#overlabour | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

worrywirt · 4 years

Text

The music video for There There by Radiohead is a masterpiece and here is why

So, as many of you might know already, There There and Nude are my two favourite songs by my favourite band, Radiohead. They are two very unique songs that move me in different but equally intense ways. But what makes There There extra special to me is the video, which managed to combine basically all the things that I love: spooky forests, little animals in clothes, hollow trees with winding roots, references to fairy tales and literature and a dream-like, voyeuristic atmosphere. I am first going to analyse the song itself, then how combined with the video, it is one of my favourite pieces of media I have ever seen.

Lyrics here. As the song starts off, it already feels like the listener is dropped inside a weird, intense primal world. I love percussion-heavy music and when I first heard it, the use of tom-toms and alienating, hardly recognisable sounds already reminded me of one of my other favourite artist’s best-know song: Björk’s Human Behaviour. I can’t really explain it if you don’t hear it, but both have this hypnotic, primal quality that beckons you in right off the bat. Then Thom’s mournful voice sings: “In pitch dark/ I go walking in your landscape/ Broken branches/ Trip me as I speak”. Not to go all A-Level English on his ass because let’s be honest, Thom’s lyrics are often nonsensical and vague, but I love this verse so much. It goes perfectly with the instrumental, starting off in a way that is like the start of a story; the words painting you a picture that is both dreamlike and frightening. To me, it describes falling in love in a way: “I am walking in your world, and I don’t know the way, and it’s all new and confusing and dark and sometimes I say the wrong things but I am still exploring, and it’s beautiful”

After this start that frankly hits you in the chest like a basketball in year 9 PE, we are treated to a combo attack with the lines “Just 'cause you feel it/ Doesn't mean it's there”. In classic Radiohead fashion, all the perceived optimism from the first verse is denied from us, basically saying “just because you feel a connection, it doesn’t mean it’s real”. Trust issues central. But it can also be interpreted to mean emotions in general, which is usually how I (a very emotional person) interpret it: feelings technically aren’t real. And the way you perceive the world while you are Going Through It™ is not always correct. No, everyone doesn’t hate you because their world isn’t centred around you: stop obsessing. It’s okay. There, there. (This is also reinforced later on with “someone on your shoulder”, basically saying it’s just your brain playing tricks.) Additionally, some think it’s referring to a dream, which would fit thematically with the music video.

The next verse to me is about the temptation of a bad decision while Going Through It™. Yes, it would be very easy to do the wrong thing, to go off this path that is making it really hard to get up in the morning: but it would also ruin you. I also interpret “don’t reach out” as coming from the siren (i.e. surprise, surprise: depression) – it wants you to self-destruct, to be a “walking disaster” but that, however tempting, is the wrong thing to do. The use of “we” also works with the “someone on your shoulder” line, and to me (however cringy that sounds) it means that music will always be there for me and help me work things out. It can also be applied to the relationship angle: the couple are in the same boat (/ship), and if one of them does something self-destructive, it will affect both. Both of these options work with the “Why so green and lonely? (…) Heaven sent you to me” lines. It’s interesting because the religious interpretation on Genius always annoyed me – Radiohead are the least religious band ever! This is the only religious reference I can think of from the top of my head, minus “angel” in Creep – but because it’s so rare, maybe it has a reason to be here? Maybe it IS about God after all, but I don’t really think so. Also, to me the imagery of “green and lonely” and the nautical “siren” and “shipwreck” have a much bigger weight visually than “heaven”, so they negate the religiousness in my eyes. I think it’s about two broken people finding each other, but also finding it hard to figure out how to fit together. They’re thinking that it might be a lost cause and destruction is right around the corner, but the best they can do (is good enough) is try and be there for each other while they head towards their ultimate end. Very comforting in a twisted way, which is Radiohead’s specialty.

So, let’s talk about the VIDEO!!! I’m writing this after an HQ version was FINALLY released on their website, so I’m going to use screenshots of that because oh my god, it’s beautiful.

We start off with the “pitch-dark landscape”, more-or-less just as I imagined it while listening to the song. Although it is kind of drab and boring at the start, this only emphasises the magical quality of what it becomes later, as our protagonist Thom (I’m going to call him by name but I’m obviously referring to the character, not the real person) heads deeper and deeper inside. Oh, how I love forests in the dark. Nothing else has the same perfect ambiance.

