Dark Corner

Where Do We Go From Here?

The tired gladness of radiohead.

At this year's Cornerstone Festival, Rick Elias sang a song about Jesus called "Man of No Reputation," and it occurred to me that we've forgotten when and why it's occasionally a good idea to cry out "Hallelujah." It's a song about what Jesus cares about and a meditation on the downwardly mobile disposition to which we understand Christ to be so peculiarly near. The mainstage crowd had gone completely wacko over the more triumphal songs of the evening and seemed largely distracted over what was being celebrated on the stage at this point. Alongside the screaming Hallelujah pent-up inside my head, I had a powerful wish to procure a loudspeaker and announce to everyone present, "THIS SONG IS FOR YOU. THIS SONG CARES ABOUT YOU. IT'S INTERESTED IN YOU IN ALL THE WAYS THE OTHER STUFF HASN'T BEEN. DO KINDLY SLOW DOWN AND LISTEN."

Radiohead is about us. You'll have to listen real closely at first, but it doesn't take too long to sense the cold, sweet depths of a very strange compassion. Their art is life-affirming in such an odd and unexpected way that I'm not sure many of us are accustomed to detecting its glow. But listening with the hope and expectancy that fills the music will have its rewards as we find ourselves steeped in a music that feels a lot like stargazing.

You've likely heard "Creep" ("I wish I was special/You're so very special), and you may recall that lead singer Thom Yorke has one of those voices which can make the contents of a cereal box sound like a hymn.

Their first album, "Pablo Honey", is reasonably interesting and worthwhile but contains no indication or warning of what wonders they'd attain with their second, "The Bends". Like most anything worth thinking about, it requires patience. Frustrated praise, scepticism, and a trembling persistence still persisting are at the core of their meditations upon the aesthetic and interpersonal implications of "Fake Plastic Trees" and the desire to be "Bullet Proof." Lines like "Am I really sinking this low?" and "What are we coming to?" and "Where do we go from here?" are all hemmed-in by "I want to live and breathe" and "I wish that something would happen" and "Immerse your soul in love." There's an ongoing attempt to view science and technology redemptively, but the limitations are ever present: "This machine will not communicate these thoughts and the strain I am under."

And amid the world-weariness, much of Radiohead's output contains what will be properly understood as jokes. The liner notes to "The Bends" contain reference to "the soft warm radiance of money." Their laments, in fact, are never without a certain degree of humour: "They love me like I was a brother/They protect me/Listen to me/They dug me my very own garden/Gave me sunshine/Made me happy/Nice dream." Think "Bladerunner" and Oz and hospital waiting rooms.

It will also be useful to remember that there is a difference between depression and melancholy. There's disillusionment which revels in self-satisfied navel-gazing and the insistence that there is no warmth or comfort to be found, and there's another (often mistaken for cynicism) which is merely holding out for the real thing. This "holding out" can become a kind of vocation in itself and certainly the cultivation of an alternative consciousness. John Howard Yoder speaks of the Christian's call to "maintain a sense of reality running against the stream of the unquestioningly accepted commonplaces of the age." This is a 24-hour-a-day job. It is also the business of art. We do well to view Radiohead's latest venture as an advocate in our efforts at increased understanding and discerning engagement of this wide-open world. Please welcome "OK Computer".

We might view the title as the band's way of proclaiming the digital revolution "merely satisfactory," or a challenge (i.e. "Okay Computer, prepare to meet thy doom) or perhaps even resignation of the "Alright, you win...But I'll be back" sort. Pink Floyd comparisons abound, because hardly anyone knows what exactly to do with music this big and intricate and weird. The album opens with sleigh bells and guitars and drums that pummel in a song called "Airbag." Yorke conjectures that if he'd been spared certain death in a fiery car crash through the serendipity of airbag technology, he would surely take the time to run up and down the highway exulting over his good fortune: "In the next world war/In a jacknifed juggernaut/I am born again." The momentum of his enthusiasm soon hurtles itself into an all-encompassing affirmation of everything in sight, and it's intensely personal: "In the neon sign scrolling up and down/I am born again/In an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe." This is crazy and very familiar. From here on out, the indisputable value of human life will be measured against the humdrum currency of corporate culture, shopping malls, and whatever most predominantly foists itself upon us, from whatever quarter, as the purported "good life."

"Progress" is a very flexible word which can mean almost anything, and Radiohead try on and call into question whatever form it assumes. "Subterranean Homesick Alien" features a winsome, UFO enthusiast wanting desperately to be abducted. He imagines aliens making home movies of "all these weird creatures who lock up their spirits, drill holes in themselves, and live for their secrets." The diatribe of "Paranoid Android" proclaims, "Ambition makes you look pretty ugly." And "Let Down" poetically outlines the generational character description of "hysterical & useless," but with the promise of "One day, you'll know where you are."

The final three tracks are an album in themselves. "No Surprises" is like a somewhat more upbeat "Everybody Hurts." With "a heart that's full up like a landfill," and "a job that slowly kills you," the listener is invited to "bring down the government," because "they don't speak for us." It's all expressed in a plaintive, disarming sweetness, followed by "Lucky" and "The Tourist" which begins with the unpleasantness of being the reason the dog's barking and ends with the admonition, "Hey man, slow down."

This is staggeringly beautiful music which enriches the understanding. It might be just the stretch you're looking for. And it could be the soundtrack to the life of the people you find most difficult to understand. Think about it. A secular spirituality is developing among those who want to believe, and it could be that Nineveh is repenting even now. Get ready.

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