The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Downs)

[Harvey]

From Thom Yorke's 2006 solo album The Eraser. From the link:

"It's the most angry song I've ever written in my life", Thom Yorke told Craig McLean in an interview in The Guardian in June 2006. The content of the song perfectly expresses the anger and despair millions of people in the US and Europe felt when the invasion in Iraq started in March 2003, justified with clear lies by the American and British governments about the 'evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq'. David Kelly was a British government expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq who disputed the 'evidence' and told a BBC-reporter. This resulted in a critical BBC-report in May 2003 about the UK government and severe government questioning of David Kelly in July 2003 as the supposed source. He was found dead on Harrowdown Hill two days later.

[FourthBase]

That Gaia painting is a trip.

I've also never seen a more perfect visual representation of the kind of "Satan's cock" that Thom Yorke once talked about sucking.

The Hatton Garden heist is also a trip. The police were alerted to a burglar alarm, and then...did nothing?

2 April: 21:23 "Mr Ginger" descended to the vault, followed by three men pulling wheelie bins[13]
3 April: 00:21 Metropolitan Police were informed that the burglar alarm had been triggered
3 April: 08:05 gang members talked before going to their van and driving away
4 April: 21:17 "Mr Ginger" went down into vault, and was later joined by two other men

I wonder if the burglars' families are either living exceedingly well or suffering mysterious demises.

The idea that the real heist involved pedophilia blackmail gave me the idea to peruse Radiohead's work for references to children. As you can imagine, the references are not pleasant.

There's this refrain from "Wolf at the Door":

I keep the wolf from the door
But he calls me up
Calls me on the phone
Tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up
Steal all my children if I don't pay the ransom
And I'll never see them again if I squeal to the cops

Then there's the video for "Like Spinning Plates", where two disturbingly-fused, crying twin babies are locked in a centrifuge and spun until their bellies bubble up and burst Alien-style and their rib cages are pulled out. Not gonna link that. Look it up yourself if you want that nightmare fuel. (Good fucking christ is Radiohead way more warped than I remember.)

This fan page has a lot of info on the song, including a Yorke poem apparently posted on radiohead.com that contains a reference to cloud cuckoo land that would find its way into the song.

https://citizeninsane.eu/music/amnesiac ... lates.html

amateur poetry for yu
cloud fucking cuckoo land.
for christmas i got yu
a still born prepacked newborn slave
to serve your every need
no blood no mess just reheat
ready to make your cushy numbered
mash potatoe comfort dayglo roadsafe trainers
so yor feet can take a rest from the struggle of the behest
responsibilities of power the terrible terrible strain
it must make on yor every waking hour on your playstation trigger finger on yodisco dancing into
cloud fucking cuckoo land
into the wee small hours because we know how to have a good time in 1999
and lose some of that fat kidswatch the world collapse like a discontinued component in a newoutdatedappliance which

yu will soon throw on the scrap heap with the corpses and the fridges with the

cfcs+killerbees.

let s carry on marching into the light for we are gods chosen people 20 12 98.

Yorke says he worked at a mental hospital, hence the creepy-as-fuck lyrics to "Climbing Up the Walls", but I'm beginning to suspect he wasn't just "working" there.

Some lines from that poem made it into a book of Donwood/Yorke art called, wait for it, Dead Slow Children Playing.

Here are some pages.



(Ho-hum, just another allusion to cannibalism.)



(What's in the box? Why are those witnesses blinded? Why does that evil bear creature now make me think of a pedobear?)



"Collapsing", again. Obviously there was a lot of foreboding end-of-the-world energy leading up to 2000, I was there, too, I remember. Still, "collapsing" is an interesting way to envision banks failing.

That line comes from another Yorke poem.

https://citizeninsane.eu/music/amnesiac/orgy.html

lets see all the blue collared boot boys sweat+whine
police on hoorsback broken bones
we sit in the back while no-one drives
two headed monsters
three headed brides
nobody is free to do what they want
waited on hand and foot
the worlds best selling drug
comrades with mobile phones
the illegitimate bastard sons
crawling out from under stones
daddy daddy ive come home
a woman flutters her eyelashes in washington
and bombs rain down in sudan
women and children first
carry on smiling
and the world will smile with you
ill laugh my nuts off the day the banks collapse
im alright jack
the day the banks collapse
in bloody palestine
made in china
the amazing sound of the killing hordes
human time bomb
we want to see them beg for life
chop off the fingers in the pie
i want to see you smile again
the day the banks collapse
the puce synthetic voice that says were fine
limitless scenarios
limitless channels
on which to watch
who was right
and who was wrong.
who was right
and who was wrong.
who was right
and who was wrong.

There was a hidden booklet in the jewel case for Kid A when it was released. Here are some pages.



(Yorke is quite the edgelord poet. I wonder if he meant the "COME ON KIDS" line in both the pied piper and the sick and twisted sense.)



