Radiohead on Hiding From Your Choices

When I’m at the pearly gates
This’ll be on my videotape
My videotape
My videotape

Mephistopheles is just beneath
And he’s reaching up to grab me

This is one for the good days
And I have it all here in
Red, blue, green
Red, blue, green

You are my centre when I spin away
Out of control on videotape
On videotape
On videotape
On videotape

This is my way of saying goodbye
Because I can’t do it fact to face
So I’m talking to you before
No matter what happens now
I won’t be afraid
Because I know
Today has been the most perfect day I have ever seen

– Radiohead, ‘Videotape’ from In Rainbows

I am a Radiohead fan.

But this lyric really bothers me. At once Thom Yorke is convinced that the choices he makes in his life have important consequences – and he seems convinced that particular choices are going to have bad consequences. But he hides from these choices by telling himself that ‘today has been the most perfect day’. However things work out in the end, he’ll always have this one perfect day to hold onto and justify his choices. He’s sure that one day ‘Mephistopheles’ is going to require something quite serious of him, but stops himself from being bothered by this right now by remembering how ‘perfect’ the moment in question was.

I usually admire Thom Yorke’s lyrics for the way he can latch onto the absurdity of pride, the pain of isolation and the desire for something permanent and good; but in this song I think he cops out and glorifies a simple ‘live for the moment’-type mantra, and the tinge of melancholy and curiosity which accompany this song seem token – more a result of habit then genuine reflection.

What say you?