in this video I'm going to break down
the composition of Paranoid Android by
Radiohead from their incredible album
Okay computer this is the second in my
series on the album and this is this is
three whole friggin songs in one song so
this is gonna be a long
long video Tom actually said that these
three sections represent three different
states of mind that makes a lot of sense
to me because they always sounded like
three different
personalities basically or even you
could think of it as a Trilogy three
different books but at the end you kind
of like go back to book two because just
couldn't get enough
the song's meaning is apparently based
on this one night Tom had at a bar in LA
where a woman who's high on cocaine
spilled her drink on him and got really
hysterical
I think she might be the squealing
little piggy all right let's get going
I'm impatient the Psychedelic chapter it
starts with what I can only assume is
four clicks of a metronome
[Music]
thank you
that's almost the same tempo as airbag
so it creates this really seamless
transition between songs I think they're
pretty cute honestly and they always
sounded like the Paranoid Android was
talking to me if I transcribe this
directly to piano it sounds like this
[Music]
so it starts out with a C minor chord
a kind of fragile sad sound
and then this sort of tension happens
when the bass note not the bass player
the bass note of the guitar goes down
[Music]
this see
okay
which sounds a little funky a little bit
transitory like it's gonna
it's all tense and it's got a dissonant
and it's got to lead to something we go
to a G minor so starting again on like
this kind of resolved fragile minor
chord and the bass goes
there's a temporary moment of tension
same kind of way that the this
right
but then it kind of lands here
hey
and this has a similar feeling to me at
least as this
right
both of them have a tritone in it and to
me a tritone is like cilantro most
people either love it or they hate it
not really uh but it has a really strong
flavor and it can kind of overpower
things a bit so the tritone and the in
the first chord I was showing you is
there and then in the second chord it's
there this part is so great right
right
walking down
so nice
I love this cord
[Music]
that section is repeated twice right
twice in a row first time Johnny plays
the lead that little Melody up high
ending on G with Tom
second time lower
same notes just an octave lower it's
kind of like a afterthought almost but
this time
lovely transition back to C minor which
isn't really related
sorry to this chord
[Music]
at least it doesn't feel that way to me
it feels like they used chromaticism
which is motion by half step to kind of
they just went to the closest note in
the next chord and it's the minor third
of that chord so it really accentuates
its minorness that's what the third does
accentuates the minorness or the
majorness
hear that
and then we start all over again
[Music]
this melody is awesome notice how it
kind of Rises and then Falls as a very
wave like motion to it
and that last note feels like a little
surprise because again the harmony is
kind of just doesn't fit into
traditional boxes thank goodness it's
kind of slots into the the cord there
this part
it's the same exact uh pattern as
whole step half step half step it's just
a coincidence but I like it I think
that's part of why that Melody works so
well patterns patterns there's a nice
offbeat Rhythm to this melody he's
actually singing on all offbeats and if
you emphasize those kind of weak beats
it's called syncopation
[Music]
if it were on the Beats it would still
be beautiful but it wouldn't be as
interesting so like
[Music]
syncopation will instantly make your
Melody more interesting if you just
listen to Tom's voice and his acoustic
guitar and arpeggios it sounds kind of
like a folk song
[Music]
but then the drums have this like Latin
American feeling you know uh Phil's got
like the cross stick going on really
nice kick pattern listen to this kick
[Music]
Ed juicy I love the way it plays off of
his cross stick anyway and you've got uh
call in the bassist doing the clave
which is an African instrument can't
remember which country
and that was adopted by Cubans at some
point
and then you've got Ed one of the
guitarists doing the Shaker and even uh
aguiro which I don't know about you but
I played that uh instrument in grade
school middle school it was like a world
instrument you know it's like wood or a
gourd and it's got notches and a stick
and you just kind of drag it across
[Music]
it's a group effort to create this very
sort of playful lighthearted drum Groove
and then Johnny
his guitar tone is swirly in my head I
see like a marbleized shimmery ooze like
swirling around he plays I'm not a
guitarist I don't know what petals he's
using I'm not sure what these effects
are I just know that it made me feel
like something was magical about this
section something was very curious about
this section and now the chorus and I
remember the first time I heard this
chorus I was just like Enchanted by
Tom's voice and holding out these notes
kind of belting
but in a pained way not like a pop star
you know it's just what's that what's
that I thought he was saying what's
there so I've been singing it what's
there for my entire life
