"Let Down" - Radiohead
The first song I wanted to listen to the morning after election day in 2024 was “Let Down” by Radiohead. I also knew it was going to be the song I integrate into an older song of mine when I was set to perform a live show in a couple weeks after the election. It was in the same key after all and fits appropriately to a breakup song I wrote two decades ago called “Purple Heart.”
I remember being let down by myself a number of times. But the ones that immediately came to mind occurred in my early 20s, then in my mid 30s. I wasn’t so much let down by the world, by leaders and politicians, I was let down by how terrible I was navigating through the complicated landscape of relationships, co-dependence and my own unexamined bouts of depression.
The arts saved me first and foremost. Not only hearing “Let Down” by Radiohead but then much later, a Wilco record called Yankee Hotel Foxtrot basically led to me writing some of the best songs I ever created. A breakup and the death of my father certainly contributed to me learning how to throw caution to the wind. I would yield no more. I began to scream. Anytime I sat down to write a new song, it felt like a green light. I probably won’t ever necessarily write as good of a song as “Purple Heart” which is why I keep playing it despite not being in that headspace anymore.
Right around Election Day of this year, everything immediately went back to yellow. But I kept hearing the opening guitar from the fifth song off of Ok Computer in my mind. It plays like a lullaby from my youth. I truly do love everything about it but there’s something about the way the guitar sounds like raindrops at the start, coming down to cleanse a fractured spirit. Then the percussion hits like a thunderbolt with the bassline guiding us along with a distinct cadence of its own. The bass is not just playing root notes, it’s got a pulse along with the kick drum. Even when the drums finally emerge at full force, there is less of a crescendo. It feels like rising up.
Thom Yorke’s layered vocals emerge like some kind of celestial serenade. He starts out singing Amajor notes to compliment the instrumentation and key only to descend down to Ab (to complement the change to an Emajor chord). In a way, his voice is trickling down, trembling a little, taking little steps lower with each sentence. It is not until the chorus that he finds any semblance of hope even if he feels “crushed like a bug in the ground.” There is almost resounding acceptance of being in this perpetual state of disappointment and unease. A lot of songs on OK Computer live inside that kind of familiar fragility.
In the midst of listening to this song, Thom also proclaims that despite good intentions, “it always ends up drivel.” I started thinking about Albert Einstein’s thoughtful sentiment of “We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings." But I feel like everything that comes out of our soon-to-be-President’s mouth always ends up drivel. I hate hearing him speak. I hate that he’s not supporting those different from him. I don’t like to feel hatred. But it’s there for him. I have zero reason to look for good in someone like that.
He feels the opposite of human and humane to me; there is reason to despair for the future. More often than not, I have felt like a person who has difficulty connecting with human beings despite believing that humanity exists in the pursuit of good. A wild dichotomy to actually be a human being who longs to understand the human experience especially when there is such cruelty and inhumanity taking place on a global scale. We’re slowly dying - both the individual that is trying to survive and think of short-term needs as well as this imperfect species as a whole. We can point the finger at capitalism but there’s more to it than just one cause. Or even one person like Donald Trump.
“I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and irresistibly invites abuse.” - Albert Einstein
Deep in the pit of my stomach, I now sense a collective longing for healing. There is far too much discord and disconnection taking place, whether as a result of technology dependence, economic crisis or much more. I remember hearing both OK Computer and Hail to the Thief thinking Radiohead were a bit like the great, prescient writers of our times, who somehow tap into the collective subconscious. It’s like they knew that we were walking towards a self-destructive path especially when we are subjected to leaders who harbor chaos and greed above the needs of others. “An ice coming” indeed.
Even in certain circles, administration or those in charge of making decisions, seem to live in constant fear. Instead of thinking about those that are working for them (and what they deserve), it all becomes a perpetual cycle of self-service and passive-aggressiveness. There is no resolution or conversation, just those making decisions through double-spoken memos and emoji-filled emails. In a lot of ways, I’m let down by the unruly behavior of the general public lately too. We have forgotten how to be patient, civil, thoughtful.
