The Eraser

With this record, it was a bit mad because there were no songs. I mean, Nigel may’ve had it on his mind—since he’d been working with Paul McCartney, Mr. Melody—and didn’t intend on telling me. In fact, all the lyrics came as it was going along, which was somewhat of a difficult situation, because the only way I could really complete them, bizarrely, was to try and play most of the tracks on an instrument. Generally speaking, I couldn’t write just listening to the laptop. I know that Stipey [Michael Stipe] has done this over the years, where R.E.M. sends him tracks, and he drives around in this old Volvo, and he used to write lyrics like that. I have done a lot that way, but I was finding the pace of what we were doing so fast that I just didn’t have time. So, the easiest way to do it was desperately figure out how to play it. Which is really interesting because it feeds back to the guitar part in ‘Black Swan,’ which hadn’t been there for ages. But to sing something, I needed to strum something and then the song came, a very peculiar way around.

--paste magazine, august 2006

the eraser, however, is not the same old shit, by any means. in a very true way, it's an album of love songs. but before you think yorke has gone completely soft, by clarification, the "love" here is the whole package, complete with mean streaks and caustic wit, not merely the trite, romantic-idealist definition. "who would want to listen to that crap?" yorke says. "it's not real; love isn't like that. well, it isn't for me--maybe that's why i don't get any action", he laughs.
for yorke, a true love song speaks to the realities of love--the egotistically sadistic side, the analytical side, the physical depravation side, all of it, not some 'here are your roses, i love you darling' lionel ritchie sendup.
"happily ever after... not!"
the eraser's title track is the most pointed. the first lines you hear on the album are, "please excuse me, but i got to ask, are you only being nice because you want something?/my fairytale arab princess be careful how you respond/you might end up in this song".
when asked to comment on the lyrics of "the eraser" there's a long pause before he simply answers, "i can't".

--paste magazine, august 2006

japanese cd lyrics

01. the eraser

please excuse me but i got to ask,
are you only being nice because you want something?
my fairytale arab princess
be careful how you respond
you might end up in this song
i never gave you an encouragement
and its doing me in doing me in doing me in doing me in
the more the more you try to erase me the more
the more the more that i appear
the more the more the more you try the eraser
the more that i appear
you know the answer so why do you ask?
i am only being nice because I want something
you're like a kitten with a ball of wool
and it's doing me in doing me in doing me in
the more the more you try to erase me the more
the more that i appear
the more the more i try to erase you the more
the more the more that
you appear
no youre wrong youre wrong youre wrong
youre wrong youre wrong

they are only being nice because they want something', 'you are merely a distraction. im a kitten with a ball of wool.

sundaycomedown
empty streets
ant powder

tennis ball
swollen lip
creamscryingcream
long long long long
hold me cool down

firework rocket
a braver man than eye

sunday papers
artichoke broken hearts
vodka
railings cling clang
the sound of empty bottles
berlin
in a sack
hang on
heavy metal

change
digital channel

'this is a stitch up'

they are only being nice because they want something

the chink in your armour
you fatal flaw
spitting an obligatory compliment to make me feel at ease

lunatic
soothsayer
naysayer
hypocrit
be amusing
be amused
makes notes
say nothing
admit everything
admit nothing

politics is poison
words are blunt instruments
you give nothing

so receive nothing
i am imagining
while people are carrying
tongueing
fucking
drinking

all on candid camera
right now this camera is saying nothing

--'scrapbook', radiohead.com

project for a new century

anyway
accept no imitations

turn on the shredder
and begin hoping now to have found solution to everyday recurring problems
to building new life much like the first
mirror image
barely different
safe
the soft whispering and corrosion
not realised
this is important

wait
change your locks and email and phone numbers

a few factual errors
--------
do you choose the plastic?
or the real?
man i choose the plastic.
--------
the more that i struggle
the further i get in trouble
the more i erase you
the more you appear
any other time
any other time
please
not now

never ever never
ever never ever
pick up the phone

calm down
take three of these
with a glass of water
shut up

oh no it doesn't
oh yes it does
you should be with me
we should be together
no we shouldn't
no
we shouldn't

oh dear how sad
never mind
oh dear how sad
never mind

pass it round
down is the new up
-------
calm down
take three of these
with a glass of water
shut up

To me the most exciting... you know... exciting music I ever had is when you get all those things mixed up together and you can't tell where one starts and one ends... you know there's something else going on....It's probably lazy and a little bit just a response to what people think I am or I am not to say that this is a political record because it has a lot of love songs and personal songs...

--Thom Yorke on XFM, 21 August 2006

Q: "Were these songs written in a concentrated period?"

Thom: "Absolutely, except for 'Cymbal Rush' - that riff that had been around for ages - and 'The Eraser', where the piano chords are Jonny's. I recorded them on a dictaphone around his house one day. A year and a half later, I had to own up that I had sampled them, cut them into a different order and made them into a song [laughs]. 'Is that alright? Sorry, Jonny.'"

--Rolling Stone | 1 June 2006)

The first lines you hear on the album are, "please excuse me, but i got to ask, are you only being nice because you want something?/my fairytale arab princess be careful how you respond/you might end up in this song". When asked to comment on the lyrics of "the eraser" there's a long pause before he simply answers, "I can't."