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
oh God okay so why is this so beautiful
first of all okay
[Music]
so this chord this is like a minor chord
with this surprising major sixth
attached to it
[Music]
like in a scale if I were like kind of
playing notes in a scale it wouldn't go
like that I'd go like
[Music]
it I'd sound at least does to me it's
very curious and the tone of Ed's guitar
is I mean it's science fiction way up
here
but you know what he's not the only one
playing that Tom's playing it on the
acoustic and Johnny's playing it on his
swirly swirly Telecaster it's pretty
cool what they have done with so many
guitars okay but anyway these chords so
this just has that strange sound it has
a tritone in it ah there she is
and then this one feels like no tritone
to me this sounds like a D minor chord
with a ninth there's other ways you
could interpret it though but that's
what it sounds like to me like D minor
and then this
tense note that's just above the root of
the chord so uh yeah
sad it's heavy it's beautiful
it's not quite resolved
it feels like we're heading towards like
a place where we could like stop and
feel like oh I got like an exhale but
instead we get
basically this chord I don't have this
note button
hey this is called a dominant seventh
chord it's got a tritone
it's basically major with some tension
so this chord in traditional theory
would then like
go to a certain chord but it doesn't do
that all these chords have something in
common which is these notes
so that's kind of something that holds
them all together
[Music]
[Applause]
but they mean something different to
each chord
some things I love about like change
chords but you keep a couple elements
the same or you sing the same Melody
over different chords every chord change
gives a new context to those to those
Melody notes and it's usually really a
cool experience my favorite things about
music so Ed doing the sparkly lead way
up high he's starting all these little
patterns on downbeats Johnny's going one
one
basically he's anticipating that beat
three which is a little bit so he's
doing something syncopated and they're
panned so it like works
foreign
I guess these elements don't always have
to agree on everything right they can be
individuals and still coexist in my
opinion this melody is like the main
Melody and then Tom singing over it is
more like
he's more like an instrument right he's
kind of just I mean he's saying
something what's that but you know he's
holding out these long notes and it
feels more like he's like a stringed
instrument or he's he's part of the
harmony instead of like the main Melody
listen to this it's so beautiful so
[Music]
what's that okay
remember I was talking about the ninth
chord this is the ninth this is what
makes that chord so extra beautiful
without it it's
pretty minor but then
oh right that's the sweet spot
he's singing that so it's emphasizing
that what's this so he's singing the
tension in that chord but then that
tension builds and releases with the
next chord because the next chord is an
E chord
so he's now singing the root of that
chord that's like the beginning of the
chord basically it's the foundation for
all of it so it's the most harmonious
note to sing for this E chord what's
that foreign
this is one of many descending lines
that are used as transitions in this
song transitions between the end of a
chord progression in the beginning just
like this or the end of a chorus into
the verse or the end of one of these
books or main sections
and that's the first note he sings What
right
so it just leads you back to the
beginning and the second time it just
stays on this chord
what's this
and then
chromatic walk down works really well as
a transition because chromaticism is
without key
at least that's kind of like how I hear
it it's like the only reason we know
what key we're in is because there's a
sequence of half steps and whole steps
and sometimes some bigger jumps in a
scale that we can detect and it orients
us just like on the piano if it were all
white keys
we wouldn't know where we were
The Black Keys actually visually and
tactily
is that a word help us Orient ourselves
so if everything on a scale where
half step apart it it's all the same
right so that's why chromaticism works
so well to kind of uh reset the chorus
has a little bit more weight to it I
think than the verse and part of that I
think is because of the bass
bass players playing the clave for the
verse there's no bass Tom's taking care
of the bass notes and then the bass
comes in it's just Lush
so that's another example like an airbag
where the base is used kind of in very
intentionally
and withheld in certain moments
intentionally maybe carefully is the
right word but discernment another star
of the show of the course is the fitter
happier robot the speech to text
generated line
I may be in Andrew sorry I may be
paranoid but I'm not an Android
I may be paranoid but not an Android
there we go this chord uh
sounds really unrelated to
that chord so
that's where the chromaticism comes in
handy
and they kind of walk up to the note and
then hit it on the downbeat
okay but now the second
verse is amazing because things kind of
are pulled down a bit like Tom starts to
sing A variation of the first Melody
instead of going up and down into his
