Meaning of No Surprises
Liz Trowbridge
to the songs "no surprises" and "exit music (for a film)"
i understand everyone takes songs differently, and i would just like to
hear everyone's opinions... :) Have a Good Day.
Liz
OKcomputr7
romeo & juliet movie so that song is pretty much inspired by the movie. it's a
very similar story when you compare the song and the play. i can't really say
what no surprises is about myself but i know thom said it was about the banking
system at one concert. lyrically, no surprises is my fav song of OKC.
~Cheap sex and sad films, help me get where I belong ~
*****OKNOTOK: A Radiohead Rare CD Finder*****
********* go.visit.kill christian rock *********
**http://members.tripod.com/~oknotok/main.html**
-Chris
Tegvyen the Magical Jennerferner
Liz Trowbridge <tro...@wincom.net> wrote:
>Could anybody please tell me the meaning or inspiration
>to the songs "no surprises" and "exit music (for a film)"
>i understand everyone takes songs differently, and i would just like to
>hear everyone's opinions... :) Have a Good Day.
From the mouth of Thom to Select Magazine:
"EXIT MUSIC:
We wrote this for 'Romeo & Juliet'. I saw the Zeffirelli version when I
was 13 and I cried my eyes out, because I couldn't understand why, the
morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away. It's a song
written for two people who should run away before all the bad stuff
starts. A personal song."
There. I think I'm gonna keep this article in my office from now on.
Or maybe I should just type up the article and it should be put in the
FAQs? :P
-Jennifer
---------------------------------------------------------------------
If you're going to complain, I'm just going to have to ignore you.
If you're going to compliment me, can you please send it to the Christian Coalition
ThaRedboy
>to the songs "no surprises" and "exit music (for a film)"
>i understand everyone takes songs differently, and i would just like to
>hear everyone's opinions... :) Have a Good Day.
seriously?
uh well yeah. no surprises, pretty straight forward, he's basically talking
about the hard stuff in every day life. 'a job that slowly kills you' and
'carbon monoxide' and he's saying he doesnt want any of that crap. no surprises
please.
and exit music, i cant believe you're seriously asking. its based solely on
romeo and juliet.
Carine
idea, I 'd written this for now:
No surprises: From the way I look at it or understand it, even though on
the surface it sounds like it is about someone wanting to trade its
suburban noisy, polluted, congested lifestyle to a quiet, simpler, country
one, I feel it is deeper than that. It sounds like it is about someone in
the process of committing suicide. Someone who is tired of the world, or
society itself, of the pains that its inflict on him, of the pressure that
it puts on him, feeling like he has done too much and not received his
dues, therefore wanting to end it all, by taking his life and transported
to a peaceful place(like heaven).
Exit Music: Not too hard to understand, it is very Romeo and Juliet like,
two lovers desperately wanting to be together, but outside forces wether,
it be society or their parents puts a barrier on them being together. So
they make an effort to escape and wish death or pain on everyone else that
cause them pain.
Liz Trowbridge <tro...@wincom.net> wrote in article
<36463EB0...@wincom.net>...
> Could anybody please tell me the meaning or inspiration
> to the songs "no surprises" and "exit music (for a film)"
> i understand everyone takes songs differently, and i would just like to
> hear everyone's opinions... :) Have a Good Day.
> Liz
>
>
>
merlin wright
> >to the songs "no surprises" and "exit music (for a film)"
> >i understand everyone takes songs differently, and i would just like to
> >hear everyone's opinions... :) Have a Good Day.
>
> uh well yeah. no surprises, pretty straight forward, he's basically talking
> about the hard stuff in every day life. 'a job that slowly kills you' and
> 'carbon monoxide' and he's saying he doesnt want any of that crap. no surprises
> please.
> and exit music, i cant believe you're seriously asking. its based solely on
> romeo and juliet.
>
exit music is a fucken wicked song..
i love it!
it is haunting and beautiful.
no surprises rox too.....
'specially when thom does it live..
he puts his all into it..
that's me done..
byes..
love kellie
Paranoia3
no suprises is about suicide
"this is my final fit
my final
belly ache"
and the sarcasm in
"such a pretty house
and such a pretty garden"
Its about giving up
and its the most deppressing nursery ryhme you'll ever witness....
Matt
"I had a dream,
and it split the scene.
But I gotta hunch,
it's coming back to me."
-Kim GOrdon
ICQ-
Polyethylene, or 13288648
morticia
Paranoia3 wrote:
> No man
>
> no suprises is about suicide
>
> "this is my final fit
> my final
> belly ache"
>
won't argue with that. "handshake with carbon monoxide" even though
i've heard the band say its not. ha. bollocks as y'all might say.
