During sophomore year, more often than not, I spent my passing periods walking alone. I had developed routines to maximize how long I could stay out of class without ever being late: up the stairs, down the stairs, loop around. The reason I was doing this was to listen to music — specifically, Radiohead’s “Ok Computer.”
The album appealed to me so much because it shared the same sort of fear for the future that I did at the time. I was going through a mid-teenage crisis of sorts and was deeply existentially afraid about getting a job, learning to drive, and making more friends: things that all seem incredibly silly in hindsight. However, Thom Yorke’s poetic vocals and the song’s clanking, ominous instrumentals gave a voice to those fears.
The uncanny artificial voice of “Fitter Happier” preaching dystopian conformity, “Climbing Up The Walls’” claustrophobic depiction of paranoia, and “The Tourists’” screamed beg to, “slow down, idiot” all served to me as scathing criticisms of a world focused on instant gratification, with people around me who didn’t care about anyone except themselves. I was jaded and isolated, truly believing that I was different from everyone else for ridiculous superficial reasons like my long hair, the fact that I wore jeans, or the fact that I listened to music like Radiohead.
As I moved into junior year with a driver’s license, job, and friends, I started to see a whole new side to the album. For every depressing, paranoid song, there was one that was cautiously optimistic. One of my personal favorite tracks, “Let Down,” starts all doom and gloom, with lyrics about being “crushed like a bug in the ground” and “disappointed people clinging to bottles.” However, it slowly builds into a massive wall of uplifting guitars and twinkly xylophones, with Thom Yorke shouting about “bouncing back” and “growing wings,” a reference to the idea that life (and hope) will always find a way.
After about a year of playing the album nonstop, from the end of sophomore year to winter break junior year, it kind of fell out of my rotation. I never stopped loving it, and just a little while ago I took an hour or so to listen to this album that meant so much to me for so long; it helped me realize how much I’ve changed over the last few years.
I no longer walk the hallways alone with my headphones in, I’m friends with people I would have never even imagined talking to sophomore year, and I have lost most of the stupid cool-guy attitude. The idea of becoming an adult is no longer scary, but bittersweet — an opportunity to leave both the good and bad behind in high school.
After I finished listening, I noticed that “OK Computer” had been reissued for its 20th anniversary, alongside a collection of b-sides and unreleased tracks that didn’t make it on the album. Among them was “Lift,” which very quickly took the spot for my favorite Radiohead song ever. It’s a song both melancholic and triumphant, simultaneously about being stuck in an elevator and going through a massive life change. It’s also a song that I discovered at an absolutely perfect time in my life. After a lengthy chorus of shrieking guitars and thumping drums, the song winds down into a quiet instrumental where Thom Yorke’s voice takes center stage. It gets quieter and quieter until the instrumentals completely die out and he leaves us with one final line, almost whispered:
“Today is the first day of the rest of your days, so lighten up squirt.”