falsetto he now sings down
[Music]
you will be
[Music]
before
major props to Tom York for coming up
with yet another killer Melody over some
very unusual chords I think going lower
gives this
second verse a little bit more of a
serious tone the second chorus gets the
addition of an excellent swirly counter
Melody by Johnny he's still swirling it
up
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
[Applause]
just really nice now the transition into
the Rowdy Rock section book two of the
trilogy is done by a fairly traditional
mechanism called a perfect authentic
Cadence take it away Rowdy ixy thanks
psychedelic ixy let's get Rowdy so yeah
this perfect authentic Cadence sounds
something like this
oh
it can resolve to a major or minor chord
but it's about the relationship between
the first chord and the second chord the
distance between the bottom note of the
chord the root of the chord it's a five
to one if you know Roman numeral
analysis
so we kind of get that transitioning
from the end here where we have uh
[Music]
sorry that was sloppy but you know
I feel like this is the first time
in this whole song where it feels like
we kind of
settle like there's something that goes
clunk because it's of that resolution
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
and now we're in this new key key of a
what a total mood change it's kind of
funky it's edgy the guitar effects are
not very distorted uh the guitar solos
first of all there are guitar solos
they're very kind of experimental and
kind of
you know dissonant and just in your face
the tonality just becomes a lot more
like brute force and inaccessible at
some point the drums also change mood
they kind of like take a second until I
get with the program and then all of a
sudden they're like
it's rock and roll here's the Riff at
first we gotta
some people would say that this is an A
harmonic minor lick
it just it feels uh part of my French
kind of like a fuck you to the pretty
stuff we were just listening to that's
pretty dissonant
first everything is in unison uh Tom is
even singing this melody so it's all
very like riff based and like not chord
based right
bass kicks ass in this section and it
starts by going
into the first chorus listen
[Music]
what playful is that very chromatic
all half step action I mean in some ways
it feels like a bass solo the bass is
doing an amazing job of both holding
down kind of the the roots of those
chords that we're hearing these
but also being really creative in
between providing rhythmic interest
uh very melodic okay but these chords
right C major
a flat major B flat major flat six flat
seven one not in this order but these
three chords if you start at the bottom
and go to the top is the Super Mario
Cadence it was a pretty popular chord
progression I think in the 90s and I
wish it would come back because it's
great
all major chords and the fact that
they're all major means that we're kind
of pulling from the key of C minor and C
major at the same time
so this creates a very exciting Dynamic
and Rich sound mode mixture is the shit
bring it back the 90s were so good with
the mode mixture and I feel like it's
kind of Fallen by the wayside a little
bit very
important Tom's ablet AB living
Tom is ad-libbing kind of yeah yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah which just sounds like
whining to me you know it reminds me of
the the Gucci little piggy he's talking
about everything else in the song is in
the time signature of 4-4 which is the
standard time signature of a lot of
western music you got four beats per
measure
[Music]
but now they drop a beat at the very end
an eighth note so now it's only seven
quick beats okay so one two three four
five six seven one two three four five
six seven back to the verse we got this
chromatic descending walk down
I I've listened to a bunch of live
performances and sometimes it sounds
like
and then like repeating the I don't know
but these notes for sure but it gets us
back down to
when Tom plays this solo uh on his
acoustic
he does like a chromatic major chords
going down he probably is in this one
too it's just not as obvious but I think
he's going a
probably lower Maybe
something like that and then Mission
makes you look pretty ugly and it's
really cool because him and
Ed
are like together
Ed's doing like the high-pitched kind of
sparkly guitar tone and then there's
like a call in response with Colin and
Johnny
the Greenwood brothers and they go
[Music]
with the base and Johnny kind of picking
so it's just a nice little back and
forth they have
[Music]
ugly very creative Arrangement choices
throughout this whole album you don't
remember you don't remember it's like
Tom gets really pissed and then everyone
else is like oh we're pissed too right
so there's this break and then the drums
and then this big fill right fill with
the fill
and then it's just loud and raucous
Johnny and Tom are kind of bending pitch
and sort of just
feels kind of like sloppy almost right
like they're kind of stumbling around
and then when Tong goes ah good I guess
you don't he kind of resolves to the C
chord right and then
[Music]
I love that falsetto up yeah okay it's
that time we're gonna talk about Johnny
solos so there's sort of this pattern
over this lick
Johnny is kind of doing something that's
