Thom

I've read something shocking (maybe choking) the other day: the title song on Thom Yorke's album The Eraser, talks about Thom and some other character, trying to wipe each other out, but this fails miserably: the more you try to erase me, the more that I appear.

Some bloke posted the lyrics to all nine songs and added comments about what he thought was the meaning of the song. This man's opinion was that The Eraser is about the break up between Thom and his former girlfriend.
Now I'm a fan of all things Radiohead (Fake Plastic Trees as much as Everything in its Right Place - allthough the first one is a lot easier to play on a guitar). I like the "what rules?" mentality, a drummer that defines a sound and still is open for drum computers, guitarists with miny-fresh arpeggios and singers that thrive in self-centeredness.

Of course we'll never really know: which part of the Marvel Heroes of Upper-Underground Music is a badly hidden honesty from the early days, a moquery at journalists and fans galore, acidic or friendly poison from fellow-bands and other music-industry critters, or even our own wrongfully induced addition to the image.
But then if I add up what I have read, there is just no way around it: Thom Yorke is not generally a likable person. You know that quote from some melodramatic movie or possibly the good book: you have to love yourself before others can be able to love you?
Any artist, any creator, hell anyone who produces whatever he thinks is worth a penny wants to run to his mommy to show, and most of all: to be patted on the head (whew, that's a really nice drawing of a little black man), ridiculized (so now ambels around aimlessly) or shouted at (your website doesn't work in My Browser) - anyway: to get attention. This is as close to love as a lot of us get. we all settle for attention.
So I guess there is no way Mr. Yorke can escape that he is aiming for attention, as much as he is screaming to stop bothering him, making the music people were supposed to not want to hear.
That would all be the phase up to the Kid A sessions: angry young man fighting with himself, his band, undoubtedly his girlfriend, his imagery of a hostile pleasure-deprived community of little black men trying to destroy the capital of the world: poor old Thom.
Slowly but surely, the ego fades. Suddenly there is a happy father singing hopeful songs for his kid, done screaming about the inner anger and pointing more fingers outward: sings that are so politically correct that they are politically incorrect, voices raised on world issues.
And yet: complaining about how nice your voice sounds, never relistening to literally yesterday's composition, still imagining the little black man destroying a capital and wondering if it is Blair or Yorke that commands the oceans: the angry young attention-needing man is still there.

Through all this, I have understood, his girlfriend has stood by him. I imagine her kind of like my wife: the joy in her eyes is an unstable counterbalance for wild mood swings. I imagine them having a very tough but very meaningful relationship, every day fighting to still be in the relationship and never giving in. At a time, I believe now, this even gave me the courage to keep fighting (after all, my feeble attempts at writing are nothing more than luring attention).

If they did break up, my faith definitely got a shake.

Although there is probably no music more penetrating to me than Radiohead (or Thom Yorke solo, for that matter) on headphones and with closed eyes, I will listen to The Eraser without the faint smell of tears no more.



I just checked with wikipedia, and am proud to say that the guy was all wrong.
Phew, so now I can safely say that whether I'm wrong or right about Thom Yorke, I truely love the music he and his mates have given us.

"It's easy to be miserable. Being happy is tougher - and cooler." - Thom Yorke