Exit Music (For a Film) Lyrics

Lyric discussion by DeSade 

Cover art for Exit Music (For a Film) lyrics by Radiohead

I don't know about anyone else, but ... in the lines:

"Pack and get dressed, before your father hears us, before, all hell breaks lose"

It isn't parents. It's father. And without going too much into my personal bullshit ... I do remember hearing something similar coming from my mother as a kid one night. So I always kinda related it to that and had thought it was about a mother and her child fleeing an abusive (or maybe non-abusive father/husband). "Pack and get dressed..." that would have already been done most likely were it lovers fleeing. This leads me to believe in a decision made almost instantly or something along those lines. "Sing us a song, a song to keep us warm, there's such a chill, such a chill "

This could have been the children asking the mother for a lullaby. They are in the streets possibly, or sleeping in a car...who knows. They are asking for her song to soothe them in that cold night.

Whatever happens, I've always a sense of tragedy in the end and a prayer for vengeance at whatever had happened. I never had taken "choke" as literal, but interpreted it as "to choke on your words".

But, I guess, according to some, Thom wrote this exclusively for the movie lol can't deny that I suppose.