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it's time for me to analyze one of my
favorite tracks from OK Computer and yes
I know this is a quite a disturbing one
but I just love it so much and I can't
wait to tell you all about why this song
apparently was inspired by Tom's
experiences as an orderly in a mental
hospital so and I feel like the music
really really supports that it makes you
feel like I mean climbing up the walls
makes me think of crawling out of my
skin and that's definitely how I feel
listening to it except that I love it I
don't know don't ask me this song is so
visceral and
evocative it's so well produced and put
together it's got really textured big
synth base if it's not a synth base then
it sounds like one I've always thought
of it as a synth base it has kind of a
vulnerable almost a delicate clean
electric guitar and then it has an
acoustic guitar it also has really
strange uh sound effects and Ambiance
atmosphere that again kind of put you
off from the very second it starts the
drums are also a bit unusual I think
that that kind of trashy Hollow far away
snare that it starts with and then this
sort of uh
thumpy uh uh uh tambourine almost feels
like you're dropping chains over and
over again let's start with the base
because the base I think is the
foundation in general but especially in
this song I think the song is in the key
of B
minor you could also interpret it as e
Dorian and that makes sense right
because guitars are tuned to e usually
and E is the lowest chord that they get
to so either way valid interpretations
but it embodies a lot of the
characteristics of the minor key that I
love so so much so it's got
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this first just these three notes at
first and then eventually we get a
little little passing tone
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[Applause]
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[Applause]
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I am the kid of the walking
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it keeps your ti in
a if you get
to
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still B minor then G major then E minor
so what is
this are our harrowing home our dramatic
flat six chord and just the
Hopeless four chord
minor so
beautiful so that's going on underneath
his whole Melody the guitar is simply
strumming I believe on the the instance
of each chord
so the other thing about this that's
cool is that it's very syncopated so the
the first chord starts on the beat but
the other ones are all anticipating the
beat so 1 2 3 and and 2 and 1 2 3 and
and
and that's a very radio head thing to do
so that kind of throws you off a little
bit you know you can't just sink into it
you're always a little bit on your toes
as it anticipates the drums I just love
the sound of this snare I mean there's
no other song on the album that has this
I'm not sure if there's ever been a
radio head song since that has it but
this
just sounds like it's got all this
Reverb on it and effect and it's so far
away it's like a trash can it's just so
it just feels like an assault or
something and at first the drums are
just the snare no kick really no high
hats occasionally a little Tom as like a
little fill but it's just that snare and
what's the snare doing one two and three
sorry one two and
four two and four so you get your two
and your four but you also get this
really strong syncopated accent which I
feel like makes it feel a little
different than your standard Rock beat
also there's no kick not at first and
then as I mentioned before these like
chains dropping at least that's how it
feels to me it's it's actually just a
tambourine but that's how it's always
felt to me and this song drags right
it's slow it feels like the way that Tom
is singing and the way he's uh way his
voice is being processed you know you
can barely make out what he's saying
saying the Distortion almost makes it
sound like he's got just Mar molasses in
his mouth you know it's so mushy so
there's this struggle I feel like
constantly every moment and I just love
that so much it's just you again you
just like feel the song Beyond just like
oh I'm having like emotions about the
lyrics it's like I don't know what to do
about this so annoying so Thomas singing
a lot into the minor pentatonic scale
one time I think it's near the end he
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goes and he does he leans on it and it's
so and his uh vocal Melody is also got
some syncopated accents to the I am the
key to theck in your
house keeps your toys in the
basement and then at the end of this
verse they kind of stay on the e at the
bottom and you get like a a bonus bar or
two I think it might be two bars and
it's setting you up for what's next and
you might expect a chorus but it's a
fake out I can't tell here if he's
double tracked and then one of them is a
clean signal and the other is distorted
or if it's just the same track and one's
distorted one's clean or it's a mixture
of both but you can hear some of the
clean signal of some vocal and then a
lot of distortion from the other but
that's also a conscious choice right
it's not all distorted it's almost like
you feel as if you should be able to
hear him and understand him but you just
can't every so often something will poke
through of course I'll be
there
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up on this second verse then the kick
drum finally comes in but it's also kind
of
smashy so that also just pulls it all
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[Applause]
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back now the chorus is I think quite
Exquisite again dark but Exquisite and
it's got a few more layers that get
added so for one the progression is
going to now move up instead of down and
it climbs from the bottom
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up I won't do it in octaves again sorry
I'll just go
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I love this kind of progression because
to me it still feels like it's in
B and it's trying to get there but it
can never get there it never ever gets
there until you get back to the verse
but it's just feels like this this
wasted effort trying to climb up right