Thom is walking in a way that matches the rhythm and the dreamlike atmosphere of the song, i.e. somewhere between an alien who just learned the way the Earthlings walk and the exaggerated, slightly sped-up movements of a silent movie star. We already know he has an affinity towards both bowler hats (Lotus Flower video) and pantomime-like acting (ANIMA) so this is truly on brand. He then sees dark clouds pass at a breakneck pace (again, the dreaminess of it all... chef’s kiss), then confused and lost, heads back into the forest which this time looks a lot less boring and “real” then at the start. The dark clouds can be interpreted as a warning of things to come (“stay out, not safe”), which he ignores or just a sign that something is off and we’re not in Kansas anymore.

So as he turns back, we’re treated to my first Favourite Moment: Thom finding the beckoning yellow light and deciding to follow it. The way he is acting suggests both curiosity and sneakiness, like he suspects the thing emitting the light is much better than his original destination (if he had a destination at all).

I love the way the light is illuminating his eyes here, it again reminds me very much of old movies (and Morticia Addams in the 90s movies, but probably because the filmmakers also took inspiration from the same well)

Oh my god, just look at this shot. Beautiful. Lothlórien who?? I only know magical glowy Radiohead forest. Because yes, we’ve obviously crossed the path between realms the minute Thom decided to pursue the yellow light (which can also be connected to the “siren singing you to shipwreck” in the lyrics). This is now the land of magic and fairy tales, and strange things are afoot.

Again, I gotta stop analysing for a moment and just note that the amount of serotonin this gives me would fuel 10 people for a year. For anyone who doesn’t know me well enough, animals in little clothes living in little well-arranged dwellings inside a tree are in the top 5 things that make me happy, and combined with Thom Yorke Radiohead peeking in the window like an innocuous tourist… and the warm light illuminating the miniatures… perfection. Okay, moving on.

Thom is exploring this strange world of anthropomorphic animals like an awkward giant, without seemingly anyone noticing him. This adds to the alienation seeping from the music: this is a weird and wonderful place but you don’t belong here (sorry for the Creep reference, swear it was not intentional). He first saw a pair of squirrels, chilling in their house; then a big banquet; then a cat wedding (power of 3, the fairy-tale number). If we are going with the dream metaphor here, these might be alluding to things happening in real life, especially the wedding as he actively walks away from it, but this is just a speculation. Mostly it just shows that these animals are living in a happy little community and we love that for them! But it also make me feel like this is a coping mechanism for our protagonist here. Apparently Thom (the real one) got the idea for this video from a children’s TV show called Bagpuss: I had a look and it’s the tear-jerkingly comforting and nostalgic stop-motion series that everyone needs one of in their lives (I have several, both English and Hungarian). The subtitle “The Boney King of Nowhere” refers to a song in episode 2 about a king who wasn’t comfortable on his throne: according to this link, this resonated with Thom, who found himself on a pedestal he never wanted. (It’s kind of funny that a little kid’s song about a king’s bony ass has such a sick name though). He also wanted the original creator of the show (Oliver Postgate) to animate the video but he declined. Anyway, the "fifties East European genre animation, overlaboured and naïve” aesthetic, to me, symbolises comfort and warmth that our protagonist doesn’t feel at home in.

So off he goes, into the dark heart of the forest. Also, important to note the patch of fog that keeps showing him the way: is this the siren’s song physically manifested, pulling him away from the warmth of community? (”don’t reach out, don’t reach out”)

He then climbs up and sees a golden coat on a tree inside some kind of ancient ruin. This to me immediately brought to mind the Golden Fleece from Ancient Greek myth, which was the fleece of a magical ram that hung on an oak tree. It signified kingship, linking back to the subtitle. Thom sneaks to the tree, looks up at the ravens (7 of them: another fairy-tale number) and when he sees they are sleeping, tries on the coat. I found it interesting how at this point the coat looks quite ordinary, drab and brown – possibly a metaphor for a decision that you know is bad but you do it anyway; and by the time you realise it actually didn’t feel as good as you thought, it is too late - he listened to temptation (the sirens). He even takes the boots from inside the tree, which reminded me of SO many of the folktales that I grew up on: it’s not enough that the bad sibling did this one bad thing, they even did ANOTHER bad thing, which cements the listener in believing them to be irredeemable and worthy of the awful fate the tale has in store for them. The ravens (birds of death and in this case agents of justice) wake up – Thom has a little “oh shit” close-up and then start running for his life in his new attire.