very you know a tonal and noisy you know
he's really just kind of being
experimental in a way it's um there's no
Melody right but then there's this one
part where he has what's called a
polyrhythm
[Music]
that's great and then over that chord
progression Johnny has like three
different licks throughout the song and
the first one is in the first iteration
of this section because remember it
comes back with a vengeance at the end
but this is the one that goes
[Music]
what patterns patterns
whole steps
up a half step all whole steps
[Music]
see because if we dropped a beat we
don't have time to go
so we just kind of drop that little
wiggle
[Music]
then
I messed that up
[Music]
I mean it it sounds a little bit like a
whole tone scale I will say that
[Music]
hole
[Music]
it's almost a whole tone scale
[Music]
ah there it is it is
so that has a very disconnected
ambiguous Lost in Space kind of feeling
because remember I was talking about how
if you had all half steps in a scale
there's really not one that has more
significance than the other same with
the whole tone scale it's just all whole
steps so
[Music]
I will say this
does kind of fit with the c Majors it's
all major major six Major Seventh
then
this all fits in with this next chord
and the reason those are so
weird sounding back to back is because
of that mode mixture thing I was talking
before this is from the c major and this
is from C minor so they don't share all
the same notes so neither does this
and then it goes off the rails
it's all this kind of back and forth
between this version chorus kind of
generates a little bit of heat and
that's what makes this sort of full
breakdown very satisfying into kind of
this like F chord kind of like this like
next the church
funeral I'm going to call the section
Church funeral take it away somber ixy
the tragic Church funeral section I mean
you can interpret this however you want
but it definitely sounds tragic to me it
has this
really melodramatic sound it has a
reference to it and
I don't know makes me think of church a
little bit this section is a lot more
classical than the other sections
beautiful vocal layering the transition
into this section or this book
is done by sort of hitting the reset
button completely like a full shutdown
of the system and a reboot with this
long cord just you know sorry
so far even though we've had two very
different moods
they've been the same tempo and that
pulse has never quit and then we reboot
but at a slower pace and it actually
feels very slow to me it feels like
dragging your heels through something
the whole time
[Music]
thank you
[Music]
this starts in the key of C harmonic
minor
[Music]
turn right here
especially there but already the B flat
chord feels like we're not in Kansas
anymore how do I know it's C harmonic
minor well
[Music]
that's one of those one five one things
I was talking about so that's that
classic sound but then it happens again
right there
they changed key to D harmonic minor
very beautifully just by giving this a
chord A major tone
and that leads the ear back to D
but listen how could that is
so this chord and this chord both have a
D in them and that's what Tom singing
[Music]
okay this
but the cool thing is is that this a
chord is not our Target
it's really d
so it's like
that's kind of how it would go
but it doesn't it goes back to C from
that's a plagal Cadence which makes
things sound kind of churchy
[Music]
it's a little softened by having the
third of the core in the base instead of
minor from a great back to F major
[Music]
really dissonant neighbor tone
and then
and then it just goes down a half step
to the beginning now we're going to talk
about all the different vocal layers and
everything in a second but that's kind
of what's going on with the harmony so
to kind of go back to the beginning with
this sort of unrelated C minor chord
Tom's voice
kind of bridges that Gap with downward
chromatic motion
and I don't know about you but I love
that part
[Music]
notice how a lot of the harmony is
achieved by downward stepwise motion
even in the bass we got some of that
[Music]
rain
down
chromatic when this section starts there
are three different vocal layers
happening before Tom ever starts singing
the lyrics I'm gonna use a pitch shifter
please
[Music]
[Laughter]
oh
[Music]
Lord
[Music]
oh
my God
[Music]
these vocal layers sound like stand-ins
for Strings now Tom's main Melody comes
in on the second round
[Music]
amen foreign
[Music]
I like the way the music is describing
what's going on lyrically every time he
sings Rain Down Down The Melody goes
down except for that one part where he
goes up and you get this nice pinch
[Music]
he's singing in the chords
[Music]
and the third of this chord when you
sing the third of a chord you're
accentuating it's emotional properties
like if it's major it has like warmth
confidence
um
it's it's like a
bigger brighter sound and it sounds more
and then the minor chords sound a little
bit more fragile I think and complex and
kind of Moody
mysterious
see how these kind of match the chords
[Music]
then
[Music]
same here just different parts of the
chords
[Music]
we talked about this right
and here in the bottom he goes
which is the fifth of this chord
but then he goes
for the a chord the root of that one so
I like that little change
