Ooh, sory i forgot something important. As i was saying, Radiohead are a band with an anticapitalist sentiment, yet they realise that they cannot escape capitalism (They need to sign to a record label in the music industry, and we need to pay money to buy their music).
The lyric 'Where'd you park the car?' epitomises this. Although the father doesn't care about the furniture and will freely give it to the mother, he is still extremely concerned with another material posseion; the car. Without the car, he cannot escape and survive for very long, and he cannot help his children.
In short, the father needs a bit of capitalism in order to escape capitalism. Realizing the catch-22 situation (you cant escape capitalism if you use it, but you need to use it in order to escape it, but you cant escape it if you use it, and so on and so on,) is the problem at the heart of the album of Kid A. It is also why the album cant find an answer to the problem. In any case, listening to Kid A is a damn good mental excersize, and is says something quite complicated that needs to be said.
I didn't get a full appreciation of Kid A until i came back to it after i was a teenager and a little smarter.
But i think everyone will back me up here when i say that even if you don't fully understand what a Radiohead song is about (and i dont claim to by the way, hell i'm almost definitely overanalysing!) you still feel the moods and emotions that are at the heart of the music, and it is those moods that encaptulate the feelings of anxiety and isolation and hopelessness we feel as disenfranchised members of western society (not unlike Winston in George Orell's 1984 (2+2=5)).
Above anything, Radiohead reassure us that we aren't alone in thinking what we think and feeling how we feel, and that is why they are my favorite band.
@BlakeNewland At the same time, in relation to escaping capitalism, I guess it could also be said that the car may represent trying to escape the trap of continuing to produce the same music, until it gradually becomes worse and worse. The car could simply represent Kid A as itself, as in Kid A is the vehicle in which they can escape from the dread of melting away into obscurity. It's definitely a stretch, but perhaps the car represents parallel ideas - escaping capitalism, but requiring capitalism to escape; escaping a supposedly inevitable trap of likeness in music, whilst having...
@BlakeNewland At the same time, in relation to escaping capitalism, I guess it could also be said that the car may represent trying to escape the trap of continuing to produce the same music, until it gradually becomes worse and worse. The car could simply represent Kid A as itself, as in Kid A is the vehicle in which they can escape from the dread of melting away into obscurity. It's definitely a stretch, but perhaps the car represents parallel ideas - escaping capitalism, but requiring capitalism to escape; escaping a supposedly inevitable trap of likeness in music, whilst having to continue producing music in order to change. Obviously these sides are different, as continuing to create music doesn't mean doing what you've done before, but there is a distinct similarity between the two.
As you said, no-one understands Radiohead as a whole, it's impossible for someone to - unless of course you're in Radiohead. But, I personally feel that the car represents two separate metaphors, one being an escape from itself, and the other as being a vehicle to escape fading way.
Apologies for this being a bit of a mess, but I'm a tad tired at the moment.
Ooh, sory i forgot something important. As i was saying, Radiohead are a band with an anticapitalist sentiment, yet they realise that they cannot escape capitalism (They need to sign to a record label in the music industry, and we need to pay money to buy their music).
The lyric 'Where'd you park the car?' epitomises this. Although the father doesn't care about the furniture and will freely give it to the mother, he is still extremely concerned with another material posseion; the car. Without the car, he cannot escape and survive for very long, and he cannot help his children.
In short, the father needs a bit of capitalism in order to escape capitalism. Realizing the catch-22 situation (you cant escape capitalism if you use it, but you need to use it in order to escape it, but you cant escape it if you use it, and so on and so on,) is the problem at the heart of the album of Kid A. It is also why the album cant find an answer to the problem. In any case, listening to Kid A is a damn good mental excersize, and is says something quite complicated that needs to be said.
I didn't get a full appreciation of Kid A until i came back to it after i was a teenager and a little smarter.
But i think everyone will back me up here when i say that even if you don't fully understand what a Radiohead song is about (and i dont claim to by the way, hell i'm almost definitely overanalysing!) you still feel the moods and emotions that are at the heart of the music, and it is those moods that encaptulate the feelings of anxiety and isolation and hopelessness we feel as disenfranchised members of western society (not unlike Winston in George Orell's 1984 (2+2=5)).
Above anything, Radiohead reassure us that we aren't alone in thinking what we think and feeling how we feel, and that is why they are my favorite band.
@BlakeNewland At the same time, in relation to escaping capitalism, I guess it could also be said that the car may represent trying to escape the trap of continuing to produce the same music, until it gradually becomes worse and worse. The car could simply represent Kid A as itself, as in Kid A is the vehicle in which they can escape from the dread of melting away into obscurity. It's definitely a stretch, but perhaps the car represents parallel ideas - escaping capitalism, but requiring capitalism to escape; escaping a supposedly inevitable trap of likeness in music, whilst having...
@BlakeNewland At the same time, in relation to escaping capitalism, I guess it could also be said that the car may represent trying to escape the trap of continuing to produce the same music, until it gradually becomes worse and worse. The car could simply represent Kid A as itself, as in Kid A is the vehicle in which they can escape from the dread of melting away into obscurity. It's definitely a stretch, but perhaps the car represents parallel ideas - escaping capitalism, but requiring capitalism to escape; escaping a supposedly inevitable trap of likeness in music, whilst having to continue producing music in order to change. Obviously these sides are different, as continuing to create music doesn't mean doing what you've done before, but there is a distinct similarity between the two.
As you said, no-one understands Radiohead as a whole, it's impossible for someone to - unless of course you're in Radiohead. But, I personally feel that the car represents two separate metaphors, one being an escape from itself, and the other as being a vehicle to escape fading way.
Apologies for this being a bit of a mess, but I'm a tad tired at the moment.