Addition: another theory I found interesting among the comments is that this place is Limbo - “

The gothic look of the ravens chasing Thom with the rising full moon is such a huge contrast to the warm, comforting glow of the stop-motion animal town, but it makes sense with the crescendo of the music and it’s dark and menacing cacophony: “we are accidents waiting to happen”. This was Thom’s mistake: and now there is no turning back. (Quick note: his running here reminds me once again of the Human Behaviour video – I am working on another similar essay that concentrates on how Radiohead and Björk are mirrors of each other so look out for that).

He thinks he is saved for a moment by the magical seven-league boots (another folktale reference) but it is only a false hope. He gets his punishment and turns into a tree by what we can assume to be a painful and terrifying process (I love his facial expression so much). The ravens arrive and we realise that this is most likely how the previous tree met his or her fate. The cycle continues. He is now the Boney King of Nowhere.

One of my favourite mental images is people taken over by nature: not in a decomposing way but more like a Hanahaki disease way. Thom turning into a tree reminded me of a couple of things: one, my other favourite piece of entertainment Over the Garden Wall, which is very similar in tone to this video (if I ever meet Thom, I genuinely only want to ask him if he’s ever seen it and if yes what his thoughts are on it). SPOILERS for OTGW: the Beast turns lost children into trees and uses oil from the trees to keep his lantern alive, which is basically his life source – in this case the tree-person seems to be the living beating heart of the forest. The way the tree-curse is transmitted also reminded me of how the lantern was (nearly) passed down to Wirt. Basically, it is an inheritable burden. Two, and this isn’t my interpretation but I thought I’d mention it: Daphne & Apollo, wherein Daphne hides from Apollo’s sexual advances by turning into a tree. This doesn’t really fit the tone of the scene in my opinion, because Thom’s transformation is an involuntary punishment; but it kind of connects to the other reference to Greek myth, Odysseus and the sirens (both chasing after women, or the impossible dream). Three: Dante’s Inferno, in which the second ring of the seventh circle is the Wood of Suicides where “the souls of the people who attempted or committed suicide are transformed into gnarled, thorny trees and then fed upon by Harpies, hideous clawed birds with the faces of women; the trees are only permitted to speak when broken and bleeding”. Whomp whomp, it was a suicide metaphor :/ And it wasn’t a dream, it was Limbo - a thematic preoccupation of the band, so not impossible.

A comment I found relating to this: “After death you have to cross over. He got distracted by the nice and shiny shoes and jacket (don't reach out), hence the siren that leads you to shipwreck (Odysseus). When you want to enter the spiritual realm you have to be able to leave the material world behind or you shall not pass. He was distracted, got caught and changed into a worldly tree (he was still to attached to the material realm). The so-called reality we live now is the dream. (Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there). He remembered that he died and came back to this illusion. We are stuck in a lift....” I really like this interpretation of Thom’s downfall being too attached to materialism/ fame & fortune. I wonder what he meant by “came back to this illusion”? Also, who are the animals in this scenario: aspects of Thom’s life or other people, stuck in Limbo/ every-day oblivion?

This wouldn’t be the first or last time Radiohead explores the concept of death, so I don’t think it’s far-fetched. And it fits with the lyrics too, as I’ve discussed briefly above: this is what happens when you listen to the siren (the fog, the light) and stray away from the cute animal town, Thomas! I’m joking because it is kind of a bummer to end it on this, but I just love how dense and layered this video is. Most of their videos are top-notch but this one just hits a really sweet spot for me, so yeah! 2500 words! I’m glad you came along, pardner! Goodbye till next time!

#radiohead #thom yorke #there there #the boney king of nowhere #bagpuss #otgw #sorry I didn't go into the sonic side of things I just don't know anything about it #music theory is a scam

2 notes · View notes

rubenvandergrijn · 5 years

Text

Day 7

Another good start of the day, Calvin making breakfast and me watching Casa de Papel (I’m now at season 2 episode 6) … After eating and watching we played some games on the PlayStation and later in the afternoon watched some football (Champions League Manchester City vs Tottenham Hotspur) containing one the craziest starts of a football history, 3 goals in 10 minutes. Unfortunately, like yesterday, I was not able to see the whole match because we had to work at the grocery store.

Working was again just fine, for most of the time we refilled drinks (with a satisfying end result) and we got a delicious sub for dinner. We were still a little bit hungry at the end of our working day and we managed to get another sub, I just can’t get enough… Just like yesterday, Paul helped us out at the end and we did a little bit of overlabour, good for Paul’s reputation, wink wink… He even promised us to work Friday the whole day, which will be a lot of fun!

