That's it sir, I'm leaving

(image from radiohead.it)

I'm typing this at work. I'm so so bored. The speakers are playing up so we can't plug our iPods in, and it's either the radio or CD's we've listened to many, many times. Thus the music is switched off and the sole soundtrack is phone calls full of bleating morons that couldn't tell their backside from their elbow.

I need to do something, I need to have something to do thats not the meaningless, oppressively dull, menial labour that this time of year engenders for me. I need something to take my mind of advertising my spare room, off all the people bailing from the office, off the game of Scrabble I'm busy losing. I need distraction from the half-dozen separate heaps of yellow forms cluttering up my desk, from the half-eaten pork pie, from the pictures of Natasha Bedingfield stuck to my monitor. From the inevitability, the sinking realisation that these bleating morons won't go away, ever, whether they're idiots with an excuse, or idiots without an excuse. Maybe it's the general malaise that always creeps over the workplace at this time of year, but this is the time of year people always find new jobs...

So I'm going to make no excuses, and no apologies, and post a classic song. It's great, it's awesome, it singlehandedly revived interest - in the wider world - for progressive, non-lowest-common-denominator alternative music. I recall 1997. In 1997 I was listening to one band alone, and it was Radiohead. When Paranoid Android played on the radio the playground was abuzz the next day (at least between me and Nathan) with discussion, with rumour. When OK Computer was released, I had it on the first day, and brought the inlay to school the next day to show off. I had the t-shirt with the lyrics on. Paranoid Android is one of those songs capable of redefining one of the key bands of the mid-90's into one of the key bands in alternative music, full stop, with it's influence still being felt today. Thom Yorke's voice finds new depths and new heights, Johnny's guitar veers from riff to freak-out to menacing quiet, the whole dramatic arrangement, at a mere track two, is something incredible. No matter that it was just one of a number of genuinely great songs on the album, no matter that it's not even really my favourite. This is Radiohead's defining moment, and I'm posting it because writing about it cheers me up. Bye.

The Music
Radiohead - Paranoid Android

The 'fo
Artist: Radiohead
Website: radiohead.com
Recommended: OK Computer
Label: Parlophone
Buy: Amazon
More: Hype Machine; elbo.ws
If you like this you might like: Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Tags: work; Radiohead; Paranoid Android; Thom Yorke; Eraser