The New Radiohead Album: The King of Limbs

Thought I would try something new. New for me, at least. I swear I was three quarters finished with this before I saw Ross McCammon's piece in Esquire basically doing the same thing. So much for being original. Still, it was fun to do, and I'm hoping to do it with other albums. Though Radiohead seems perfectly created for the experiment.

What the hell am I talking about? I simply put on Radiohead's new album, The King of Limbs and did a kind of stream of consciousness thing for each track. Don't take it as analysis, or examination - think of it more as a description of feelings and thoughts that the album created. Nothing's right; nothing's wrong.

I hope you enjoy it.

First, here's a youtube with the whole album, if you'd like to listen as you read...

Bloom - A musically better version of Revolution #9. Slightly better.

Morning Mr. Magpie - If Les Claypool played all the instruments the same way he played bass for the band Oysterhead, but didn't sing. Or, if the rain falling on a windshield suddenly got very rhythmic/hypnotic and an offkey singing angel, sitting shotgun, noticed and sang about it (because an offkey angel would still sound pretty goo, right?).

Little by Little - A belly dancer with oddly shaped castanets dancing for a largely apathetic crowd, in a small, smoky club that sits underneath an insurance office in Topeka Kansas. The belly dancer mistakenly thinks she is of middle eastern descent, but she's Irish/Italian.

Feral - When a musically inclined child, who nevertheless has never had any lessons or opportunity to see where his talent could take him, bangs on a casio keyboard just messing around.

Lotus Flower - What Tilda Swinton with a beard would dance around to for five minutes.

Codex - a hymnal/song for a high school student from your class that has died in a violent car crash. A childhood friend of his sits and reflecting on himself while looking in a mirror in the dark of the bathroom in the school, using only the light of the crescent moon to illuminate anything.

Give up the Ghost - Hey...what's that? Behind the many many computer boxes and things that are electronic...it's an acoustic guitar and write a song about how it's become a ghost! Does anyone know how to play it? Oh for fuck's sake just program that electronic thing to make an acoustic guitar sound and bang on it occasionally. AND SLOW IT THE FUCK DOWN - what is this an Old Crow Medicine Show album?

Separator - A ball bounces rhythmically down the street. A mother wails melodically for her child out of the window of her row home pleading for him to come home and eat the hot dog casserole she made. Her attention is diverted to the ball. The spark of an idea forms in her head - she suddenly realizes her dream of being a Tom Jones' backup singer is attainable. All is right with the world.