That was the end of our 3th working day, only 2 to go!

3 notes · View notes

sanguinarysanguinity · 5 years

Note

Fanfiction asks 4, 5, and 6?

4. Do you think your style has changed over time? How so?

There’s been a marked streamlining and clarity of style. I can write a relatively clean and crisp sentence now, one that actually says what I meant to say instead of taking repeated runs at an idea and never quite managing it. I can also write unfussy yet effective description now; I used to avoid them entirely, or they’d be overlaboured and self-conscious. I also use more understatement than I used to: my background style has become sleek enough that an understatement can actually land effectively and be heard now.

Paradoxically, however, my overall streamlining of style means that there’s also a lot more more going on than there used to be: more flourishes, more description, more texture, more detail. My writing isn’t forever flailing on the edge of being too much, so it can carry a lot more within it without threatening to buckle under its own weight.

5. You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

Well, @amindamazed has a pretty good track record of recognizing my contributions, and she has mentioned my tendency to bring women and undervalued perspectives forward in my stories. There’s also my habit of arguing with the source or fanon about who is underserved, misrepresented, or got a bad rap. In a similar vein, people have also noted my reluctance to write a popular ship in a popular fandom. Altogether, these trends mean that people tend to mistake me for @gardnerhill, but she can do voices/dialect, and I can’t.

Less frequently, I’ve been spotted for my tendency to write people who attempt to love generously and offer each other their best selves, whatever the provocation. Apparently my commitment to that dynamic is more than some find lifelike, and so they particularly notice it.

I’ve also been spotted for verbal tics, such as people “looking sharply” at each other.

6. Name three stories you found easy to write.

A Handsome and Generous People (Sherlock Holmes in the 23rd Century; Holmes & Wt’sn; past Holmes/Watson) – 7.5K written as a treat in four easy if full days.

Mr Green and the Adventure of the Ten Gallon Hat (My Dearly Beloved Detective; Mr. Green, Holmes & Watson) – I hated my first fill for the exchange, so after the official due date but before go-live, I wrote this real fast and substituted it for my original fill. Unlike my first attempt at a fill, this came together beautifully. Happily, my recip hadn’t been haunting tags, and thus never noticed that an Elementary threesome became MDBD gen at go-live. ;-) ETA: Hahaha, she now claims she did notice, but thought it was her getting confused, not the gift changing! :-D

THE BEST BEE FIC EVER (Elementary, Holmes/Watson) – 7K written in one carefree, giving-no-fucks week for a Bad Bang exchange. This was meant to be deliberately bad, but came out shockingly well – a satisfying and engaging story, if I do say so myself. I don’t even know. Words, man.

#my writing #oldshrewsburyian

8 notes · View notes

writingwithinwriting · 6 years

Text

Don’t Get Mad, Get Uneven: Our stories in poetry.

I now have a poetry moment I will never forget for as long as I live, and it surrounded a poem about grief.

I did a support headlining set at To Be Frank Poetry Night, my first 20-minute full set in a long time. And halfway through my piece ‘Red’ my voice crackled and broke with emotion, it was about my late friend Shuggy. I had lost my friend and I wanted to share with people the injustice of his loss. I had to speak over the empathetic humming and furious clicking of the crowd. I will never forget that sound. Thirty-to-twentyish people just adding fuel to my fire. Or the wave of guilty joy that came with it.

I’ve already written about my turmoil over the sudden passing of my friend on this blog, the aftermath involved complicated emotions that came with him being homeless and how that forced me to have conversations with myself and others. I asked a close friend of Shuggy’s as to whether they’d be okay with me performing the poem, whether they liked it. And they did, thankfully. They told me they loved it, which made me very glad and I like the poem, too. Enough that the thought “I could win a slam with this” had popped into my head uninvited several times.

There’s a lot to be said about misery porn in poetry. It's inescapable; I don’t believe I’ve met a single slamming poet who hasn’t sworn that they came up against a poem that they believed was not as good as their own but twanged at heartstrings or played to righteous anger. Poets from every walk of life, each of whom has cards of their own to play, agree on this.

I agree to the extent that it correlates; you’re going to remember a gut-wrenching poem performed well about an experience connected to current events and concerns, more so than a poem about something less immediately connecting. Clarity is an important factor for judges and audiences, we like to understand what we are feeling. But there are some subjects that have been overlaboured and poems that need some work on these same ideas that don’t get through to the next round, it is confirmation bias at the end of the day. If someone knocks you out in the first round, it is very tempting to attribute some of that victory to factors outside of skill, it lessens the sting. Poets are human, it is to be expected.

