the other 2 by any chance?

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

Idioteque is definitely one of my favorites, but I've still got Paranoid Android at the top.

[Soul Daddy]

Paranoid and Black Star. I guess Black Star is more of a "favorite" than "best", but I can't really distinguish.

[jgorham]

Up until my second year of college I did chorus. My freshman year, my instructor, Dr. Nouen had an unbelievably strong emphasis on diction. He made us practice pronouncing the last letter of any word very strongly; for example if we were saying allowed, it would be a lou duh. It always sounds kinda funny to myself when I do it, but if a singer doesn't go out of their way to make their lyrics understandable then stupid debates like this happen.

For anyone who is interested, start the song and skip ahead to the 2:35 mark. Listen to Thom Yorke singing. Although it is subtle, he is clearly saying allowed. You can hear the "o," and you can hear the duh. Not to mention the fact that allowed makes more sense when you think about what the song (and that verse) is about. The phrase "here i'm allowed" is said 6 times. Never once is there a discernable v sound. And while it is faint, the sound duh is noticeable.

Besides that, the word immediately following the word in question is "everything." Because it starts with a vowel, a lot of letters would bleed into that word. A "v" for example, if ending the previous word, would cause everything to come out "veverything." In Idioteque, this is simply not the case. A "d," on the other hand, is a much sharper letter, and by its nature can't bleed into other words. Besides the fact that if you just listen it is clearly "allowed," the fact that you can hear "everything" so clearly as well suggests allowed rather than alive.

To the person who said look at Ed's lips, you are forgetting that Ed is singing back up at this point in the song. While Thom is singing "here I'm allowed," Ed is singing "The first of the children." There are plenty of i sounds in this phrase to account for what you see.

Edit: I haven't actually seen the SNL version, and CMI tells me that Ed isn't saying "the first of the children," as he does on the cd. I don't really have the time or energy to download it and see for myself, so instead I just stand by the rest of what I said.

[1800GAMBLER]

I remember finding a site that had the sheet music uploaded and that comes with lyrics. So for those of you who care more than me, go find it.

[Soul Daddy]

This is a very well thought out and reasoned response, but I've listened to it over and over again today and I just don't see (hear) it the same way that you do. It is by no means clear what he says.

[ QUOTE ]
You can hear the "o," and you can hear the duh.

[/ QUOTE ]
I hear the "I" and I hear no duh. It seems to me that he ends on the vowel sound, but there is no interim sound. "Here, we're aliiiiiiiii," is what it seems to me like he's saying. I hear no "duh." I'm not saying it's not there, and perhaps it is incredibly subtle and my ears are just not as blessed as some. But I don't hear it.

As for the bleeding, or why it doesn't exist if he says "alive," it's because there is a clear breath-pause in between the words "alive/allowed" and "everything."

I'm not necessarily arguing for either. What I hear is closer to "alive" than "allowed", but I'm open to the other. It certainly makes more sense, so I think I'd rather it be the latter. I just don't think it's clear by any means.

[MyTurn2Raise]

it's not that unusual for Radiohead to have minor lyric changes from one version to the next. One of my top 5 all-time songs is "True Love Waits." In all, I think the lyrics changed 5 times from various live versions until the song finally made the "I Might Be Wrong" EP. Happens quite a bit

Bah....I didn't answer the question at all...good song

[jason_t]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought I was the only one, and now I find out that two other 2+2ers think this is their best song.

Strange.

[/ QUOTE ]

Add me to the list.

[private joker]

1. Paranoid Android
2. 2+2=5
3. Sulk
4. The Bends
5. Life in a Glasshouse

But Idioteque would probably make the top 10. It's tough. How can one really pick a favorite Radiohead song?

[MarkSummers]

[ QUOTE ]


But Idioteque would probably make the top 10. It's tough. How can one really pick a favorite Radiohead song?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because Exit Music is clearly the best. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[jason_t]

What is your interpretation of the lyrics and how does your reading of the line as "Here, I'm Alive..." fit in with that interpretation?

I have always interpreted the song as being about an impending disaster, likely a war, possibly a nuclear one.

Let's figure out what the verse in questions means in the context of our interpretations and perhaps we can figure out whether or not it's "alive" or "allowed."

[Soul Daddy]

My overall interpretation of the song is more along the lines of the impending doom of global warming and possibly nuclear war. He seems to alternate perspectives from someone warning others of the inevitable dangers of the lifestyles we lead to that of an ignorant, vacuous person who is completely oblivious of said dangers.

The more I think about this, "allowed" just makes so much more sense. "Here I'm allowed anything all of the time." would seem to fit in this interpretation, as we can do what we want without much or any repercussion. I just can't hear it. /images/graemlins/mad.gif

[shant]

[ QUOTE ]
"Here I'm an ALF"

[/ QUOTE ]
Yup.

[Jack of Arcades]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I probably suck at Radiohead, but this is my favorite song. I'm listening to it now for the first time in a while, so thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its their best song, but I thought that went without saying /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
What is your interpretation of the lyrics and how does your reading of the line as "Here, I'm Alive..." fit in with that interpretation?

I have always interpreted the song as being about an impending disaster, likely a war, possibly a nuclear one.

Let's figure out what the verse in questions means in the context of our interpretations and perhaps we can figure out whether or not it's "alive" or "allowed."

[/ QUOTE ]

OK, Im posting this without the permission of my man jgorham, but I dont think he'd mind. He sent this to me recently, the parts in red are his writings, while the parts in black are taken from a literary magazine.

