OPINIONS

Song of the Week:

“Paranoid Android” by Radiohead Patrick Mackenzie, OP Contributor

The purpose of this column is to take a song from popular music and examine it both for its content (musi- cal structure and words), and how it relates to the world surrounding it. I see no reason why “pop” music can- not stand up to analysis as a cultural artifact. Not that this hasn’t been done before, but I thought that “Song of the Week” would make for a good column idea and hopefully generate a discussion amongst those who take the time to read it.

“Paranoid Android” by Radiohead is ugly music for ugly times. Almost ten years old, it still resonates within our sad and peculiar epoch. When I say ugly, ’'m not suggesting that the song is unlistenable, but it hardly fits the mold of popular music. “Paranoid Android” is musically and lyrically all over the place. Perhaps because the words ate coming from at least two distinct points of view, possibly more. “Paranoid Android” goes through a series of musical stages — kind of like a symphony from hell — rather than following the blueprint of a verse followed by a chorus, repeat- ed a little, and then followed by a bridge.

So what is the song saying? As in so many of Radiohead’s songs, the words are morally ambiguous— Radiohead, or Thom Yorke at least, is not interested in providing answers. It seems that a necessary condition of being in the world is to be confronted with the possibility that there is no meaning or purpose for existence. Radiohead, then, can be thought of as providing a compelling soundtrack for an age fraught with anxiety.

.

Not surprisingly the most salient feature of “Paranoid Android,” both lyrically a1 ly, is fragmentation. At least two distinct points of view, first person and second per in a morass of seemingly disjointed music. With the opening lines, “Please could yc noise I’m trying to get some rest?/ From all the unborn chicken voices in my head?’ presented with a dreary image of fatigue and implied paranoia. The backing music c acoustic guitar and grinding percussion sounds like the insomnia experienced by swe clawing themselves at three o’clock in the morning. Soon following these lines, an at sentiment is voiced by the second speaker who says, “When I am king you will be fi the wall/ with your opinions which are of no consequence at all.” Who is saying the Does the speaker believe them, or are they steeped in irony? Are they offering some social commentary on the fragmented nature of the modern individual? Like in so r Radiohead’s music, there is no moral or authorial center to the words so trying to ar questions is a challenge if not pointless. However, it is this very lack of moral surety bles us. And if this is the case, why has Radiohead become the success that it is? Pe: are just giving voice to what so many of us have always felt—that the world is unkn broken.

The song picks-up and becomes electric guitar-driven, discordant and violent, ref rush of words: “you don’t remember, why don’t you remember my name? off with off with his head man. Why won’t he remember my name?” After this bit of mayhe “Paranoid Android” falls into a dirge where the speaker pleads for rain to come dov “from a great height.” Perhaps this part of the song can be thought of as a musical respite from the terrifying realities of a fractured world and the people that are conc inhabit it. Eventually, the guitars and violence and separate voices return and the sot an abrupt slam of amplified dissonance.

Can this six minute and twenty-three second rollercoaster song be gotten to mea thing? It seems to me that “Paranoid Android” derives its meaning from the world i rather than try to explain anything, the song exists as a reflection. And the world it 1 simultaneously cruel and longing for some apparently unobtainable state of grace. T psychopathic strain running through “Paranoid Android” that at least one of the vo appears to advocate. But in the song, as in the world sometimes, any attempt for gra crushed.

So much of what occurs in the world cannot be gotten to make the remotest ser dom death caused by a shooting in a school, the deaths of innocent civilians bombe sleep. But it seems that the perpetrators of such intolerable violence, both in the mz and on the fringes, emerge from cultures committed to ideas of superiority and infe inclusion and exclusion. And from these oppositions we are given a necessarily fragt world.

The situation presented in “Paranoid Android” seems to be like the world we’ve isolated people competing against one another, holding each other suspect. Should \ prised then, when individuals commit random acts of violence against a world they sciously or not, excludes them? This is not to suggest that individuals should be abs their crimes or that society is solely to blame, but, as they say, violence begets violen quote another song, “the world we’re living in is mean and it’s built on sheer denial.’ end, “Paranoid Android” is just a song and should not be seen as an attempt to exp world, and yet it compels us to look at ourselves and the place we occupy. The pictu of society is a dark one wrought by individuals willingly caught up in the illusion of tion and fear. Perhaps it’s time to get over it.

Funkier Columbia versus Traffic Nightm<

Ed Ronald, OP Contributor

On September 29th the City of New Westminster will be begin their newest experiment on Columbia Street and we at Douglas College will have front row seats to see how it turns out. The city hopes the changes will create an atmosphere more along the lines of Granville Street in downtown Vancouver instead of just being a continuation of Surrey’s King George Highway. Columbia will be reduced from four lanes down to two, between Begbie Street and Elliot Street. The plan is to make the street more pedestrian friendly in a style similar to what Langley has done with their newly renovated downtown core. The new Columbia will feature back-in-angle parking, doubling the amount of stalls, and will provide for safer loading of vehicles, and create better sightlines when pulling out. This style of parking is already in place on Tenth Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues.

I for one really hope the plan works. The downtown of New West has character, you can’t say that about a lot of places in the Lower Mainland. Where generic big-boxers have invaded, they have standardized the landscape, and the malls and cities contain the same. Columbia Street is peppered with interesting shops and funky places to eat and drink. | think that the downtown has a real bohemian quality, and a potential similar to Commercial Drive in Vancouver, Speaking of the Drive, I have read that residents of that area would love to see the traffic reduced there the way it is being done here in New West. So, cool places to hang out on Columbia and less traffic. What could go wrong?

The other side of removing two lanes along Columbia is where the traffic will spill into, with the already clogged streets in New West., it could become a parking lot during rush hour. There’s a good chance getting in and out of the city by car will become more of a nightmare for drivers than it already is. When Langley made its downtown pedestrian friendly, the by-pass was there to accommodate the spill off traffic. New Westminster's plan may just end up taxing the streets of drivers to the point of negating any improvement to the downtown. It wouldn’t

6 THE OTHER PRESS SEPTEMBER 28 2006

do a lot of good to have a new pedestrian friendly Columbia Street to walk around tors and locals alike are frustrated by a resulting rush hout.

That said, I can’t wait to see how the experiment turns out. I’m cheering for the Some of you who drive here from outside the City might not feel the same way. Of

live in New West and walk to school.