Lotus Flower
Radiohead Lyrics


Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴  Line by Line Meaning ↴

I will shape myself into your pocket
Invisible
Do what you want
Do what you want

I will shrink and I will disappear
I will slip into the groove and cut me off
And cut me off

There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
And now I'll set you free
I'll set you free

There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I'll set you free
I'll set you free

Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is
I can't kick your habit
Just to fill your fast ballooning head
Listen to your heart

We will shrink and we'll be quiet as mice
And while the cat is away
Do what we want
Do what we want

There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I'll set you free
I'll set you free

'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is
The bird lights float into my room

Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
I dance around the pit
The darkness is beneath
I can't kick your habit




Just to feed your fast ballooning head
Listen to your heart

Overall Meaning

The lyrics of Radiohead's song Lotus Flower express the theme of surrendering oneself to another person. In the first verse, "I will shape myself into your pocket, invisible" indicates the desire to compromise and become subservient to the other person. The repetition of "do what you want" emphasizes the willingness to do whatever it takes to please them. The following lines "I will shrink and I will disappear" and "I will slip into the groove and cut me off" suggest the loss of one's identity in the process of submission.


The chorus of the song highlights the emptiness inside the singer's heart, where "weeds take root." Instead of holding onto their partner, they choose to set them free, recognizing that they cannot fill the void within. The second verse follows a similar theme to the first, with a hint of rebellion using the metaphor of mice while the cat is away. The line "just to fill your fast ballooning head" suggests the partner's growing ego and need for validation.


The song's bridge ties the theme together by portraying the singer's desire for the unattainable, the "moon upon a stick." While they dance around the pit of their emptiness, "the darkness is beneath," and they cannot kick their partner's habit of needing validation. The song concludes with the repetition of the chorus followed by the line, "listen to your heart," implying that the singer has learned to listen to their own heart and let go, accepting the emptiness inside.


Line by Line Meaning

I will shape myself into your pocket
I will mold myself to fit your needs


Invisible
I will do this without drawing attention to myself


Do what you want
I will let you have control over me


I will shrink and I will disappear
I will make myself smaller and less noticeable


I will slip into the groove and cut me off
I will become part of the background and remove myself from the situation


And cut me off
This is necessary for me to cope


There's an empty space inside my heart
I am missing something important


Where the weeds take root
This void is being filled with negative thoughts and emotions


And now I'll set you free
It's time for me to let go and move on


Slowly we unfurl
We are opening up and revealing ourselves


As lotus flowers
We are beautiful and complex in our growth


'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
I have an unattainable desire


Just to see what if
I am curious about the outcome


Just to see what is
I want to understand the truth


I can't kick your habit
I am struggling to break free from your influence


Just to fill your fast ballooning head
I am being used to boost your ego


Listen to your heart
You need to be true to yourself


We will shrink and we'll be quiet as mice
We will make ourselves small and silent to avoid detection


And while the cat is away
We will take advantage of the opportunity


Do what we want
We will take control of the situation


The bird lights float into my room
Positive thoughts and emotions enter my life


I dance around the pit
I am embracing the darkness instead of being afraid of it


The darkness is beneath
There is always something negative lurking beneath the surface




Lyrics ยฉ Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Colin Charles Greenwood, Edward John O'Brien, Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood, Philip James Selway, Thomas Edward Yorke

Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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Most interesting comments from YouTube:

@SaintMartins

There are "names" for Thom's dance moves......
0:01 the stretch
0:41 the boogie woogie
0:59 hands in ma' pocket
1:17 karate man
1:31 the heart attack
2:39 running chicken
3:01 the earthquaker
3:22 come little doggie
4:22 drunk girl dancing at the party



@xenofonpapougiannakis9654

Lyrics:

