A self-fulfilling prophecy of endless possibilty
You're born and raised across the street
In algebra, in algebra

The fences that you cannot climb
The sentences that do not rhyme
In all that you can ever change
The one you're looking for

It gets you down
It gets you down

There's no spark
No light in the dark

It gets you down
It gets you down
You travel far
What have you found
That there's no time
There's no time
To analyze
To think things through
To make sense

Like cows in the city
They never looked so pretty
Bad power cuts and blackouts
Sleeping like babies

It gets you down
It gets you down
You're just playing a part
You're just playing a part

You're playing a part
Playing a part
That there's no time
There's no time
To analyze
Analyze
Analyze


Lyrics submitted by black_cow_of_death, edited by Dalicris, SeaGreen, Kelko, StrippedDm, clemfandango, BIRDDUDE830, ZiGerman, arorahul

Analyse Lyrics as written by Thomas Edward Yorke

Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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  • +2
    General Comment

    I think this song is pointing out the futility of "progress." The lyrics are actually wrong above. It doesn't say cows, but candles and not carts but blackouts. The people sleep like babies (no insomnia) only when forcibly deprived of the tools of "progress."

    Civilization supposedly marches forward, with mathematical precision (alegbra), yet having come so far in the last hundred years in terms of modern conveniences built around electricity, have we found ourselves any happier?

    It gets you down to think of how hard we work, just to find that we can never truly change "the one we're looking for," which is our satisfied selves. No matter what we do, we don't know how to find happiness. We only know how to pursue the accouterments that are supposed to offer happiness. But we play our part in the wheels of commerce, keeping the machine running. Thank God for blackouts.

    BareMomenton December 25, 2009   Link

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