Musicians aren't that far off from being being poets (well thom yorke isn't). Lyrics are a vital part of understanding music therefore, analyzing it was important as well.
(piano chorus)
A self-fulfilling prophecy of endless possibility In rolling reams across a screen In algebra, in algebra The fences that you cannot climb The sentences that do not rhyme In all that you can ever change The one you're looking for
It gets you down
(Piano chorus) It gets you down
(Piano chorus) There's no spark No light in the dark
(piano chorus) It gets you down It gets you down
You traveled far
(piano chorus) What have you found
(piano chorus) That there's no time There's no time To analyse
(piano chorus) To think things through To make sense
(piano chorus)
Like candles in the city They never looked so pretty By power cuts and blackouts Sleeping like babies
It gets you down It gets you down
(piano chorus) You're just playing a part You're just playing a part You're playing a part Playing a part And there's no time There's no time To analyse Analyse Analyse Analyse
Meaning
The lyrics are extremely important to my final work , one of the major reasons i chose this song is the lyrics and how they tie in so well with the idea of passing life by while "playing a part" that you have no role in determining.
The songs starts off with the word self-fulfilling prophecy , I think that word itself holds a lot of meaning. In sociology this specific word is given a lot of weightage due to the idea of assigning roles to someone and then see them turn out in that manner. That alone i believe says a lot about my idea. Moving further it talks about the endless possibilities moving across our " screen" which perhaps the writer meant as eyes , which can further be connected to next lyric that talks about them being in Algebra making them difficult and something you would have to sit down and really think about and "analyse" , Hence connecting to the title itself. On a similar note the lyrics at the end use the phrase "There's no time to analyse". Perhaps through this lyrics the writer meant to convey the idea of how people choose to now forego fighting the roles given to them instead " play a part" and let go of analyzing the outcome because they don't have any time to give to it , they are so caught up in the rat race of fighting fit in , to earn the most , to look the best , to eat the best. "There's no time to analyse to think things through to make sense" with this he conveys the idea of falling into the societal need to create carbon copies of individuals and leaving them no time to look into their lives and analyse them.
The fences that you cannot climb The sentences that do not rhyme.
Perhaps through these lyrics the writer ventures into the difficulty of escaping the roles set out for individuals that can never "rhyme" but are forced to.
A small tidbit of information i came across about this song was that Yorke found the inspiration to write it during a blackout in Oxford, Going off on that and matching the following lyrics
Like candles in the city They never looked so pretty By power cuts and blackouts Sleeping like babies
with the rest of the song , we perhaps might gain some insight about how Yorke painted this picture with his words due to the simplicity and beauty he found in a dark Oxford street that was unburdened by the expectations of working and completing your job work under the lamplight, we might further gain the idea that Yorke felt a relief due to the lack of necessity to play a part of his everyday life and hence "slept like a baby"
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