Wiki
-
Length
4:56
"God just walked through the room… It was an incredibly spiritual moment", said guitarist Ed O'Brien in a 2020 Reddit AMA, of the fifth track on Radiohead's OK Computer. "Let Down" was recorded at 3 a.m. in the ballroom of St Catherine's Court, when the band found inspiration. It makes extensive use of the natural reverberation of the location. This song is best known for its third verse, where Thom Yorke duets with himself across the stereo field, accompanied by the sounds of a ZX Spectrum computer.
It primarily deals with disappointment, in all its forms. From one's disappointment with the monotony of modern life ('Transport, motorways and tramlines'), to the seemingly never-ending cycle of disappointment perpetuated by the places and people in your life ('You know where you are with'). And yet, you continue to interact with it all despite being aware of it ('… And hanging around'). A yearning to break this cycle is illustrated through the image of a swatted butterfly, awaiting a new metamorphosis. ('One day, I am gonna grow wings' / 'A chemical reaction' / 'Hysterical and useless' /' Hysterical and'). This theme is similar to another track on OK Computer, "No Surprises".
The “clinging on to bottles” line originated from an idea that Yorke thought was hilarious, explaining "I was pissed in a club, and I suddenly had the funniest thought I’d had for ages – what if all the people who were drinking were hanging from the bottles… If the bottles were hung from the ceiling with string, and the floor caved in, and the only thing that kept everyone up was the bottles? It’s also about an enormous fear of being trapped."
Track descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
