| Radiohead – Fitter Happier Lyrics | 13 years ago |
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Fitter or Happier? In its third studio album OK Computer, English rock band Radiohead examines the theme of social alienation in modern society. In the song “Fitter Happier”, Radiohead explores how we arrive at emotional estrangement and the consequences of allowing it to happen. The track is less of a song, so much as a list poem recited by the emotionless computer voice of the Macintosh SimpleText software. On the surface, “Fitter Happier” is a positive song. It is composed of a collection of self-improvement slogans. One of its first lyrics reads: “regular exercise at the gym, three days a week.” Many would agree that exercise is a productive activity, and exercising routinely is important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. In modern society, moderate exercise is universally accepted as a good thing and almost everyone strives to exercise more. The main obstacle that prevents many people from exercising is laziness, since it takes considerable energy and self-motivation to go to the gym. Thus, the lyric “regular exercise at the gym, three days a week” seems to tell us that we should resist our desire to be lazy in order to become fitter beings. Upon closer examination, however, we find the lyric also seems to preach conformity. Rather than only telling us to exercise, it indicates where and how often. The lyric tells us to exercise specifically at the gym. The exercise machines at the gym provide an artificial workout when compared to more primitive forms exercise, such as playing sports. Rather than allowing exercise to be a natural byproduct of activity, the song tells us to exercise specifically for the purpose of exercising. Additionally, the song prescribes a specific amount of exercise (three days a week). Regardless of individual differences, the song says we should all exercise the same amount. It is probably true that exercising at the gym is more efficient than playing sports. It is also fair to say that three days of exercise per week is good amount. However, following the song’s advice on physical self-improvement seems to come at the cost of individuality. It is important to note that the key to exercising regularly is resisting laziness. The idea of resisting impulses seems to be prevalent throughout the song. For instance, the song encourages safety through the following lyric: “a patient better driver, a safer car, baby smiling in back seat.” The lyric claims that a patient driver is a better driver, which certainly seems like an accurate statement. Patience involves resisting the urge to drive above the speed limit, and it means to fight the temptation of passing the slow car ahead of you. If people were more patient drivers, there would probably be less car crashes and less people would be injured or dead. The lyric then uses the image of a smiling baby to link the ideas of patience and safety with the idea of happiness. The message seems clear: pursuing patience and safety will result in happiness. However, this idea is challenged by a parallel lyric near the end of the song: “shot of baby strapped in back seat”. This lyric is identical to the previous one except the word “smiling” has changed to the word “strapped”. The new image no longer has elements of happiness. Rather, it conveys a sense of terror and fear. The driver is so fearful of his baby’s safety that he has strapped it down. The fear of danger has also metaphorically strapped down the driver through his pursuit of safety and resisting urges. The song is implying that restricting ourselves to an extreme will exterminate our happiness. Thus far, there seems to be a tension forming within the messages of the song. The lyrics tell us to restrict our desires in order to become healthier and safer. Yet it also implies that this restriction will diminish our individuality and happiness. This tension is further complicated by the multiple instances of animals in the song. A total of five animals are mentioned in the song. They are referred to in the following order: spider, moth, ant, cat, and pig. It is interesting to note that the number of legs diminishes from one animal to the next. The spider has eight legs; the moth has six legs with two wings; the ant has six legs. Both the cat and the pig have four legs, but the pig is anatomically closer to humans. As the song progresses, it seems to bring us closer to humans, which have two legs. Thus, the song implies that following its list of prescriptions will lead us to become “more human.” To emphasize that we are becoming more human, every instance of animals is linked with the idea of not killing them. It tells us “never [to wash] spiders down the plughole”, “no killing moths or putting boiling water on ants”, and no driving the cat “into frozen winter shit.” The song also says “a pig in a cage on antibiotics”, which implies that we should give medicine to sick animals. By telling to resist the impulse to kill animals, the song implies that we are no longer bloodthirsty barbarians. Rather, we are progressing towards a more civilized society by following the song’s decrees. The message of becoming more human is undermined, however, by the presence of water at every instance that an animal is mentioned. Specifically, water is always the agent that kills the animals. The idea of water killing animals is ironic, since the lack of water kills life. However, the song is against using water on the animals. The song seems to view water as an adversary on other occasions as well. For example, one lyric states “tires that grip in the wet”. In this case, water is threat to safety. Throughout the song, water seems to be symbol for emotion. Both share the quality of mutability, and both undermine the rigid structure of restraint that the song encourages. Furthermore, both water and emotion are essential to human life. The song seems to present a mixed message. It claims that we become more human through restraint, even though that restraint will lead to a loss of emotion. This tension relates back to the title of the song, “Fitter Happier”. Does becoming fitter lead to becoming happier? Or must we choose one over the other? Although the answer is not stated explicitly, the song implies that the latter is true. As the song progresses, the listener is supposedly becoming more and more fit from following the advice of the song. The words of the song become darker and more negative as it plays. Initially, the lyrics include positive words such as “happier”, “comfortable”, “at ease”, and “smiling”. Towards the end, the lyrics are dominated by depressing words such as “desperate”, “powerless”, “empty”, and “frantic”. The shift in tone demonstrates that the listener becomes less happy as he becomes fitter. The listener’s transformation is explicitly shown through the first and last lines of the song. They are almost identical except for a key difference: the word “happier” in the first line is replaced with “healthier” in the last line. Thus, the song tells us that losing happiness is the price we pay in order to become healthier and fitter. It warns us of the consequences of losing individuality and emotion. And if we do follow the prescribed path, we will become no more than test tube subjects for advancing our species. In other words, we will be “pigs in cages on antibiotics.” |
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