>
> and the sarcasm in
>
> "such a pretty house
> and such a pretty garden"
>
> Its about giving up
> and its the most deppressing nursery ryhme you'll ever witness....
>
> Matt
>
>
now theres the problem. he sings about all the giving up stuff and then
theres the long part between verses. when the new verse starts up then
its "such a pretty house". now i always thought that the in between
part is the death, and the second verse is him in heaven. or someplace
happy. i saw it as the end to his suffering and joy finally achieved.
calm and lovely and no alarms and no surprises. hmmm.
--
________________________________________________
bring down the government they don't they don't speak for us
mort...@ionet.net ICQ=2792357 AIM=MORETISHA
ThaRedboy
>theres the long part between verses. when the new verse starts up then
>its "such a pretty house". now i always thought that the in between
>part is the death, and the second verse is him in heaven. or someplace
>happy. i saw it as the end to his suffering and joy finally achieved.
>calm and lovely and no alarms and no surprises. hmmm.
wow... that's such an awesome way of thinking about it. i never thought of
that. thank you for enlightening me!
Graham Macpherson
the video when the water goes over his head. If so it seem reasonable to
assume that there is a death connection because drowning is a pretty
effective way of doing it. Also, the lips are out of sync. with the tune
after that bit, what does that mean, apart from dodgy directing?
Graham
>> now theres the problem. he sings about all the giving up stuff and then
>> theres the long part between verses. when the new verse starts up then
>> its "such a pretty house". now i always thought that the in between
>> part is the death, and the second verse is him in heaven. or someplace
>> happy. i saw it as the end to his suffering and joy finally achieved.
>> calm and lovely and no alarms and no surprises. hmmm.
>>
> HI. I totally agree with you. The break before "such a pretty
>house" seems to signal death to me. Also did you notice how it is not a
>slow somber break, but kind of uplifting, like death(suicide) is
>uplifting. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying radiohead is advocating
>suicide, just that the person in this song is finding it a better
>alternative to life. And also if you notice in the last verse beginning
>with "such a pretty house" and until the end of the song, there is a
>beautiful backround of singers singing harmony? Now that makes me feel
>like the narrator is in someplace surrounded by love and others, better
>than his existence on earth.
> JUst some thoughts I wanted to share.
> feel free to respond..
> -ali
Walrus239
himself, instead he realizes the beauty of the world around him and that
suicide is not the answer. I'm probably wrong, but it makes for a happier
ending.
Paranoia3
>Surprises<BR>
>From: thar...@aol.com (ThaRedboy)<BR>
>Date: 11/8/98 11:51 AM US Mountain Standard Time<BR>
>Message-id: <19981108135138...@ng134.aol.com><BR>
><BR>
>>now theres the problem. he sings about all the giving up stuff and then<BR>
>>theres the long part between verses. when the new verse starts up then<BR>
>>its "such a pretty house". now i always thought that the in between<BR>
>>part is the death, and the second verse is him in heaven. or someplace<BR>
>>happy. i saw it as the end to his suffering and joy finally achieved.<BR>
>>calm and lovely and no alarms and no surprises. hmmm.<BR>
><BR>
>wow... that's such an awesome way of thinking about it. i never thought
>that. thank you for enlightening me!<BR>
></HTML>
Yeah
i kinda like that one better than mine
yeah i thought somehwere the band said it wasnt about suicide too... but you
can never trust em... they lie bad to reporters sometimes
i heard that there were 16 takes of this song... i would like to hear some of
the other versions...
fountainhead
morticia wrote in message <3645CEF9...@ionet.net>...
>now theres the problem. he sings about all the giving up stuff and then
>theres the long part between verses. when the new verse starts up then
>its "such a pretty house". now i always thought that the in between
>part is the death, and the second verse is him in heaven. or someplace
>happy. i saw it as the end to his suffering and joy finally achieved.
>calm and lovely and no alarms and no surprises. hmmm.
i always though that the pretty house was a bad thing.
all these people have such pretty houses, and such pretty gardens.
but there are no surprises - where's the joy?
isn't the line about all these people, sitting in their pretty houses, who
really have nothing.
f.
everybody hates a drunk
fountainhead
ThaRedboy wrote in message <19981107232515...@ng-cr1.aol.com>...
>>Could anybody please tell me the meaning or inspiration
>>to the songs "no surprises" and "exit music (for a film)"
>>i understand everyone takes songs differently, and i would just like to
>>hear everyone's opinions... :) Have a Good Day.
>
>seriously?
