Paranoid Android
Radiohead Lyrics
Please could you stop the noise
I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken voices in my head
What's that?
What's that?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all
What's that?
What's that?
Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking, squealing Gucci little piggy
You don't remember
You don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?
Off with his head, man
Off with his head, man
Why don't you remember my name?
I guess he does
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Oh oh oh
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height, height
Rain down, rain down
Come on, rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height
Rain down, rain down (that's it, sir, you're leaving, the crackle of pigskin)
Come on rain down on me (the dust and the screaming, the yuppies networking)
From a great height (the panic, the vomit, the panic, the vomit)
God loves his children
God loves his children, yeah
Lyrics © 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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"Paranoid Android" is a song by English alternative rock band Radiohead, and was the lead single from the band's third album OK Computer (1997). Its release marked the start of Radiohead's reputation as art rock innovators, and the album subsequently received huge acclaim. This song has garnered a reputation for being Radiohead's greatest work and one of the best rock songs of all time. The song's structure, though unique among Radiohead material Read Full Bio"Paranoid Android" is a song by English alternative rock band Radiohead, and was the lead single from the band's third album OK Computer (1997). Its release marked the start of Radiohead's reputation as art rock innovators, and the album subsequently received huge acclaim. This song has garnered a reputation for being Radiohead's greatest work and one of the best rock songs of all time. The song's structure, though unique among Radiohead material, was also responsible for most of the comparisons with 1970s progressive rock that the band subsequently earned.
This song was inspired by some events that Thom Yorke witnessed at and after a star studded awards show. The lyrics "kicking, screaming, Gucci little piggy" are one of the more obvious references.
Singer Thom Yorke often refers to it as a "joke" song, though not derisively; the band continues to play it live at nearly every concert, usually toward the end of the set. The song's title refers to the depressed robot Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Paranoid Android was recorded in actress Jane Seymour's fifteenth-century mansion, a house that Yorke was convinced was haunted. Bassist Colin Greenwood said "On 'Paranoid Android' what we were into was the idea of a DJ Shadow meets The Beatles thing." Thom Yorke also compared the song to The Beatles' work, saying "it really started out as three separate songs and we didn't know what to do with them. Then we thought of 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun' — which was obviously three different bits that John Lennon put together — and said 'Why don't we try that?'"
Early versions of the song performed in 1996 had a different structure and varying lyrics. According to members of the band, "Paranoid Android" originally exceeded 10 minutes. It is unknown whether this long version, also fabled to include organ solos, was ever played live. However, it was possibly played by Radiohead at the Rock Werchter Festival in Belgium in July 1996, apparently the song's first live performance.
One month later, Radiohead began a brief tour as opening band for Alanis Morissette, in which they premiered many new songs that would go on to make up OK Computer, and played "Paranoid Android" regularly. By this point, the song was six to eight minutes long, without extended organ solos. However, the ending differed markedly from the final version of "Paranoid Android." The third section originally had the lyrics "Hallelujah", where the final version has "Rain down...", and instead of the lyrics "God loves his children /God loves his children, yeah," the final line of the song was reportedly, "God loves his children / That's why he kills 'em, yeah," which was part of a different third section which also included other different lyrics and was extended longer, eventually returning to the opening theme and guitar riff of the song's first section, while the released version ultimately went straight into the final guitar solo. When played live since 1997, the song is performed as on the album, lacking these elements.
Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has performed a cover of Paranoid Android on his album "Largo". It is also a live performance on his 2004 "Live in Tokyo" disc. Tribute and Radiohead cover albums also prominently feature the song; Christopher O'Riley's Hold Me to This features a version, as do Sia Furler on Exit Music: Songs with Radio Heads and the reggae group Easy Star All-Stars on their cover album Radiodread. Los Angeles rock band Phantom Planet has also covered the song; a version of it is on their album Connect Sets, and they perform it live.
This song was inspired by some events that Thom Yorke witnessed at and after a star studded awards show. The lyrics "kicking, screaming, Gucci little piggy" are one of the more obvious references.
Singer Thom Yorke often refers to it as a "joke" song, though not derisively; the band continues to play it live at nearly every concert, usually toward the end of the set. The song's title refers to the depressed robot Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Paranoid Android was recorded in actress Jane Seymour's fifteenth-century mansion, a house that Yorke was convinced was haunted. Bassist Colin Greenwood said "On 'Paranoid Android' what we were into was the idea of a DJ Shadow meets The Beatles thing." Thom Yorke also compared the song to The Beatles' work, saying "it really started out as three separate songs and we didn't know what to do with them. Then we thought of 'Happiness Is a Warm Gun' — which was obviously three different bits that John Lennon put together — and said 'Why don't we try that?'"
Early versions of the song performed in 1996 had a different structure and varying lyrics. According to members of the band, "Paranoid Android" originally exceeded 10 minutes. It is unknown whether this long version, also fabled to include organ solos, was ever played live. However, it was possibly played by Radiohead at the Rock Werchter Festival in Belgium in July 1996, apparently the song's first live performance.