“A sense of disharmony also is achieved when Jonny Greenwood plays his twinkling guitar in a different time signature than that of his bandmates.
When speaking about the song, the guitarist invoked Andy Warhol, and also Yorke’s sense of being trapped on “transport, motorways and tram lines.” Yorke sang of the sinister nature of automobiles, but Greenwood thinks, this time out, the singer was focused on the distance that modern transportation can put between people. It’s not an angry song, but a depressed one.
“Andy Warhol once said that he could enjoy his own boredom. ‘Let Down’ is about that,” Greenwood told Humo magazine in 1997. “It’s the transit-zone feeling. You’re in a space, you are collecting all these impressions, but it all seems so vacant. You don’t have control over the earth anymore. You feel very distant from all these thousands of people that are also walking there.”
In the song, all the lonely people self-medicate by “clinging onto bottles.” That’s not just a nod to the numbing effects of alcohol, but the result of a vision Yorke had when he was in the throes of his elixir of choice.
“I was pissed in a club, and I suddenly had the funniest thought I’d had for ages,” he told Select. “What if all the people who were drinking were hanging from the bottles... if the bottles were hung from the ceiling with string, and the floor caved in, and the only thing that kept everyone up was the bottles?” - Bryan Wawzenek
There’s a justifiable reason to cry while listening to a song like “Let Down” by Radiohead as we enter what appears to be a troubling, tumultuous year with the worst person in power once again. I also feel that the song title could be changed to “Burnout,” as a result of seeing so many individuals experiencing that, post-lockdown in a wide variety of professions. Perhaps it’s easier to relate to Thom’s concerns now more than ever. In this gorgeously haunting song, he is worn down by what he sees every day: cyclical, meaningless movements and disappointed people drowning themselves in substances to escape what they see and feel.
Is that why the holiday spirit felt muted this year? Are we experiencing nationwide burnout while living in times of distress and uncertainty? Contained within these 5 minutes is a sense of palpable tension which slowly evolves into broken catharsis and spiritual release. The singer is determined to grow wings, maybe wounded by the sights of a dying country. Has a song ever sounded so distraught and ecstatic at the same time? “Let Down” is a heavenly example of dialectic thought and poetic rumination. Feeling the pain, sitting with it. Wishing it away too.
At this point in time, I know where I am. Inside a well of perpetual terror and temporary bliss mixed up with a lot of anxious determination to not let the world drag me under. In the midst of all that conflicted complication is the resounding thought of, “I may not have a choice but to fall into despair.” Especially when you see how worried and unhappy the world seems to be cocooned inside of currently. As an American, I’m not sure if there’s hope right now. Because we’re focused on the wrong things and I blame the first round of a negligent, selfish coward of a President who shouldn’t have been elected once, let alone twice. We are bound to be let down many times in the next four years.
You know, you know where you are with you know where you are with //
Floor collapses floating, bouncing back
My favorite Radiohead song explores the inevitable reality of unmet expectations and the letdown that follows. I feel that more on a macro-level these days. I also remember how it accompanied the time in my 20s when I failed to be the partner I wanted to be. I faltered, I lost sight of what I wanted, and I couldn’t communicate. We didn’t say one word the very final time we had dinner. Later that night, she broke up with me. Then again, in my mid-30s I also was in a complicated situation of fear and longing and deep physical pain. Now I am in my 40s, hysterical yes, but hopefully not useless.
The floor is collapsing in America, but like a lot of horrendously dark periods in my life (and in the lifetime of this country), there is the possibility of bouncing back and growing wings. I have to believe that. This song makes me experience conviction towards something better. Though I also acknowledge the pain of simply getting up in the morning, being out in the world and seeing all the hurt that surrounds this dying environment. All we can do now despite feeling let down, is just hang around. Hopefully, at the very least, we won’t be doing that alone.
P.S On a much lighter note, it’s also pretty cool that season one of The Bear ended with this song and of course, it made me cry.