>uh well yeah. no surprises, pretty straight forward, he's basically talking
>about the hard stuff in every day life. 'a job that slowly kills you' and
>'carbon monoxide' and he's saying he doesnt want any of that crap. no
surprises
>please.
isn't it more about living with all that? about not wanting any surprises?
it's somebody living in this monotonous world who'd rather just kill himself
than try anything different.
"i'll take a quiet life, a handshake and some carbon monoxide
no alarms and no surprises please"
morticia
Graham Macpherson wrote:
> Does the long part between verses you refer to coincide with the section of
> the video when the water goes over his head. If so it seem reasonable to
> assume that there is a death connection because drowning is a pretty
> effective way of doing it. Also, the lips are out of sync. with the tune
> after that bit, what does that mean, apart from dodgy directing?
>
> Graham
>
> >> now theres the problem. he sings about all the giving up stuff and then
> >> theres the long part between verses. when the new verse starts up then
> >> its "such a pretty house". now i always thought that the in between
> >> part is the death, and the second verse is him in heaven. or someplace
> >> happy. i saw it as the end to his suffering and joy finally achieved.
> >> calm and lovely and no alarms and no surprises. hmmm.
> >>
> > HI. I totally agree with you. The break before "such a pretty
> >house" seems to signal death to me. Also did you notice how it is not a
> >slow somber break, but kind of uplifting, like death(suicide) is
> >uplifting. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying radiohead is advocating
> >suicide, just that the person in this song is finding it a better
> >alternative to life. And also if you notice in the last verse beginning
> >with "such a pretty house" and until the end of the song, there is a
> >beautiful backround of singers singing harmony? Now that makes me feel
> >like the narrator is in someplace surrounded by love and others, better
> >than his existence on earth.
> > JUst some thoughts I wanted to share.
> > feel free to respond..
> > -ali
--
________________________________________________
mort...@ionet.net ICQ=2792357 AIM=MORETISHA
Jacob Pemberton
feeling suicidal. In the video, this person is consumed by the suicidal
feelings, and then submerged in water. But, for whatever reason, that
person overcomes the suicidal tendencies, and starts singing about how
pretty the world is. In the video, Thom escapes the water, and emerges
with a smile.
So, the song is not about suicide ... it's about avoiding suicide. A
slight but important difference.
Jake
Harrison Koehli
Just go through the pages, and it has most of the songs' meanings.
Pugg
Paul Hopwood wrote:
> Tegvyen the Magical Jennerferner <punk...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >There. I think I'm gonna keep this article in my office from now on.
> >Or maybe I should just type up the article and it should be put in the
> >FAQs? :P
>
> Actually, I've just copied both your last ones (Paranoid Android and
> Exit Music) straight into the FAQ... if you have any more I'd be
> happy to include them too.
>
> --
> >iv< Paul >iv<
>
> [ Mail: pa...@wall.demon.co.uk | Posted to alt.music.radiohead ]
> [ Work: paul.h...@courchem.com | -o- ]
> [ WWW: http://www.wall.demon.co.uk/paul | Get the FAQ at: ]
> [ Page: http://wwp.mirabilis.com/146566 | http://www.wall.demon.co.uk/amrfaq.txt ]
Alison
>
> Paranoia3 wrote:
>
> > No man
> >
> > no suprises is about suicide
> >
> > "this is my final fit
> > my final
> > belly ache"
> >
>
> won't argue with that. "handshake with carbon monoxide" even though
> i've heard the band say its not. ha. bollocks as y'all might say.
>
> >
> > and the sarcasm in
> >
> > and such a pretty garden"
> >
> > Its about giving up
> > and its the most deppressing nursery ryhme you'll ever witness....
> >
> > Matt
> >
> >
>
Paul Hopwood
ExtMusik79
I always thought that Thom (in the video, at least) was just a guy living in a
bubble...his own little world, if you will...and all of a sudden, someone comes
in and turns the lights on.
This doesn't make him happy, because he wants "A quiet life....no surpirses
please", so he decides to hold his breath until the intruder leaves and turns
the lights back off.
And his life quietly returns to normal.
I really didn't like the video until I thought about it that way.
Randy
extmu...@aol.com
___ a good memory.
Tegvyen the Magical Jennerferner
pa...@wall.demon.co.uk (Paul Hopwood) wrote:
>Actually, I've just copied both your last ones (Paranoid Android and
>Exit Music) straight into the FAQ... if you have any more I'd be
>happy to include them too.
Okay, I type up the rest...here they are:
"AIRBAG:
Has an airbag saved my life? Nah...but I tell you something, every time
you have a near accident, instead of just sighing and carrying on, you
should pull over, get out of the car and run down the street screaming,
"I'm BACK! I'm ALIVE! My life has started again today!" In fact, you
should do that every time you get out of a car. We're just riding on
those things - we're not really in control of them.
SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK ALIEN:
Ah, this is us desperate to be Miles Davis on "Bitches Brew". It's got a
groove. And it used to be called "Uptight". That's it really.
LET DOWN:
I was pissed in a club, and I suddenly had the funniest thought I'd had
for ages - what if all the people who were drinking were hanging from
the bottles...if the bottles were hung from the ceiling with string,
and the floor caved in, and the only thing that kept everyone up was the
bottles? It's also about an enormous fear of being trapped.
KARMA POLICE:
This is really schizophrenic, isn't it? There's that huge personality
change halfway through. Wait until you see the video! We're making the
whole LP into a film, commissioning it song by song.
[Jennifer's note: Ehhh...not anymore *giggle*]
FITTER HAPPIER:
The others were downstairs, "rockin'", and I crept upstairs and did this
in ten minutes. I was feeling incredible hysteria and panic, and it was
so liberating to give the lyrics to this neutral-sounding computer.
[Jennifer's note: There, it's proven that it is NOT Stephen Hawking.]
ELECTIONEERING:
I was thinking of the Poll Tax riots when I wrote this - the moment
when the horses broke through the barriers and everyone started smashing
windows. It's also from watching too many MPs on telly - you just get
that feeling of Whoah, I've seen this once too many times.
CLIMBING UP THE WALLS:
This is about the unspeakable. Literally skull-crushing. I used to work
in a mental hospital around the time that Care In The Community started,
and we all just knew what was going to happen. And it's one of the
scariest things to happen in this country, because a lot of them weren't
just harmless...It was hailing violently when we recorded this. It seems
to add to the mood.
NO SURPRISES:
The first song we recorded - that, erm, haunting, child-like guitar sound
set the mood for the whole album. We were going for that "Pet Sounds"
vibe.
LUCKY:
Everyone knows about this one. Recorded for War Child, unplayed by Radio
1. Who's "Sarah"? No one I know. It's just my favourite name.
THE TOURIST:
Ah, one of Jonny's songs. The lyrics come from being in a beautiful
square in France on a sunny day, and watching all these American tourists
being wheeled around, frantically trying to see everything in ten
minutes. You know: We've got to be in Paris tomorrow morning! And then I
saw this old bloke on telly, saying that he couldn't work out why the
world had got so fast and in a hurry. I just had an image of him standing
on a street corner, watching the traffic hurl by."
There ya go, Paul. Do with it what ya will.
-Jennifer
(dammit my fingers hurt *giggle*)
mail delivery subsystem
>
> Could anybody please tell me the meaning or inspiration
> to the songs "no surprises" and "exit music (for a film)"
> i understand everyone takes songs differently, and i would just like to
> hear everyone's opinions... :) Have a Good Day.
sounds like people want to be told different versions of the
sisyphus myth. so moody fellas write em up, like billy baldy corgan
and thombert yourke. as the fan of absurdity, l'etranger himself,
mentioned: suicide is the one serious philosophical probleme.
fried-reich tonietzsches idea of tragedy as being inseparable from
music and shakespeares, well, tragic little ditty...combine. regardless,
these all come together to form enjoyable and qualitative sonic
illustrations that are popular, and worth money to record execs.
someone's kid is eating off it. but. the situation extends further
than that...one must question: what the fuck kid in a hut ended up
dying in mud on his way home from a nasty ol' job in a third-world,
central american country which is forcing him to work in order
to please the supporting consumers and investors in america, who
rely on this kid's participation to listen to an artful tune?
maybe we should go get guitars, and sit by ourselves. in the dark.
Jdamen
it is quite obviously about wanting a life void of emotion and suprises-it's
got a very "across the universe" tone to it.
Lyons2187
its about how people fail to get involved until things become unbearable.
Just like in the video Thom stays under water till he can barely breathe before
something gets done. Landfills fill up one piece of garbage at a time.
Sooner or later you've got deal with it.
Visit http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/politics/aberfan/home.htm
for an example of suffocation and waste.
Carine
mean.
Lyons2187 <lyon...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19981114110241...@ng30.aol.com>...
Matthew Wootton
<jda...@aol.com> writes
connection. In my opinion, No Surprises is about wanting to die and
therefore avoid the surprises that life has for you. You've just had
enough of what life has to offer, so you want to end it (hence the
'carbon monoxide' line).
It has a toybox feel in order to contrast how we expect life to
be when we are children, the life of fairytales, with what actually
happens to us. The 'surprises' seem to be the difference between
fairytales and real life.
Well, in my opinion, anyway.
--
Matthew Wootton
Hear my music at: www.akooka.demon.co.uk and claim your free oxygen