Nude Lyrics

Lyric discussion by nn1000 

Cover art for Nude lyrics by Radiohead

I think that this song is about the lies we tell ourselves, in relation with the things we want to do or who we want to be (our Big Ideas for our life, that won't happen). Also about our abilty to decieve ourselves from the ture person that we are (we paint ourselves white, even though we are not pure) and our ability to blind ourselves from our present situations, refusing to see, or hear in this case, (we fill up with noise). "But there'll be something missing", even though we lie to ourselves and convince ourselves about these things we want to achieve, there will always be something missing. This song is extremely pessimistic, going even further in it's analysis of the meaningless efforts we make to get the things we want in the next verse. "Now that you find it, it's gone, now that you feel it you don't", for me this verse is about a very common aspect of our human nature, first we convince ourselves that we need something, or someone, to be happy, to feel fulfilled, but when we get this someone, this feeling, or this thing, we find out that that wasn't the problem, that it didn't make us any happier. Now that we got it, it's gone, it doesn't matter, and now that we feel it, we don't. That which we thought we needed, was really a waste of time, and this make's us feel lost, it takes us off our rails. Lost and even nude, vulnerable and confused, as the title implies it. I'm a little lost with the meaning of the last line, "You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking", I understand that this line could leave the song open for sexual interpretations, but in my opinion it has nothing to do with it. Maybe it is directed to us as listeners to the song? Because really the easy interpretation for this song is about some sexual adventure, so it confronts us and our subconscious need to relate all thing to sex! I really have no idea... but in my opinion this song is about human desire for things and the frustration when we finally get them and find out we don't care for them at all.... it's very pessimistic and crude but at the same time indeniably true!

i completely agree with you. i'll go so far as to say that the allusions to finding or feeling "it" may even be unrequited. that is, he is so pessimistic that i don't think it even matters if he really finds or feels it because he knows with certainty that it's not going to happen. as for the "you'll go to hell..." part, i think it might be a stretch, but i feel like he is telling himself that he will put himself through hell for thinking things other than these big ideas not happening. perhaps...

I was so excited reading your interpretation, nn1000. My interpretation is similar. The only thing that initially made me think this song was sexual was the "you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking."

I like to think that it's about the dangers and inevitable disappointment of being unjustifiably optimistic. "don't get any big ideas, they're not going to happen" to me, meant that many of us humans view their future and goals they aim to achieve too idealistically sometimes. "You paint yourself white and fill up with noise" I thought was about not really absorbing reality...

I interpreted the song more or less like you.

and i was lost with the last line too. but now I think the dirty mind is those desires "that wish we though we needed" that leads to nothing. You end up wishing for something you don't want and you'll go to hell for that (you're gonna suffer since there's nothing you really want or nothing you really get)

yeah pessimistic

that's my way of seeing it