Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

Weird Fishes: Arpeggi from flight404 on Vimeo.

in the deepest ocean
the bottom of the sea
your eyes
they turn me
why should I stay here?
why should I stay?

I'll be crazy not to follow
follow where you lead
your eyes
they turn me

turn me onto phantoms
I follow to the edge
of the earth
and fall off
yeah, everybody leaves
if they get the chance
and this is my chance

I get eaten by the worms
and weird fishes
picked over by the worms
and weird fishes
weird fishes
weird fishees

yeah I
I hit the bottom
hit the bottom and escape
escape

I
I hit the bottom
hit the bottom and escape
escape

"Through working with Spike, we realized we were perpetually wedded to Nigel," Greenwood says. By the time Godrich returned, something had shaken loose within the group, and a new way of being uncomfortable presented itself to a band that often seems to thrive on unease.

"On previous records, Thom [Yorke] had a very strong idea of what he didn't want the music to sound like and of the sounds he was interested in," Greenwood says of the band's most demanding member. "On this one, he was more uncertain as to how it should be, with all the stresses and uncertainty that that implies."

You seldom, if ever, hear that in the music, whose lustrous beauty continually runs up against Yorke's anguished lyrics. In Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, for instance, guitar arpeggios roll serenely as Yorke sings about being held captive (by love or some other power), falling to the sea bottom and being eaten there by worms and fish.

"That's one of my favourite songs that we've ever done," Greenwood says, "because the chord sequence is so emotional and melodic, and epic and expansive. It reminded me of Isaac Hayes, and of another song of ours called Let Down, from OK Computer. ... I love the way the words thrash around, and the immolation in the middle, and being buried at the end. It's like emotional scales, with weights being laid out. There you are in your life. Should you carry on? Should you tell the truth, or lie to yourself?"

The other songs approach the same crossroads from different directions, each with a different measure of consolation and desolation. Maybe it's fitting that In Rainbows has been seen as a crossroads disc for the music industry.

--globeandmail

“But my favourite is Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, which is amazingly beautiful. The song gives you hope and then it goes down again.

“It’s up and down, with self-belief and self-doubt and emotional rushes and surges.”

--Colin Greenwood (Sun)

Colin: "At the moment we're playing some new ones from the next record..."

dEUS: "...do you prefer to play. What are you favourites? What are the most instinctual..."

Colin: "I don't... I like them all! I mean, I don't... it sounds boring. I like, um... what do I like at the moment, ehhh... I don't know, new ones I guess, like '15 Step'... 'Arpeggi'. A song called 'Arpeggi'."

dEUS: "Absolutely."

Colin: "Which is a beautiful song."

dEUS: "It is."

Colin: "Yeah. Do you know that song?"

dEUS: "Yeah I know, yeah."

Colin: "It's lovely, 'Your eyes, they turned me. The bottom of the ocean... the little fishes...' It's a beautiful song! It's beautiful 'cause it's a mel... so melodic and beautiful, and so desolate and sad, but so uplifting and beautiful at the same time.

--2006-06-15 | dEUS Podcast