(Is that supposed to be a crying "minotaur", too?)



(I'm very much in favor of demonizing Tony Blair, if that's him, but "TO REFLECT THE BLAST WHEN IT COMES" is still interesting.)

Finally, I just noticed this from the "Airbag" single:



"This mini-album is aimed at the USA."
And there goes the airplane, nosing its way into view.

[PufPuf93]

What I like about RI is that the USA can impeach POTUS Trump today and this thread is the most active thread in General Discussion here.

[FourthBase]

Okay, now, here's a really interesting Kid A painting. Didn't catch my eye at first, I just scrolled over it. Here's the painting as it appeared with the CD.



Just a landscape with ominous energy.

But look a little harder.

Here, maybe the full painting will reveal something.



Now, tell me if I'm just punchdrunk by this theory and seeing shit, feeling something that isn't there, but...are those not two distinctly-cornered and vertically-lined skyscraper-ish rectangles in the bottom right quadrant, does that not look more than a little vaguely like the twin towers, perhaps behind a smoky white fog, with the one on the left shooting out flames from the top?

[FourthBase]

Okay, so, while I've been entertaining all this and leaning into the spookier interpretations, and while I've always been weirded out by the Rain Down plane, now I am genuinely freaked the fuck out. I would very, very, very much like to know if that image was part of the original Kid A artwork or just added to some later re-issue. If the latter, then it's obviously Donwood making a subtle reference to Klosterman's half-assed (or, quarter-assed) theory. Right? If it's the former...well, since that sure as fuck looks to me like the WTC shooting flames, then if it was painted in 2000 then that can only mean one of two things. One, the tapped-into-a-frequency explanation: Radiohead (including Donwood as an unofficial member) were able to foresee the future in some psychic, cosmic-slippage kind of way. Two, the tipped-off-as-accomplices explanation: They absolutely fucking knew what was coming. Hate to say it, but, I do not find the innocent psychic explanation very convincing anymore. I don't know how it would've worked exactly, the mind boggles, but complicit foreknowledge is way, way more plausible. Especially now, after finally seeing that last painting. Consider me shook. Somebody please find me proof that the image was a re-issue addition. Or else I'm really going to have to wage informational war against one of my favorite bands. I suppose I could pull all this half-assed theorizing together, polish it a bit, and get, say, Vigilant Citizen to publish it or something. I'd say the odds of it going viral are pretty good. But first, somebody tell me that was just a morbid tongue-in-cheek nod to Klosterman, painted after the fact.

[FourthBase]

Or maybe I'm just seeing things.

It's late. I'm groggy.

Could just be two random vertical streaks.

It's possible.

What say you?

[lucky]

Or maybe I'm just seeing things.

It's late. I'm groggy.

Could just be two random vertical streaks.

It's possible.

What say you?

Definitely two towers and flames - hell there are even windows eluded to on the one on the right at the bottom, i guess its all about the timing, when it was painted in its entirety. Excellent find

[FourthBase]

Or maybe I'm just seeing things.

It's late. I'm groggy.

Could just be two random vertical streaks.

It's possible.

What say you?

Definitely two towers and flames - hell there are even windows eluded to on the one on the right at the bottom, i guess its all about the timing, when it was painted in its entirety. Excellent find

Thank you.

I feel validated and not-completely-crazy.

Now how can it be so hard to identify when that limited edition CD + book was released? Seems like the search engines think I'm either searching for the original Kid A release that had the hidden booklet or searching for the vinyl re-issue. None of the few results for the one in question mention a release date. Let's see, how else can I figure this out...I suppose I could Google Image Search the cropped cover or the full painting and click on every result and see if there's a date. Must be a more efficient way than that. What's the magic search method I'm missing? Is there some operator that will narrow it down? Ooh, wait, I didn't even try an advanced search, maybe there's a date range. BRB.

[norton ash]

Creative geniuses like Radiohead might intuit and express the first images of the egregore. I think it must hurt, and the music and art are aptly tortured. It's along the lines of the gnostic gospel of Christ advising that if you keep inside what you know, it will destroy you. It really doesn't look and sound like the boys are having any fun... unless they're busy playing magnificent complex archetypal music... sourced from pools bright and dark.

[FourthBase]

Creative geniuses like Radiohead might intuit and express the first images of the egregore. I think it must hurt, and the music and art are aptly tortured. It's along the lines of the gnostic gospel of Christ advising that if you keep inside what you know, it will destroy you. It really doesn't look and sound like the boys are having any fun... unless they're busy playing magnificent complex archetypal music... sourced from pools bright and dark.

I would prefer your interpretation. You don't know how much I want to believe that interpretation. I do believe in the existence of something along the lines of an egregore. I do. But not here. Not this. Not this gigantic pile of precognition, not multiple people perceiving the same egregore, Yorke and Donwood both, not this spot-the-fuck-on painting. I really, really wish it were an egregore. A horrific egregore would be way, way less frightening. About 1% of me, the RI sleuth in it for the taboo treasure hunt, is like, "Holy fucking shit, jackpot!"...but the other 99% is like, "No, no, no, no, no, please say it isn't so, holy fucking christ almighty, mother of god, please let this not be true, please, please, please, please..."

