I was sitting at my desk yesterday, iTunes loaded, headphones cranked to eleven to drown out the hum of the fluorescent lighting in the office. Eardrum shredding distorted guitar riffs and non-sensical lyrical waxing by depressed British teenagers I can stand – imperceptible, monotonic, 60Hz electrical humming, on the other hand, drives me completely bonkers. Whoever invented fluorescent lights should be put on trial for crimes against every student who has valiantly struggled to get any work done at the college library, forgoing the giddy pleasures of alcohol abuse and casual sex that give “higher education” its name, only to be stymied by the low Lucasian drone of these cheap lightsaber impersonators. The students get first dibs on the guy – followed shortly by all the mothers who warned us against the dangers of reading under poor lighting conditions.
Wait…where was I going with this? Oh yes, I was talking about loud music.
After having the entire spectrum of the pentatonic scale rammed into my cerebral cortex by Eric Clapton’s tribute to blues legend Robert Johnson, I decided forego any further insult to Mr. Johnson and switched to listening to Radiohead instead. It’s funny how the mind works, because I happened upon this little gem in my collection:
In a city of the future
It is difficult to concentrate
Meet the boss, meet the wife
Everybody’s happy
Everyone is made for life
In a city of the future
It is difficult to find a space
I’m too busy to see you
You’re too busy to wait
But I’m okay, how are you?
Thanks for asking, thanks for asking
But I’m okay, how are you?
I hope you’re okay too
Everyone one of those days
When the sky’s California blue
With a beautiful bombshell
I throw myself into my work
I’m too lazy, I’ve been kidding myself for so long
I’m okay, how are you?
Thanks for asking, thanks for asking
But I’m okay, how are you?
I hope you’re okay too
And then I bothered to check the track name. Oh irony of ironies – this song is from the Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP, and has a most appropriate name: Palo Alto.
Well, ask and ye shall receive. It appears that Radiohead is continuing the experiment it started with the release of “In Rainbows” by releasing one of their songs’ source tracks. The band has released five “stems” to the song “Nude” (one for each of the bass, voice, guitar, strings/fx and drums) for their fans to remix and upload to the site – they’re even releasing a Garageband source file for the track to ease the remixing process.