I will shake myself into your pocket
Invisible
Do what you want
Do what you want
I will sink and I will disappear
I will slip into the groove
And cut me off
And cut me off
There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I set you free
I set you free
There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I'll set you free
I'll set you free
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is
I can't kick the habit
"Just to feel your fast ballooning head"
Listen to your heart
We will shrink and then be quiet as mice
And while the cat is away
Do what we want
Do what we want
There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I set you free
I set you free
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is
The bird that's flown into my room
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the earth upon a stick
I dance around the pit, the darkness is beneath
I can't kick your habit
"Just to feed your fast ballooning head"
Listen to your heart



@user-ip9yu7lp1q

Lotus Flower (์—ฐ๊ฝƒ)

I will sneak myself into your pocket
๋‚œ ๋„ค ์ฃผ๋จธ๋‹ˆ์— ์ˆจ์–ด๋ฒ„๋ฆด๊ฑฐ์•ผ
Invisible, do what you want, do what you want
๋ณด์ด์ง€ ์•Š๊ฒŒ, ๋„ค๊ฐ€ ์›ํ•˜๋Š”๊ฑธ ํ•ด, ๋„ค๊ฐ€ ์›ํ•˜๋Š”๊ฑธ
I will sink and I will disappear
๋‚œ ๊ฐ€๋ผ์•‰์„๊ฑฐ๊ณ  ์‚ฌ๋ผ์งˆ๊ฑฐ์•ผ
I will slip into the groove
๋‚œ ํ™ˆ์— ๋ฏธ๋„๋Ÿฌ์ ธ ๋“ค์–ด๊ฐˆ๊ฑฐ์•ผ
and cut me up
๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ  ๋‚  ์ž˜๋ผ์ค˜

There's an empty space inside my heart
๋‚ด ๊ฐ€์Šด ์†์€ ๋นˆ ๊ณต๊ฐ„์ด์•ผ
Where the wings take root
๋‚ ๊ฐœ๋“ค์ด ๋ฟŒ๋ฆด ์žก์„๊ฑฐ์•ผ
So now I'll set you free
๊ทธ๋ž˜์„œ ์ด์ œ ๋‚œ ๋„ ๋†”์ค„๊ฑฐ์•ผ

There's an empty space inside my heart
๋‚ด ๊ฐ€์Šด ์†์€ ๋นˆ ๊ณต๊ฐ„์ด์•ผ
And it won't take root
๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ  ์ด๊ฑด ์•„์ง ๋ฟŒ๋ฆฌ ๋‚ด๋ฆฌ์ง€ ์•Š์•˜์–ด
Tonight I'll set you free
์˜ค๋Š˜๋ฐค, ๋‚œ ๋„ ๋†”์ค„๊ฑฐ์•ผ

Slowly we unfurl
์ฒœ์ฒœํžˆ ์šฐ๋ฆฐ ํ•„๊ฑฐ์•ผ
As lotus flowers
๋งˆ์น˜ ์—ฐ๊ฝƒ์ฒ˜๋Ÿผ
Because all I want is the moon upon a stick
๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ  ๋‚ด๊ฐ€ ์›ํ•˜๋Š” ๋ชจ๋“  ๊ฑด ๋ง‰๋Œ€์œ„ ๋‹ฌ ๊ฐ™์•„
Dancing around the pit
๊ตฌ๋ฉ ์ฃผ์œ„์—์„œ ์ถค์„ ์ถฐ
Just to see what it is
๊ทธ์ € ์ด๊ฒŒ ๋ญ”์ง€ ๋ณด๊ธฐ ์œ„ํ•ด
I can't kick the habit
๋‚œ ์ด ์Šต๊ด€์„ ๋ฒ„๋ฆด ์ˆ˜ ์—†์–ด
Just to feed your fast ballooning head
๊ทธ์ € ๋น ๋ฅด๊ฒŒ ๋ถ€ํ‘ธ๋Š” ๋„ค ๋จธ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋จน์ด๊ธฐ ์œ„ํ•ด์„œ
Listen to your heart
๋„ค ๋งˆ์Œ์˜ ์†Œ๋ฆด ๋“ค์–ด๋ด