I regret to inform you, however, and myself, that it's true.

This is from the original Kid A release in 2000:



Second square from the right. It's obscured by additional layers, but that is the exact same painting underneath, flipped. That painting was created before 9/11.

Just to hammer home the point, here's what appears to be an official Donwood desktop wallpaper, and if it's not then at least it's evidence of someone else who's "tapped in" to Radiohead being "tapped in"...or whatever...excuse me while I go try to keep myself from nervously puking:

[Harvey]

Creative geniuses like Radiohead might intuit and express the first images of the egregore. I think it must hurt, and the music and art are aptly tortured. It's along the lines of the gnostic gospel of Christ advising that if you keep inside what you know, it will destroy you. It really doesn't look and sound like the boys are having any fun... unless they're busy playing magnificent complex archetypal music... sourced from pools bright and dark.

Yes.

[FourthBase]

Don't mind me, I'm just going to whisper a little prayer to myself. It's the only prayer I know, the only apotropaic spell, etc.

Our father who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil

Deep breath...ahhh.
Ommmmmmmmmmm...
Push out the jive, bring in the love.

Whew. That helped a little bit.

But here's how I'm still mostly feeling right now, in gif form:

















Eh. You know what. Fuck it. I'm just gonna sit back and try to enjoy this. It's not every day you get to discover something like this. Amor fati. Hand me some popcorn.

[FourthBase]

Creative geniuses like Radiohead might intuit and express the first images of the egregore. I think it must hurt, and the music and art are aptly tortured. It's along the lines of the gnostic gospel of Christ advising that if you keep inside what you know, it will destroy you. It really doesn't look and sound like the boys are having any fun... unless they're busy playing magnificent complex archetypal music... sourced from pools bright and dark.

Yes.

Come on, guys. Time to cut the shit and deal with real probabilities here. I don't mean what's 10-15% simpler per Occam. Again, I believe in miracles and egregores and ghosts and cosmic-slippage and extrasensory sensitivity, etc. But this shit? All of it combined? No. Nope. No way. It is wayyyyyy, wayyyyyyyyyy, wayyyyyyyyyyyy more likely that the reason Radiohead predicted 9/11 is that someone literally tipped them off. Don't you believe that conspiracies are possible, too? Remember those? If this were, uhhh...[rummaging through brain for a musical act associated with the right wing or military or some other uncool entity you find revolting]...uhhh, Three Doors Down with this absolute assload of coincidences, would you not immediately suspect foul play? Here we are, back to the Trauma & Enlightenment thread: Are you mentally playing defense for certain traumagenic artists because you think they're too cool and enlightened to be evil? Look, I fucking love Radiohead's music. To me this is almost as bad as finding out Stevie Wonder eats babies would be. Heart-breaking, stomach-churning, buzz-killing, soul-disturbing shit. What am gonna find out next, that P-Funk sacrifices dogs? (Hold up...P-Funk...Process Church...dogs...oh fuck, lol. )

[FourthBase]

Not to say that there couldn't simultaneously be sinister foreknowledge and a telepathic egregore and synchronicity all at the same time. For instance, that energy my old friends and I felt at Suffolk Downs. Maybe Radiohead knew full well what was in store in a literal sense, and also the dark vibes still resonated outward and backward in time through the crowd and the venue as a whole, and also the universe decided to sync up the plane and Rain Down. But nah, not buying that Radiohead's knowledge was innocently attained. Not anymore. Do they look like they're having fun? About as much fun as world-famous globally-beloved artistically-blessed fabulously-accomplished multi-millionaires can have. (Question: If you sell your soul to the devil, and your soul is worth a fuckton more than most, what kind of earthly success would you expect to get in the bargain? Several lifetimes' worth of generational wealth? Being the consensus pick for World's Greatest Band?) Yeah, of course they're having fun. Their fun might precisely consist of terrorizing and depressing us. People think their logo is, what, meant to represent an evil force that Radiohead hopes to banish from the world? It's them, lol, isn't it? They probably get off on getting away with this shit right under our nose, making us think they're righteous goth-y heroes fighting the ghouls instead of a band of ghouls themselves, having us fall in love with songs that celebrate (not a warning*) our gruesome demise, etc. I daresay, RI, ye openest of minds, you've got some critical reflection due. You need open your minds up a wee bit. Open your eyes. There are some possibilities that you're blinding yourselves to, lurking right in front you.

*That would be tragic if they were trying to warn us all but could only do so ever-so-subtly without bringing harm to themse...nope. Not buying it, even as I type it.

[norton ash]

Sure, they're terrifying and depressing us. They took over from Pink Floyd. They're all fucking witches over there.