it's the same on the top right
okay so we got that such a great Melody
it's so sad so tragic
[Music]
rhymed
this feels really bittersweet
[Music]
it's that version
[Music]
just don't expect that
third time around there's a new Harmony
that Tom is singing no lyrics Just oohs
and Oz
it's really nice this one has a
detectable pattern
[Laughter]
[Music]
oh
[Music]
you know what it might be a G minor
chord or the third in the bass I kind of
went back and forth on that it could be
I think it is oh crap
and then on the other chord
[Music]
same thing same part of the chord too
fifth sorry
but this time there's this beautiful
little
[Music]
beautiful pattern and then
that leading tone that was good
oh
and he does it like he resolves it a
little before the chord change love that
anticipation
[Music]
other tongas oh
[Music]
now
the counter Melody comes in this is when
Tom is saying all those things
[Music]
The Vault the Panic this counter Melody
is um
just
bouncing gently between two parts of
each chord
[Music]
it's the fifth in the root
and then
[Music]
okay but now I'm wondering if it is
actually a B flat major chord because
that's what Tom's singing uh the crackle
oh
ah it's a seventh chord that's why
they both sound great
a big skin do you see by like going
between these two notes in the chord it
kind of highlights the chord even more
uh
[Music]
I think he does that which isn't really
in the chord but it sounds so good
because it's got that now we can as that
harmonic minor feeling that we're so
used to now
then
[Music]
back
God loves his children
[Music]
yeah
sorry that's for the other ixy it's like
this counter Melody is filling in any of
the gaps
in the chords that the vocal layers
maybe have left so it's very descriptive
it also gives it a little bit of
rhythmic interest and there's drums here
of course nice laid back drums cross
stick again this chord God loves his
children
God loves his children yeah
is an E major chord and this is the
chord that remember before went
and cadenced led us back to that a for
the Rowdy section same exact thing
happens here so God loves his children
they just kind of stay there instead of
doing the
oh did that thing go God loves
the transitions really nicely this
section is so rich so beautiful so
haunting and I love listening to each
repetition with more Toms singing like
angels
hey I'm back did I miss anything more
Johnny solos okay these might be my
favorite in the whole song
[Music]
[Applause]
two major sevens which are very
dissonant
[Music]
followed by an octave which is what a
perfect
a Major Seventh wants to kind of become
when it grows up I love that
okay but listen to how this connects
with the bass notes Here we go okay
oh
it starts out really nice like
I think it's an ad nine chord nice
that's right
this is very dissonant my software is
like G sharp flat two sus2
surprise the program didn't just crash
it's like cannot does not okay computer
beaut
okay and then this makes sense though
yeah
I just loved it though oh
[Music]
wrong but cool
you could really make this part
beautiful right
[Music]
again all of these solos have like a
really clear pattern right that
everything's following going down with
the chords same kind of pattern every
time
that was a pattern as well and then the
last one has a pattern
also didn't see that one coming now this
one I would actually say is kind of
sounds like a scale which would be
see Dorian except that the chords aren't
playing in C Dorian so there's still
weirdness a foot wow
[Music]
thank you that part's pretty
goes down then Up From Below
[Music]
then starts the same
instead of going B flat C this time he
goes E flat F so there's kind of a
relationship
even though this isn't quite the same
you can hear that there's a similarity
same Rhythm for one da da
right
they're related they have that like
step-wise thing going on isn't that so
pretty though when it goes up higher
[Music]
so the Dorian sound I'm talking about is
this if I just played over C the whole
time you can hear it I think if you know
Dorian if you don't know Dorian don't
worry just imagine a a Bard is
serenading you with a loot and I think
you'll get the feelings okay
I messed up let me try that again
[Music]
sounds like a film score so yeah I
consider these Johnny solos to be bright
stars in the trilogies universe
and then the song ends on the chromatic
walk down but this time I think I can
hear like a parallel thirds Harmony
so instead of uh like because before I
think it was like a lot of like fifths
and fourths which kind of sound more
ambiguous more ROM or rugged now it's
like
thirds
that sound which is really fun a bunch
of parallel thirds sounds kind of
playful kind of like I don't give a fuck
and the band is all playing together
rhythmically drums based all the guitars
that's it for this video see you next
time if you enjoyed this video
then you're a true Radiohead fan I want
to thank all my patrons for supporting
my channel and me as a musician couldn't
do this without you just if you're
interested in joining the link is below
we do some fun stuff you're so cute and
your clothes are very very sharp your
buttholes on screen this is Milo by the
way
she's a girl I gave her a boy's name I
don't care
she's so cute
you're so cute I'll crash on
loves his children
do you see a book do you see a bug okay