We will sink and be quiet as mice
์šฐ๋ฆฐ ์ฅ๋–ผ์ฒ˜๋Ÿผ ์กฐ์šฉํžˆ ๊ฐ€๋ผ์•‰์„๊ฑฐ์•ผ
While the cat is away and do what we want
๊ณ ์–‘์ด๋“ค์ด ๋ฉ€๋ฆฌ ๋‹ฌ์•„๋‚ ๋•Œ ์šฐ๋ฆฐ ํ•˜๊ณ  ์‹ถ์€ ๊ฑธ ํ• ๊บผ์•„

There's an empty space inside my heart
๋‚ด ๊ฐ€์Šด ์†์€ ๋นˆ ๊ณต๊ฐ„์ด์•ผ
And now it won't take root
๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ  ์ง€๊ธˆ ์ด๊ฑด ์•„์ง ๋ฟŒ๋ฆฌ๋‚ด๋ฆฌ์ง€ ์•Š์•˜์–ด
Tonight I'll set you free
์˜ค๋Š˜๋ฐค ๋‚œ ๋„ ๋†”์ค„๊ฑฐ์•ผ
I set you free
๋„ ๋†”์ค„๊ฑฐ์•ผ
Because all I want is the moon upon a stick
์™œ๋ƒ๋ฉด ๋‚ด๊ฐ€ ์›ํ•˜๋Š” ๋ชจ๋“ ๊ฒƒ์€ ๋ง‰๋Œ€๊ธฐ์œ„ ๋‹ฌ์ด๊ฑฐ๋“ 
Just to see what it is
๋‹จ์ง€ ์ด๊ฑธ ๋ณด๊ธฐ ์œ„ํ•ด
Just to see what gives
๋‹จ์ง€ ๋ฌด์Šจ ์ผ์ธ์ง€ ๋ณด๊ธฐ ์œ„ํ•ด
Take the lotus flowers into my room
์—ฐ๊ฝƒ์„ ๋‚ด ๋ฐฉ์— ๋†”์ค˜

Slowly we unfurl As lotus flowers
์ฒœ์ฒœํžˆ ์šฐ๋ฆฐ ํ•„๊ฑฐ์•ผ ๋งˆ์น˜ ์—ฐ๊ฝƒ์ฒ˜๋Ÿผ
Cause All I want is the moon upon a stick
์šฐ๋ฆฌ๊ฐ€ ์›ํ•˜๋Š” ๋ชจ๋“  ๊ฒƒ์€ ๋ง‰๋Œ€๊ธฐ์œ„ ๋‹ฌ์ด๋‹ˆ๊น
Dance around a pit
๊ตฌ๋ฉ ์ฃผ์œ„์—์„œ ์ถค์„ ์ถฐ
The darkness is beneath
์–ด๋‘ ์ด ๋ฐ”๋กœ ๋ฐ‘์— ์žˆ์–ด
I can't kick the habit
๋‚œ ์ด ์Šต๊ด€์„ ๋ฒ„๋ฆด ์ˆ˜ ์—†์–ด
Just to feed you fast ballooning head
๊ทธ์ € ๋น ๋ฅด๊ฒŒ ๋ถ€ํ’€์–ด ์˜ค๋ฅด๋Š” ๋„ค ๋จธ๋ฆฌ๋ฅผ ๋จน์ด๊ธฐ ์œ„ํ•ด
Listen to your heart
๋„ค ๋งˆ์Œ์˜ ์†Œ๋ฆด ๋“ค์–ด๋ด



@florentduchalet8458

I will shake myself into your pocket
Invisible
Do what you want
Do what you want
I will sink and I will disappear
I will slip into the groove
And cut me off
And cut me off
There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I set you free
I set you free
There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I'll set you free
I'll set you free
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is
I can't kick the habit
"Just to feel your fast ballooning head"
Listen to your heart
We will shrink and then be quiet as mice
And while the cat is away
Do what we want
Do what we want
There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I set you free
I set you free
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is
The bird that's flown into my room
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the earth upon a stick
I dance around the pit, the darkness is beneath
I can't kick your habit
"Just to feed your fast ballooning head"
Listen to your heart



