God's iPod - radiohead

There is a feeling that every music lover knows - that feeling when, after everything has gone dull for a bit, you hear a new album or single or band, and suddenly it's like the grass is a shade greener, the sun a little brighter and the sky a bit bluer than it was before. A piece of music can make you feel as free and as reckless and as unnerved as if you've just jumped out of an aeroplane; it can affect you as dramatically as when Truman Burbank opened the door at the back of his movie set. That feeling of newness, of the world lighting up in a fresh way, is something that commentators on aesthetics have puzzled over for centuries, and tried to rationalise and explain (not always very successfully). Heidegger, a philosopher of the 20th century, once commented that the whole purpose of art was to make the viewer see the world in a fresh light, as they had never seen it before.  It's interesting that a whole slice of the Christian world (mostly a Protestant slice) has shied away from all things aesthetic, and even forbidden Christians from dabbling in the arts. This fear that the arts are inevitably immoral is a sad defect in Christianity as some of us have known it. The truth is that the capacity for the aesthetic to split open the soul to see the world in a new way is a God-given gift. Like Truman living within the artificial limitations of his film-set world, when that capacity is denied our lives become too small.

I can well remember a number of instances when that soul-splitting feeling of brilliant freshness came over me on hearing a piece of music for the first time. Bach's Double Violin concerto when I was about 7.  La Boheme when I was 9 (my Dad let me stay up late specially to hear it broadcast live from the Opera house). James Taylor when I was 12 or 13. The Beatles Revolver in my mid teens, and not long afterwards, the third movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony; his 8th in its entirety as it was the first one I even played in. K T Tunstall's "Eye" was the last time it happened.

And somewhere in between, The Bends lit up my world after several years of not really hearing anything startling or new. There is something both raw and sophisticated about Radiohead - they comp[ose almost on a symphonic scale, they employ the dirtiest, grungiest guitar sounds, and weave it all together with exquisite, sweet melodies, which often belie (or project in irony?) the cynicism of the lyric. Nice Dream was one track that has all these elements, so I chose this for God's iPod.

Comments

[Paul Fromont]

Thanks Maggi. I'm a huge fan of Radiohead. Saw some footage from a live concert of one of the Glastonbury gatherings. Awesome. Hoping something of the "live" Rdiohead experience will come out on DVD one day...

Have a groovy weekend.

[hopefulamphibian]

I've very similar feelings about The Bends - had to play it again having read your post. Great series this, Maggi - thanks.

[Tony B]

I too am now listening to it, though "Bullet proof" is probably my favourite.

I'll also revisit Beethovens 8th; the 9th reduces me to tears, but I've never got into the 8th, however I'm pretty sure I have it on this machine somewhere.