and um
meanwhile the uh string start to come in
and they are descending so a bunch of
them are on the B but then some of them
start to descend down the scale
[Applause]
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and
then
T man okay well I love what's going on
with the Baseline here so it starts to
climb very syncopated again Off beats
and then instead of just going to a
which is kind of what I always assumed
it did going up this
progression it does this a chord instead
it doesn't hold it down sorry like
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that and that outlines an a chord like
if it went there but it just
goes thought that's really nice um and
to get into this by the way it's going
um
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there's still some movement but it's
almost like we're moving no we're not
we're actually still
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here so nice
[Applause]
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[Applause]
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[Applause]
on top of that um I'm not sure which
guitarist it is but somebody's playing
lead with that clean kind of vulnerable
tender guitar tone kind of just doing
like
a just sort of going between these two
notes
in 16th notes
I haven't actually been able to figure
out the exact pattern it almost feels
like it could be almost irrelevant when
they're playing which note but it's it's
that Duality between them and that's
also keeping you kind of stuck on the B
so that's kind of grounding you while
everything's moving up to it but never
reaching it um which maybe makes it even
like hurt more but this is this note
supports this one this is the main note
and this one's like it's assistant
whole step below it so all that's going
on over the strings and then it ends on
this E minor
space which is kind of where you would
end up if you fell back down to the very
bottom right uh so you never get to
reach that top and then when they do
that Tom sings this note that creates a
dissonant interval with the E and the
Basse and everything else that's going
on either way you we got to talk about
but
way
you
[Applause]
I either way you
turn I'll be
there hold up can't do it when I was
younger I thought he was saying hold up
your skirt which is just as creepy in a
different way for a woman anyway but um
that's what I thought he was saying and
I even though I know even though I now
know that it's open up your skull my my
mouth just still wants to say hold up
your skirt so forgive me either way you
turn I'll be
there open up your
skull I'll be
there climbing up the
walls it creates this big n so
beautiful if I Collapse this into an
octave well almost an
octave and he just leans there and it's
just so
delicious and just yeah you can feel the
the tension and and the work
oh and then later on you know what
happens with that note
and then you hang out here again and
then now we're into the third verse and
there's some really beautiful stuff
going on here with the
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guitars so this is another descending
line oh yeah it actually goes down uh to
the B at the end so I I don't know I
just feel like there's something about
the the contrary directionality that I'm
probably just reading way too far into
but I feel it whenever you're going down
and descending it tends to feel heavier
and going up tends to feel more
uplifting but when you don't reach the
top then it almost feels heavier
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sprad all
this back of your
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head to your
mind there's this amazing slide that
this lead guitarist does after going
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after finishing
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the and any kind of pitch bending puts
us off just a little bit because it's
it's
ambiguous and it can feel scary and they
take that to the max at the end of the
song with the strings in the next verse
this descending line is abandoned and
that same guitar guitarist plays these
descending
arpegios so it
goes wow it's so gorgeous what a
Cascade little variation at the
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end I love that variation this versus
this this is a sex such a pretty pretty
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interval shut the eyes in the
C I got the
smile away
I feel like this guitar everything that
this guitar plays feels so vulnerable to
me maybe even
childlike or just innocent and that's
contrasted with the atmosphere and the
effects and the sound design in general
of the rest of the song Maybe not the
acoustic guitar but everything else just
has that thick heavy
lerus
um uh Disturbed
feeling so beautiful in the choruses Tom
is clearly singing in parallel octav
so he's just singing the same Melody and
everything an octave lower so he's got
his more falsetto doing you know either
way you turn I'll be there climbing up
the walls he's not actually singing as
FAL out of the whole time but it does
have a floatier feeling as a result of
being higher and then you know um
um either way you turn I'll be there
yeah I can't sing it oh well so that
also has a heavier feeling as a result
it's a nice way to also set the vocal
apart a bit from the verse on this last
verse Tom varies his vocal Melody more
than he has before and he just kind of
stays up in the higher ranges more uh so
lock the kids up safe tonight now we
have to look at this
because so there's
this sound parallel
NS so lock the kids up safe
tonight the way he sings Tonight is
really creepy
tonight he kind of opens up a lot shut
the eyes in the cupboard and he does
that little
T well I've got the smell of
a and he just stays up there and there
is a feeling of
tension who's got the
lonliest
feeling this is the first time he sings
that note I believe and that's the
second degree in the scale I talked
about the
beginning and it's just a also it
creates a trone with this bass note so
for a moment there's a little bit of
that feeling which can have like a
hollow sour feeling so the last chorus
like in full leads into the chaos
section right and you can hear that the
drums start getting more uh urgent
sounding because the kick drum starts to