@beetsbears

I created a dance to this song
Here are the moves to learn
โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”
0:50: aggressively shake maracas
0:54: tiktok dances be like
1:01 gangster walk
1:11 completely giving up
1:21 jab the air aggressively
1:27 wth u lookin at?
1:30 seizure time
1:36 heartburn
1:38 turning dials on the washing machine while high
1:49 severe heartburn
1:56 drowning thom
2:05 thom the plant
2:14 too short to reach on top of the fridge
2:28 hats off to you lad
2:38: my hat is a steering wheel
2:40: and it has wings
2:51: goodnight
2:53: jk I have a hammer

2:58: drying off your hands
3:02. electrocuted crab
3:09: EARTHQUAKE
3:24: that monkey toy that claps the cymbals together (donโ€™t know what itโ€™s called)
3:40 makeup commercial
3:51: me wishing for a new Radiohead album
4:22: the thom shuffle
4:52 catch the annoying flies
โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”โ€”
This song is brilliant and this comment is a joke

Also try listening to this at x1.50 speed. The dancing is perfect although terrifying

Edit: Thanks for all the nice comments! now I feel like a genius

Another edit: what is your favorite Radiohead song?

My favorites are Talk Show Host, Idioteque, exit music for a film, backdrifts, wolf at the door, electioneering, my iron lung, 15 step, in limbo, let down, and every other song in their discography lol

โ€ขpoint is, I canโ€™t choose a favorite. They all are goodโ€ข

anyone like his solo stuff? or atoms for peace? the smile?


my favorite song from atoms for peace has to be either default or before your very eyes

My favorites of his solo stuff have to be The Clock, Black Swan, Twist, and Traffic


Well anyways, enjoy your music and have a nice day ๐Ÿ’œ

edit, again: thank you for being so nice in the comments!



@blackogre7719

Radiohead - Lotus Flower (Lyrics)

I will shake myself into your pocket
Invisible
Do what you want
Do what you want

I will sink and I will disappear
I will slip into the groove
And cut me off
And cut me off

There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I set you free
I set you free

There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I'll set you free
I'll set you free

Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is
I can't kick the habit
"Just to feel your fast ballooning head"
Listen to your heart

We will shrink and then be quiet as mice
And while the cat is away
Do what we want
Do what we want

There's an empty space inside my heart
Where the weeds take root
So now I set you free
I set you free

'Cause all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what if
Just to see what is

The bird that's flown into my room
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
'Cause all I want is the earth upon a stick
I dance around the pit, the darkness is beneath
I can't kick your habit
"Just to feed your fast ballooning head"
Listen to your heart



@paulinairigoyen4708

The song is about a man who is looking for inner peace and emotional freedom. He uses the image of the lotus flower to talk about how he wants to overcome his problems and feel free.

In the song, the man says there's a hole in his heart where love and pain have gone. That means he feels sad and lonely, but he wants to find a way to feel better.

The man also says he imagines everything he could be. That means he's thinking about the things he could do and the people he could meet to find happiness and freedom.

Overall, the song is about how it's important to seek inner peace and happiness, even if it's hard sometimes. The lyrics are very poetic and abstract, but I think the main idea is easy to understand: we all want to be happy and free.

-Chat GPT



All comments from YouTube:

@pulllak

Hi, my name's Thom Yorke and I'll be your freestyle dance teacher

@yasminebensalah2835

i once had a dream of Thom Yorke being my teacher xD

@littlejessiej

KAลžDOQลžDOAลžSO

@deathlove0211

@@yasminebensalah2835 best dream ever

@ImRunningazoo

I'm in! signed me up ๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿ˜๐Ÿคช

@florian2464

hey Immanuel u very nice but why the f*** is your critique of pure reason so long? and i heard that you died as a virgin of the age of 80, is that linked?

50 More Replies...

@Jonnygreenwoodno1fan

โ€œWhy do you take so long to shower!??โ€
Me in the bathroom:

@iforgoteverythinf

beautiful pic

@helloimclark8834

so relatable man

@tygical

REAL

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