Graffiti mural discovered at the corner of Pike and Summit, Seattle.
"I have no idea what I am talking about.
I'm trapped in this body and can't get out."
—from "Bodysnatchers" by Radiohead, In Rainbows
The second track of Radiohead's In Rainbows album, "Bodysnatchers," is wedged between the rapid-fire percussion and guitar noodling of "15 Step" and strange off-kilter soft jazz of "Nude." It is like neither of the songs that bookend it.
It begins with what could easily pass for either a late-Mark I or early-Mark III Wire song. Thom Yorke's voice then declares that this does indeed belong to Radiohead. The music shifts slightly toward garage rock somewhat akin to the Sonics and then a combination of guitar fuzz, chanting, and moaning that could have easily been included on the Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf. The next reference is the psychedelic shoegazing of either Sky Cries Mary or Jesus and Mary Chain. A Beatles-esque guitar riff signals the final shift, whereupon the song ends with guttural mumbling from Thom ("mah-mah-mah-mah-mah-mah-mah") and a crescendo of voice, guitar, bass, and feedback that is gone as quickly as it began.
If it sounds less than cohesive, then that is the brilliance of the track, because it holds together rather well. It threatens to spin apart from the centrifugal force it generates, but never does. The tension is what intrigues. I feel like I am experiencing the paranoia and claustrophobia of the lyrics and music as I listen.
I imagine that this is what birth might be like—the rhythmic comfort of "15 Step" as those final moments in the womb, the contained chaos and turmoil of "Bodysnatchers" as entering the world, and the restored calm of "Nude" as the newly naked body in the world, slightly tired from all of the previous "work." And, then seven more quality tracks of various tempo and tone and instrumentation follow, just like in life.
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