come in more frequently there's a ride
symbol you know it's kind of feels like
it's building to something and then it
releases into there you know and there's
a big fill and then this section is so
cool so they're riffing on the court
progression from the verse and then they
go into the ch cour progression after it
so it's almost like the instrumental
section takes over and does the song you
know um but there's what I think is a
synth sometimes it's hard to tell with
them but I always imagin it was a synth
that's doing a lead it's got a lot of
distortion on it and sometimes it does
sound like a guitar anyway you tell me
um but it's leaning on a very dissonant
note that we haven't heard yet in the
scale which is this
one this is the flat five of the scale
you could think of it as the trone of
the scale and it's it's an integral part
of the blues scale so it does have a
little bit of that bluesy feeling but
it's also just a little bit of a painful
note you know it's kind of it's kind of
in between notes that we tend to
naturally gravitate towards so um
they're you know
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M and then it releases a half Step Above
to the
fifth and it does that little and that's
when it sounds like a synth to me but I
could be wrong it sounds very
psychedelic to me like it comes straight
out of like the 60s or 70s or something
um and it has a lot of these little
little ornaments on
it kind of like that and it has a
beautiful delay on it too that makes it
feel kind of trippy um there's now also
electric guitar distorted electric
guitar doing the chords
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when the Like Instrumental chorus comes
in everything's ascending and now the
strings instead of doing
the this kind of sad heavy descending
line they're ascending with the
base and then they hit the B which is
where it all feels like it's supposed to
end up but underneath it's still hasn't
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right just can't get there and
then hits us
with this note and this creates this
amazing tense 7eventh with the E down
below I love that choice cuz you're
already and then it just stays there
the song doesn't go up any further it's
just stuck at the bottom right and this
is where Tom is going uh climbing up the
walls so he's singing the ninth this is
doing the seventh walls tension up the
walls and then he
screams
right and then uh and then the strings
all are falling apart literally they're
falling
down it's probably the beginning of
Johnny Greenwoods like you know
legendary string Arrangements they're
like beautiful but they hurt so much cuz
there's so much dissonance and he uses
the textures of the high strings
especially well uh and the way that they
can bend and swoop and every anyway so
it's really amazing and this climax is
so intense and the way Tom ends up
screaming also feels really incredible
because it opens up from walls right he
just starts climbing up the
walls right it's like it's like the word
fell apart and this this emerged and
then it all kind of coalesces into this
dark E minor kind of space but still
there's and there's all sorts of things
sort of obscuring that but that's where
the song ends right is at the bottom
this this last section is such a great
moment for Phil I think too just really
tasteful kind of yeah psychedelic Rock
drums lots of different drum fills he
keeps it really solid and really
supported after that dark chord kind of
Fades away what we're left with is
really kind of unsettling dissonant
atonal out of place it feels as if
they're samples but I think it was all
just recorded by them but it's like you
know little or extra pluck and things
that don't belong and and then there's
this this tone this well two tones and
they're so dissonant and they're kind of
going in and out of tune with each other
a little bit and they just end up in
this cacophony I mean it's sounds like
strings except that it's something has
been stretched if that's the case
because there's no rearticulation and
that you know bows aren't really that
long especially for a tone with that
much body they'd have to be moving it
like this fast so 's no re booing
happening but it is at a tune the way
you could do on a string string
instrument but it's not just like these
three notes next to each other it's
actually more Out Of Tune the the
pitches are like maybe this one but then
also between this one and this one which
I can't do on the piano but you know
something in between there so I think
it's really like this note this note and
then the one in between them uh
micronel and it just pulls you out but
but it doesn't it feel stretched it
almost has that
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like feeling but it does have the
release of strings so yeah maybe they
did something where they CU there is
that part where it's sort of there's a
sample that speeds up at the end so
maybe they were playing around with that
and they kind of pulled it stretched it
like just candy molasses God I love this
song so much uh this is one of those
songs where I just assumed that like
everyone in the world loved it I just
couldn't imagine that anyone could not
like it but um as I've started doing
this series and people have made
comments here or there about like oh I
really love this song on the album I
really don't and some people have said
like I don't really get climbing up the
walls and I'm just
like but then I remember oh yeah we all
have different tastes and I hope that if
you were one of those people that didn't
get it that maybe this kind of opened
something up for you and gave you access
to the parts of it that I love so much
thank you so much for watching and if
you want to see the rest of my videos on
this series I'm doing whole album and so
if you go to my homepage there is a
playlist there that says Okay computer
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song I am the key to
the that keeps your toys in the
basement and if you get too far
inside you'll only see a my reflection
so lock the kids up safe
tonight shut the eyes in the
coer I've got the smell of a loc
man who's got the
lonliest
feeling o I'm going to add the strings
either
I'll be
there open up your
skull I'll be
there climing up the
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