One month later, Radiohead began a brief tour as opening band for Alanis Morissette, in which they premiered many new songs that would go on to make up OK Computer, and played "Paranoid Android" regularly. By this point, the song was six to eight minutes long, without extended organ solos. However, the ending differed markedly from the final version of "Paranoid Android." The third section originally had the lyrics "Hallelujah", where the final version has "Rain down...", and instead of the lyrics "God loves his children /God loves his children, yeah," the final line of the song was reportedly, "God loves his children / That's why he kills 'em, yeah," which was part of a different third section which also included other different lyrics and was extended longer, eventually returning to the opening theme and guitar riff of the song's first section, while the released version ultimately went straight into the final guitar solo. When played live since 1997, the song is performed as on the album, lacking these elements.
Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has performed a cover of Paranoid Android on his album "Largo". It is also a live performance on his 2004 "Live in Tokyo" disc. Tribute and Radiohead cover albums also prominently feature the song; Christopher O'Riley's Hold Me to This features a version, as do Sia Furler on Exit Music: Songs with Radio Heads and the reggae group Easy Star All-Stars on their cover album Radiodread. Los Angeles rock band Phantom Planet has also covered the song; a version of it is on their album Connect Sets, and they perform it live.
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Simone Lego
Please could you stop the noise?
I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken
Voices in my head
What's there?
(I may be paranoid, but not an android)
What's there?
(I may be paranoid, but not an android)
When I am king
You will be first against the wall
With your opinion
Which is of no consequence at all
What's there?
(I may be paranoid, but no android)
What's there?
(I may be paranoid, but no android)
Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking and squealing Gucci little piggy
You don't remember, you don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?
Off with his head, man
Off with his head, man
Why don't you remember my name?
I guess he does
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height
Height
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height
Height
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
That's it, sir
You're leaving
The crackle of pigskin
The dust and the screaming
The yuppies networking
The panic, the vomit
The panic, the vomit
God loves his children
God loves his children, yeah
DominikΩ омега сеншу
Here's my interpretation of the video ig:
We start with what I'll call Tim. Starts with him waking up from being drunk, his room has a pornographic wallpaper, a few metal posters and a cross. I think Tim is meant to be your average person, he's flawed and materialistic, even if he has his own beliefs. The couch says "The son of four Kings" of something like that. No idea what it could mean.
So, beanie Tim goes over to take a shower, and he procceeds to wash his eyes. This could either just be a visual gag since he doesn't take his beanie off, or maybe it's a metaphor for him cleaning his eyes, and so seeing clearer, which leads him to see the revelation of the end of the video.
The blue suited fat man probably symbolizes the global neo-capitalist powers. Since he doesn't have any flag. One of the representatives asks for his attention, but he willfully ignores it, nervously. That's a personification of the international system, countries and their people need these resources, yet corporations have no real interest in that.
Tim and his friend go over to a prostitute, that comes from a tree. She comes from outside the dirty, ugly city because she represents a relief found in hedonism, an escape from the daily. Suddenly she rages on for her payment. another reminder it's all moved by money.
The mourning representative is pretty straight forward.
Now, the pet shop. The focus on sex once again enforces how it's really the only real escape from the daily life.
Tim gets in trouble, his friend too busy with drinks and sex to care. I think it's important to point out the blonde man, who's acting up, seemingly trying to be fun or enjoy himself, but is utterly unwanted and so someone tells him to leave. I think he's just a display of how unpleasant people are. You're either uncaring and apathetic, or trying to act up for attention.
After being pushed around, Tim climbs up a post, seemingly trying to remove himself from life. The fat man is also seemingly struggling with himself, in fact, he's always sweating. As if nervous, maybe guilty.
Once he sees Tim straying away from normality, he starts raging, stripping himself naked, exposing just how depraved he really is under that nice suit. Tim's friend tries to point out Tim isn't even there anymore, but he keeps going. This could be about how this figure's attempts serve no one, not the initial apparent goal, neither himself, as it causes him to chop himself apart. Tim's friend procceeds to gladly throw his remains away.
Now, about Tim's little journey. It seems to be some sort of acceptance. He removed himself, and now he can actually get on with his life. He's elevated himself from his unaware understanding of before. And so, when he's back, he's ready to keep going, even if nothing changed.
Now we see the Business man is reinvented and turned into a clothed figure, put back on the same tree where the prostitute is. I think this is a metaphor on how he, and what he represents, is ultimately prostitution. He doesn't believe or follow anything, he's there for his own gain, and so, he's willing to do whatever it takes, to prostitute himself.
Banor
Fun fact:
The original ending lyric was "God loves his children, that's why he kills them, yeah" but the record label at the time threatened to pull the whole thing unless that lyric was removed.
william grondines
thanks for the info
adonai yah
Wellbit probably would've isolated a lotta fans if it weren't
PopulousLove
Their deaths are precious to Him. So says scripture.
Leon Ruvalcaba
So, does god loves me? Or he just want to kill me?
Bifflobous
The repetition of “God loves his children” at the end comes off as very eerie to me, it fits the song so much better than the killing line. And like a few others have already stated here, the line “God loves his children” in a song like this already pragmatically implies something negative about God so it doesn’t really matter in the end
paolo marcelli
I love how on every comment section of 90s cult rock songs there’s some guy writing a nostalgic paragraph about the first time they listened to it
Like Hell
This happens every decade as the last one gets to the "old music" status
Duder McDudeface
Which decades are you comparing it to, son? Have you by chance heard any music prior to this? I have, and I remember the people who spoke nostalgically about it. It's a common theme, and your unfamiliarity with it says you're not very musically inclined.
rea
@paolo marcelli oh thats cool then