Thom Yorke
Musician and the lead singer of the English rock band Radiohead.
"People sometimes say we take things too seriously, but it’s the only way you’ll get anywhere. We’re not going to sit around and wait and just be happy if something turns up. We are ambitious. You have to be." (in his first-ever interview, 1991) source
"I wouldn't be involved with it [pop music] if I wasn't aware that it was going to be a product. I always wanted whatever I did to end up in the high street, no matter what it was, because to me, there isn't anywhere else to go. It's pointless." source
She looks like the real thing,
She tastes like the real thing,
My fake plastic love.
But I can't help the feeling,
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turned and ran.
"I don't think young people are as demoralized as the media and government would like us to think. The obvious sign of that is how strong and how close personal connections are and how much people are able to build a life for themselves, despite all this stuff that's been thrown at them."
"You think I have the responsibilty... I have the responsibility to give the fans a good time! (nods at camera, then pauses)... that just sounds... kinky."
(about people's image of him) "I think that has a lot to do with the expression that's on my face. People are born with certain faces, like my father was born with a face that people want to hit. (laughs) source
I'm the next act waiting in the wings,
I'm an animal trapped in your hot car,
I am all the days that you choose to ignore,
You are all I need,
You're all I need,
I'm in the middle of your picture,
Lying in the reeds.
Rows of houses, all bearing down on me,
I can feel their blue hands touching me,
All these things into position,
All these things we'll one day swallow whole.
And fade out again,
And fade out...
"The video of 'Paranoid Android' has been censored by MTV. They took all nipples out of the cartoon, but they had no problem with the scene in which a man cuts off his own arms and legs." source
"I grew up under Thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. Then gradually over the years it occurred to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state."
"I didn't really come into it expecting to make songs. It started just with random bits and pieces. I guess I thought there would be vocals, but I was thinking in terms of using little vocal shreds, and of making them part of the tapestry, not the main thing. But as soon as we had gone through the initial sketches, it became obvious that they could be quite direct. Nigel basically dragged me kicking and screaming toward the concept of them being actual songs." - source
You used to be alright
What happened?
"We're at a time when we are being presented with undeniable changes in the global climate and fundamental issues that affect every single one of us, and it's the time we're listening to the most hokey shite on the radio and watching vacuous bullshit celebrities being vacuous bullshit celebrities and desperately trying to forget about everything. Which is fine, you know, but personally speaking, I can't do that." source
Drying up in conversation,
You will be the one who cannot talk,
All your insides fall to pieces,
You just sit there wishing you could still make love.
Her green plastic watering can
For a fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth.
"They're dangerous people, and what's really frightening is that they don't know it, they don't see themselves as dangerous... they see the danger elsewhere. The danger is always elsewhere. How convenient." source
(on his inability to read music) "If someone lays the notes on a page in front of me, it's meaningless...because to me you can't express the rhythms properly like that. It's a very ineffective way of doing it, so I've never really bothered picking it up." source
"I think the most important thing about music is the sense of escape."
He used to do surgery
On girls in the eighties,
But gravity always wins.
You do it to yourself, you do,
And that's what really hurts,
Is you do it to yourself, just you,
You and no-one else,
You do it to yourself.