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Radiohead - The Tourist

Radiohead - The Tourist Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

The Tourist Lyrics

It barks at no one else but me,
Like it's seen a ghost.
I guess it's seen the sparks a-flowin,
No one else would know.

Hey man, slow down, slow down,
Idiot, slow down, slow down.

Sometimes I get overcharged,
That's when you see sparks.
They ask me where the hell I'm going?
At a 1000 feet per second,

Hey man, slow down, slow down,
Idiot, slow down, slow down.

Hey man, slow down, slow down,
Idiot, slow down, slow down.

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Tourist

This is the last song on OK Computer, and it deals with a reckless driver. The first song on the album is "Airbag," so this serves as a warning of impending disaster.

According to Q magazine (April 2008) this was written by Jonny Greenwood in response to seeing a group of tourists dash through a town in France. It was intended to be a song about the "speed you live your life with." Yorke later added lyrics that he'd written on holiday in Prague.

Jonny Greenwood (from Humo magazine July 22, 1997): "That is MY song. I was surprised that the other four let me do it. 'The Tourist' doesn't sound like Radiohead at all. It's a song where there doesn't have to happen anything every three seconds. It has become a song with space."

Jonny Greenwood played the main melody on a Mellotron, a vintage keyboard that plays sounds recorded onto tape loops.

Radiohead - Airbag

Radiohead - Airbag Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

Airbag Lyrics

In the next world war
In a jack knifed juggernaut
I am born again

In the neon sign
Scrolling up and down
I am born again

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

In a deep, deep sleep
Of the innocent
I am born again

In a fast German car
I'm amazed that I survived
An Airbag saved my life

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Airbag

This song is about a car crash Thom Yorke was in with his girlfriend in 1987. She suffered whiplash, but he was fine. Says Yorke: "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."

Yorke: "So much of the public's perception revolves around illusion. That's what Airbag is about, the illusion of safety. In reality, airbags don't really work, and they go off at random."

Radiohead first began performing this song acoustic, and the working title was "An Airbag Saved My Life," which was a reference to Indeep's 1983 Dance hit "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life."

Guitarist Jonny Greenwood: "Airbag is a classic example of Colin and Phil saying, 'Let's make it sound like DJ Shadow.' But unfortunately - or fortunately - it doesn't, because we missed again. It's that thing of lumbering around in the dark, but still being excited by what we do. We're discovering these things for the first time rather than getting the pros in to show us how to do it."

This is the first song on the album OK Computer. The last song on the album, "The Tourist," is about reckless driving, which leads up to a car crash. Therefore, the album ends where it starts and makes a bizarre circle of death.

The original title of the song was "An airbag saved my life." During an XFM Acoustic Session in October, 1995, Thom Yorke said this was the title of an article in an AAA magazine that came through the post.

This was built around a looped 3-second sample of drummer Phil Selway, who cited instrumental hip hop producer DJ Shadow as an inspiration. Selway explained to Humo magazine July 22, 1997: "How that man pastes rhythms to each other. The end result sounds a lot different than we intended by the way."

Radiohead - Fitter Happier

Radiohead - Fitter Happier Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

Fitter Happier Lyrics

Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries ,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends
(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at
(moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash
(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,
tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick,
that's driven into
frozen winter xxxx
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics.
Sample looping in background:

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS / GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY / RICKWOOD, DAN
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Fitter Happier

This less-than-two-minute insert is a long commentary on life and how artificial it has become. It is spoken in a metallic voice and it is not listed as a song on the album, although it is right next to "Karma Police" in small letters on the back. The voice was generated by the Macintosh computer SimpleText application.

In an interview with Guitar World magazine, Yorke described the song as a checklist of slogans for the '90s, which he called "the most upsetting thing I've ever written."

This song, known for its computerized voice, is musically a hybrid of a score composed by Jonny Greenwood, and a piano part written by Thom Yorke (and recorded while drunk).

Thom Yorke (from Humo magazine July 22, 1997): "I had writer's block for 3 months. In that period I could only make lists of words. It took me a long time to figure out that the only way I could translate my thoughts was with these lists." Yorke added in the same interview that he wasn't standing behind the lyrics any more as "sometimes your ideas get entangled with other ideas and then you have to apologize for the original idea because it doesn't make sense any more. That's what happened with 'Fitter Happier.' Now, I listen to the piano part."

This was featured in printed form in adverts promoting the album, prompting Ed O'Brien to comment, "I think that some people really believe that message and think that we are some kind of health-freaks."

During Radiohead's 1997 tour this song was used to introduce the band on stage. Previously they had used pieces from French minimalist composer Olivier Messiaen.

The sample loop in the background of the song says: "This is the Panic Office, section nine-seventeen may have been hit. Activate the following procedure."

Radiohead - Climbing Up The Walls

Radiohead - Climbing Up The Walls Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

Climbing Up The Walls Lyrics

I am the key to the lock in your house
That keeps your toys in the basement
And if you get too far inside
You'll only see my reflection

It's always best when the light is off
I am the pick in the ice
Do not cry out or hit the alarm
You know we're friends till we die

And either way you turn
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there
Climbing up the walls

It's always best when the light is off
It's always better on the outside
Fifteen blows to the back of your head
Fifteen blows to your mind

So lock the kids up safe tonight
Shut the eyes in the cupboard
I've got the smell of a local man
Who's got the loneliest feeling

That either way he turns
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there

Climbing up the walls
Climbing up the walls
Climbing up the walls

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Climbing Up The Walls Song Chart

This is the first track in the band's repertoire to be described as "scary." It relies heavily on strings, but not in the conventional way. The string section features 16 different violins playing quarter tones apart from each other.

Lead singer Thom Yorke: "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 seemed to add to the mood."

More from Yorke: "Some people can't sleep with the curtains open in case they see the eyes they imagine in their heads every night burning through the glass. Lots of people have panic buttons fitted in their bedrooms so they can reach over and set the alarm off without disturbing the intruder. This song is about the cupboard monster." (thanks, michelle - shingle springs, CA, for all above)

Radiohead recorded the album in the mansion of actress Jane Seymour, who was busy filming her show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Ed O'Brien felt that the gothical mood of this track was the result of recording in its library. The Cure also recorded their 1996 Wild Mood Swings album in Seymour's mansion.

The phrase "Climbing up the walls" means being in a state of agitation through stress or worry.

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood sometimes uses a radio when they perform this, tuning it to different stations during the song. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France, for above 2)

The string coda at the end was largely inspired by an interest the band had in modern Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki, whose works also feature on the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.