Radiohead - 4 Minute Warning

So back when I wrote about the bonus disc for In Rainbows I probably didn’t properly disclose how awesome the six, formal, songs are on it. Radiohead’s last album is still the ten-song beast we’ve come to love but with it are these other choice cuts that while they aren’t on the album, are probably just as amazing as anything else on it. Either way, “4 Minute Warning” is the gorgeous closer to that bonus disc and in talking about “Separator” last night, it made sense to maybe touch on why this other stuff that they were making before The King of Limbs is so good too.

There’s just something so perfect about it: its structure is a basic verse-chorus combination that gels in just over, well, four minutes, there’s a great deal of noisy darkness at the beginning of it and then, by the end of it you’re left with a beautifully light stunner. There’s background chatter on this one and there’s even more amazing words on it. I think the part about nightmares that’s most scary is the fact that you’re just dying to wake up from them and yet you just can’t seem to. I got to see most of Eternal Sunshine… yesterday (through an awesome pick by an awesome person) and wow, dreams and feelings and nostalgia. Radiohead’s beautiful in pin-pointing those aching feelings we feel when we’re in complete denial: “I just want to run and hide” is what Thom Yorke sings to the support of a choir of voices that sound like ghostly creatures. At the end, he’s even more uplifting, “Soon I'm going to wake up…someone’s going to bring me around” and it’s that sort of swoon one feels when their lover shows up to take them away. Then again, this could just be about wanting to escape or it could be about something concrete and much deeper than silly feelings. I’m not entirely sure but well, Radiohead’s been destroying me all over lately and this is still part of the massive collection of music they made during the In Rainbows. Their depth is what’s so amazing, you can hear U2 and R.E.M. on something like this and still, it’s a Radiohead singular closer. – Bryan