Blow Out

One violent night, after a stormy session, Jonny got particularly violent. He grabbed Ed by the throat and slammed him against the wall. We had to jump Jonny to calm him down. As a punishment, we sent him to the corner of the room, on a stool with the dunce cap for a time out. After an hour or so, we returned from the local bar and found Jonny scribbling the lyrics of Blowout on the wall.

Nowadays, whenever we get in a creative rut, we send Jonny to the wall, that bonny lad of ours. He's getting tired of it, though. Poor chap.

I think this song is about unintentional emotional unattachment, The person wishes they could feel more about things, but they have a curse, Midas Touch (Everything I touch turns to stone), and is so depressed they think they are going to "blow out".

"Jonny's favorite Pablo Honey track and the band's closing song of choice for many of the early shows, "Blow Out" is one of Thom's more personal songs about low self-esteem." from the site greenplastic.com/

Yeah, musemaniac, exactly what I was thinking re: the Midas Touch - except in Blow Out's case it would be the anti-Midas touch.

(Incidentally, the band Silverchair have a song referencing the anti-Midas touch phenominon, called The Man Who Knew Too Much.)

Blow Out basically sounds like the self-talk of someone who's nearing a nervous collapse on the inside but TRYING so hard to hold it all together out in the Real World.

This is Jonny's fav of Pablo Honey. My fav too, by far. An excellent song to cap off a great album.

Slight mistake it should be

I am fused just in case I blow out. I am glued just in case I crack out.

There is also a final 'Turns to stone' at the last verse

I just watched the Astoria '94 DVD for the first time in a while and was reminded of just how great this song can be. The album version is one of the few tracks on Pablo Honey I'll go out of my way to listen to, but it has nothing on the live version. Anyone who hasn't seen it should look up the Astoria version of this song on Youtube or whatever. The band as a whole sounds amazing, but Jonny's performance on that is absolutely phenomenal.

I think it's a step above the rest of PH lyrically (though it's still not at the level of the vast majority of the songs that came afterwards). I like that it's a bit less direct than other songs on the album.

Easily the best song on the album and in my opinion one of their all-time best.

About being unable to connect with others and the pain/despair that that creates; how the narrator wishes to destroy his emotions to prevent the pain and yet that same wish is also part of what causes his inability to connect. A vicious cycle that leaves him wanting to blow out.

I can see this song being played in a car by a suicidal individual as he or she heads toward a cliff edge, slowly picking up speed as the song progresses and then towards the end as the guitars blare putting the pedal to the metal and gaining as much speed as possible before rocketing over the edge into the abyss below. The clangs at the end being the impacts of the car with the rocks below, perhaps with an inaudible fireball for good measure.

Nobody's posted on this song for some reason... I think this is one of the only two songs that come away from Pablo Honey scot-free (the other being Stop Whispering).

This song is the sound of someone resigning themselves to their slow collapse. "I am fused just in case I blow out" - Thom feels his life is barely held together by routine. It's not as sad as it could be - the music gives the impression that these thoughts are merely passing through his head.

I have an acoustic version from CBC Radio Vancouver that has a few of the Posies playing with Thom. It's worth tracking down; the spareness of the instrumentation seems to give his lyrics more heft.

yeah, the acoustic version is much better. a radiohead song i can relate to better than all the others.