NOTE: This is long winded and will be seen as hogwash/pretentious/literary masturbation to a very large % of the population, so, I'd recomment most stop here.

<font color="red">So this is an excerpt. And a bit long winded at that (but then, how else could it be in a literary magazine). And I feel like it does a pretty good job of capturing half of what Idioteque is about. But to me, Idioteque isn’t really about the feelings so much as the battle between the feelings and the desire to not have any feelings at all, really. The conflict that everybody fights but no one really talks about, and instead just keeps on pretending everything we see (and strive to be) is true for everyone. And therefore valuable. </font>

A description of the condition of the late 1990s could go like this: At the turn of the millennium, each individual sat at a meeting point of shouted orders and appeals, the TV, the radio, the phone and cell, the billboard, the airport screen, the inbox, the paper junk mail. Each person discovered that he lived at one knot of a network, existing without his consent, which connected him to any number of recorded voices, written messages, means of broadcast, channels of entertainment, and avenues of choice. It was a culture of broadcast: an indiscriminate seeding, which needed to reach only a very few, covering vast tracts of our consciousness. To make a profit, only one message in ten thousand needed to take root, therefore messages were strewn everywhere. To live in this network felt like something, but surprisingly little in the culture of broadcast itself tried to capture what it felt like. Instead, it kept bringing pictures of an unencumbered luxurious life, songs of ease and freedom, and technological marvels, which did not feel like the life we lived.
And if you noticed you were not represented? It felt as if one of the few unanimous aspects of this culture was that it forbade you to complain, since if you complained, you were a trivial human, a small person, who misunderstood the generosity and benignity of the message system. It existed to help you. Now if you accepted the constant promiscuous broadcasts as normalcy, there were messages in them to inflate and pet and flatter you. If you simply said this chatter was altering your life, killing your privacy or ending the ability to think in silence, there were alternative messages that whispered of humiliation, craziness, vanishing. What sort of crank needs silence? What could be more harmless than a few words of advice? The messages did not come from somewhere; they were not central, organized, intelligent, intentional. It was up to you to change the channel, not answer the phone, stop your ears, shut your eyes, dig a hole for yourself and get in it. Really, it was your responsibility. The metaphors in which people tried to complain about these developments, by ordinary law and custom, were pollution (as in “noise pollution”) and theft (as in “stealing our time”). But we all knew the intrusions felt like violence. Physical violence, with no way to strike back.
And if this feeling of violent intrusion persisted? Then it added a new dimension of constant, nervous triviality to our lives. It linked, irrationally, in our moods and secret thoughts, these tiny private annoyances to the constant televised violence we saw. Those who objected embarrassed themselves, because they likened the nuisances to tragedies – and yet we felt the likeness, though it became unsayable. Perhaps this was because our nerves have a limited palette for painting dread. Or because the network fulfilled its debt of civic responsibility by bringing us twenty-four-hour news of flaming airplanes and twisted cars and blood soaked screaming casualties, globally acquired, which it was supposedly our civic duty to watch – and, adding commercials, put this mixture of messaged and horrors up on screens wherever a TV could only be introduce on grounds of “responsibility to know,” in the airport, the doctor’s office, the subway, and any waiting room. But to object was demeaning – who, really, meant us any harm? And didn’t we truly have a responsibility to know?
Thus the large mass of people huddled in the path of every broadcast, who really did not speak but were spoken for, who received and couldn’t send, were made responsible for the new Babel. Most of us who lived in this culture were primarily sufferers or patients of it and not, as the word had it, “consumers.” Yet we had no other words besides “consumption” or “consumerism” to condemn a world of violent intrusions of insubstantial messages, no new way at least to name this culture or describe the feeling of being inside it.
So a certain kind of pop music could offer a representative vision of this world while still being one of its omnipresent products. A certain kind of musician might reflect this new world’s vague smiling threat of hostile action, its latent violence done by no one in particular; a certain kind of musician, angry and critical rather than complacent and blithe, might depict the intrusive experience, though the music would be painfully intrusive itself, and it would be brought to us by and share the same avenues of mass-intrusion that broadcast everything else. Pop music had the good fortune of being both a singularly unembarrassed art and a relatively low-capital medium in its creation – made by just a composer or writer or two or four or six members of a band, with little outside intrusion, until money was poured into the recording and distribution and advertising of it. So, compromised as it was, music could still become a form of unembarrassed and otherwise inarticulable complaint, capturing what one could not say in reasonable debate, and coming from far enough inside the broadcast culture that it could depict it with its own tools.

<font color="red"> So anyway (jimmy again) I think that is a pretty good set up of the feel of Kid A in general. And Idioteque, to me, is just an accelerated battle between those feelings and our own humanity, which we try to suppress, in a way. Like, when I really get into it, I think the song is almost about madness – two opposites that are forced to exist together, yet obviously can’t both exist at once. I think Thom in general has a great sadness for humanity, as a result of people hurting themselves without really realizing it, and in a way, somehow enjoying their own dehumanization. And that is clearer on other tracks, like living in a glass house, or how to disappear completely, or everything in its right place. But Idioteque is about forcing yourself to go insane because you want to be. </font>

[jgorham]

The interpretation of impending nuclear war is by no means without merit, I just think the song is deeper than that. More about how most people either can't or are unwilling to rationally analyze their value structure, which can lead to a global tragedy such as nuclear explosions. But beyond that single example it is also about personal tragedy where, even though a person really wants to do the right thing, because they don't understand what is right or even how to determine what is right they harm themselves and their community.

In any case, this interpretation makes "allowed" more likely, in my opinion.