Misery porn isn’t what I want to discuss, I want to talk about that human malarky. When I performed ‘Red’ that night I was looking to connect with people, not humble them with my experience or guilt them for not doing enough. I didn’t want them to be separate from what had happened. I didn’t want it to be something that likely happens, but something that had happened. I wanted to tell them about my friend and just how angry I was when I fully took into account the building blocks of what had happened, how cruel and apathetic it all was, that Shuggy may have been someone they passed on the street or even had said hi to.

I wanted my poem to be powerful, but what can that mean when an audience can interpret it as an attack? Or a leg over the competition? I believe it comes down to what an individual can bring to the table. To make a story a story, instead of what we don’t want to hear. A rather plain-faced truth is that we hate to be lectured, even on things we totally agree with. I will totally admit here that I bloody hate poems waffling about feminism 101, I despise having to sit through them, and that isn’t because I’m against the content but it is something I have heard. I’ve seen a hundred twitter fights on the subject, and a hundred more gaudily thumb-nailed youtube videos on it. I dislike being told mental illness is bad, and the tories are bad, etc etc.

A story is more than that; it is a piece of you. It is a transcript of a therapy session. It is several labourious texts to a good friend about what you can’t believe that guy just said, ugh. Its what you mumble to yourself in the bathroom mirror when you wash your hands after peeing at 4am. It is not meant to be convincing. You are an unreliable narrator, not a TEDtalk. If you get up on stage wanting to convince someone, you’re going to lose them. If you get up on stage wanting to share something, they’re going to take something away.

I can’t promise it will be exactly what you want them to take away, however. I remember one of the first performance nights I saw last-last year had a guy stumble through a poem he wrote about why girls shouldn’t need makeup. That piece wrought more conversations and questions than anything else on that night. I disagreed and still disagree, but it raised questions about why I hated it, why I wanted to reply the way I did, why I wear makeup, why I didn’t feel men had a place to comment on it. But most importantly, it made me see why he felt this way, I still thought he was a low-key twat talking about how his girlfriend was pretty regardless, but I thought about it.

Roya Marsh’s work speaks for itself. It is guts and no glory poetry, it is conflict and heat. This piece does in two minutes what I have seen poets fight to do in whole headlining slots. It is a microcosm of a world, there is fear, anger, regret and a million questions from every glinting facet.

youtube

It doesn’t state an objective, it doesn’t tell you what questions to raise, there are no buzzwords or signposting, in fact, it leaves you asking how Marsh really feels in the end. And that is what is human about anecdotes, we have to take the time to translate what we have been told and that time spent produces more than a plain argument can. Because an argument begs opposition.

This piece by Antosh Wojcik leaves you asking exactly what is happening at times. What does hitting your head on the moon mean? What does that ending mean? Were we supposed to laugh at masturbating with vaporub? It doesn’t seem to phase him when people do. This was deeply personal, so much so that parts are still impenetrable to me. Wojcik has surrounded this picture with a personal frame you cannot get past. But this piece is so tangible it doesn’t matter, it is obviously about severe bullying and the long-term effects it can have, but when we reach in to find something, we pull out what we recognise.

youtube

Insomnia has been a horrible coping method of mine, and it has destroyed me in the past. It reminded me of the anxiety I had as a child, the things I have only just understood as anxiety back then. Wojcik just gave me my own memories back. I am going to remember burning my spine at both ends for a long time.

Okay, so maybe no one in that audience had a Shuggy. Maybe I should have told them more about his bear hugs and his gurgly voice, his blue humour and his polka-dot reading glasses. Maybe this is a very long way of saying show, don’t tell. Maybe my guilt is just mourning in disguise. I think ‘Red’ is still more than bile and grief, it is misery, but it is my own. It is not Shuggy, it is what I recall about my last memories of him, it is what I carried and what I want to share. People can disagree with me that if there is an empty building with a bed in it, someone should be able to sleep there. But they won’t be able to deny that the consequences of that not happening transformed me on that stage, if only briefly. It might not have been pretty or rational, but that wasn’t me, either.

I hope people got to see that for what it was. I hope my poetry gives and never takes.

#poetry #slam poetry #roya marsh #antosh wojcik #writing

6 notes · View notes