--Paste | August 2006.

02. analyse

a self fulfilling prophecy
of endless possibilty
in rolling reams across a screen
in algebra in algebra

in fences that you cannot climb
in sentences that do not rhyme
in all that you can never change
the one your looking for

it gets you down
it gets you down

theres no spark
no light in the dark
it gets you down
it gets you down
youve travelled far
what have you have found
that theres no time
theres no time
to analyse
to think things thru
to make sense

by candles in the city
you never looked so pretty
by powercuts 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 part
but theres no time
theres no time
to analyse
analyse
analyse
analyse

Q: "Your writing has always been intensely personal and conflicted, but because your voice is so up front on The Eraser, the words and images come through so vividly, as in 'Analyse'."

Thom: "[sings] 'Powercuts and blackouts/Sleeping like babies.' I used to live in central Oxford, on one of those historical streets, with all these houses built in the 1860s. I came home one night and for some reason, the street had a powercut. The houses were all dark, with candlelight in the windows, which is obviously how it would have been when they were built. It was beautiful."

(Rolling Stone, june 1st 2006)

03. the clock

"Later... with Jools Holland" | November 2006

"The Henry Rollins Show" | 15 July 2006

time is running out for us
but you just move the hands upon the clock

you throw coins in a wishing well
wake up
you just move your hands upon the clock

it comes to you begging you to stop
wake up
but you just move your hands upon the clock

throw coins in a wishing well
for us
make believe that you are still in charge

from the mercy .pdf file in

Real Politik
other guitar lines.. processed and sampled as pads to play..additional guitar riffs
festival in the desert

It comes to you naked and afraid
for mercy
and begs you for bread for shelter and a bed

it begs to be brought out of the cold
for mercy
it begs to warm its blue limbs by your fire

melody1

it comes to you begging you to stop
for mercy
but you dont have the love inside you to forgive

you call up a witchhunt/lynchmob instead
no mercy
a fire breathing dragon of local hypocrits

melody1
melody2

you bomb the weak and the infants/infirm
in the name of god. no mercy.

you reach for you cross instead
and bible
a firebreathing witchhunt of local hypocrits

so quick to judge both the living and the dead

scatter bomb

04. black swan

what will grow crooked you cant make straight
its the price that you;'ve got to pay
do yourself a favour and pack you bags
buy a ticket and get on the train
buy a ticket and get on the train

coz this is fucked up
fucked up

people get crushed like biscuit crumbs
and laid down in the bitumen
you have tried to best to please everyone
but it just isnt happenin
but it just isnt happenin

and that is fucked up
this is fucked up
this your blind spot
blind spot
it should be obvious
but its not

you cannot kick start a dead horse
you just cross yourself and walk away
i dont care what the future holds
coz i am right here and im today

this is fucked up
this is fucked up
we are black swans
black swans
and for spare parts we are broken up

you are fucked up
this is fucked up
we are black swans
and for spare parts were broken up

I also like the lines in "Black Swan": 'You cannot kick-start a dead horse/You just cross yourself and walk away'.

Thom: [Laughs] As always, whatever psychic garbage you've got going on in your head, you end up using it. You should have seen the stuff I didn't put in. That's the shit you don't want to know about."

--Thom Yorke | Rolling Stone | 2006

05. skip divided

im in a skip divided malfunction
i flap around and divebomb
franticly around your light
enveloped in a sad distraction
i got your voice repeating endlessly
could you guide me in
could you smother me
i swoop around your head
but i never hit
im blinded by your daylight
electric veins passed through me
i thought there was this big connection

i only got my name
i only got this situation
i just need a number and location

without appropriate papers or permissions
im known to bite in tight situations
and as i head into french windows
i thought there was a big connection

i only got my name
i only got my situation
i just need my number and location

but the mole keeps telling me hey hey hey hey
the devil may hey hey heyhey
you are a fool for sticking round

ive tried every trick in the book
oh how come i
how come i loose

no one can undress your elliptical caress
dont look into my eyes
coz i'm desperately in love

when you walk in the room everything disappears
when you walk in a room its a terrible mess
when you walk in a room i start to melt
when you walk in a room i follow you roun dlike a dog
im a dog im a dog im a lapdog
im your lapdog

i just got my number and location
i just need my number and location

Now is that one of the love songs that you referred to earlier on?

Thom: Yeah... kind of. It's a bit messed up for that. It sounds like it's more of a love song than it really is. It's actually a song... it's more about the dislocation than anything else to me. when I... when I sing it, I always have this image of slick black oil.

So that's what you're thinking about when you're performing that?
Thom: "Yeah... that and sex."

--XFM | 21 August 2006

The world presented in The Eraser is full of paranoia and scary dysfunctional stuff.

Thom: I bet you thought, 'Oh, he's at it again...' (laughs). It certainly gets very dark in the middle, yeah - with 'Skip Divided', which is about complete disconnection.

That song sounds like someone having serious problems in their inter-personal relationships. Is it autobiographical? Or do these words just appear out of your mouth?

Thom: It's always both - he said, being nice and evasive. You always take things from what's happening to you and whatever psychic garbage that's lodged in your head.

--Mojo | July 2006