Jigsaw Falling Into Place

just as you take my hand
just as you write my number down
just as the drinks arrive
just as they play your favourite song
as your bad day disappears
no longer wound up like a spring
before you’ve had too much
come back in focus again

the walls are bending shape
you got a Cheshire cat grin
all blurring into one
this place is on a mission

before the night owl
before the animal noises
closed circuit cameras
before you comatose

before you run away from me
before you’re lost between the notes
the beat goes round and round
the beat goes round and round
I never really got there
I just pretended that I had
words are blunt instruments
words are sawn off shotguns

come on and let it out
come on and let it out
come on and let it out
come on and let it out

just as you spill the beans
just as you start unravelling
just as you take the mike
just as you dance dance dance

a jigsaw falling into place
so there is nothing explain
you eye each other as you pass
she looks back and you look back
not just once
and not just twice

wish away your nightmare
wish away the nightmare
you got the light you can feel it on your back
you got the light you can feel it on your back
your jigsaw falling into place (you just got paid)

John: I agree with you. Uh, and I mean, “Jigsaw” almost has a… Is it a reference to “Paranoid Android” with that guitar line at the beginning? I mean, it kind of reminds me of “Paranoid Android”. Or it almost seems as if you could’ve chucked it in there just as a nod to your past.

Thom: Really?

John: Yeah.

Thom: I think it’s more that I only have about three ideas.

John: [laughs]

Ed: Oh, c’mon! I like this. I mean, one of the things for me in this record was I always kept on sort of saying was the lyrics. And one of the things I love about this whole song is that, if I may…

Thom, Please, please do.

Ed: Um, it’s the Friday night in the pub and it’s all kicking off. And there used to be a line in there that wasn’t there but that’s central ‘You’ve just been paid’. And, you know, and it’s all going off and I love that kind of…It’s kind of—to me—it’s totally, you know… For me, when we get our songs right it’s very visual. And I totally imagine kind of like a quiet, thin bar and it’s all kicking off. and people looking at one another, and it’s all in the music and buying more drinks, and that euphoria at the end of the week. And you get to that—you get to the last section and it’s all building up and it’s just that glorious feeling, you know? 11 o’clock and before it all goes nasty and you kind of have enough booze inside you, and it’s all… And the world doesn’t get better than this in this very moment and that is… that’s what I love about this song.

Thom: And half an hour from now it’s all going to get [undecipherable]

Ed: [laughs] Yeah, exactly! [undecipherable] that first kebab.

John: [laughs]

Thom: Or you wake up in the morning and you don’t know what her name is.

John and Ed: [laugh]

John: So that moment is when the jigsaw falls into place. Before it all goes wrong.

Thom: Yeah.

--2008-01-03 | XFM Radio

With many of the lyrics on In Rainbows written in the first person, are we to take it this is a more personal record?

Thom: With Hail to the Thief I was using the language of the impersonal, but the fact I’m using a different language on this doesn’t necessarily mean I am personally reflecting it on me.”

What about the night out that you described in "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"? Did you experience that first-hand?

“I would never say it was personal because it’s always a set of observations. “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” says much about the fact I used to live in the centre of Oxford and used to go out occasionally and witness the fucking chaos of a weekend around here. But it’s also about a lot of different experiences. Personally, I was really surprised that it’s going to be the single. The lyrics are quite caustic – the idea of “before you’re comatose” or whatever, drinking yourself into oblivion and getting fucked-up to forget. When you’re part of a group of people who are all trying to forget en masse it is partly this elation. But there’s a much darker side.”

There’s also a lyric in "Jigsaw…" about exchanging phone numbers, while "House of Cards" has a line: “I don’t want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover”. Is this Radiohead’s, um, sexy album?

“Oh yeah, most songs on the record are seduction songs. My version of it anyway. I guess it’s something that is not very often apparent, but it became apparent as time went on.”

--NME (8 December 2007)

We don’t actually pick the singles, unless we have a very strong opnion about it. Nowadays it’s what people play on the radio. We’re not the best judges of that. So we leave that to our very good friends who help us out on that. Kevin and our management. It was actually the last song to make the album. We had 16 songs and it nearly didn’t make it onto the record and ironically it’s the first single. I like this song. Thom kept saying it’s a Friday night record: You’re in the pub, it’s all kicking off. You had a few drinks, it’s the end of the week. You just got paid and this is what happens. You wanna have a dance, you see a girl in the corner. You’ve had a few drinks, you smile. The look, you know all that stuff. I love this song. It’s remembering what Friday nights were like.

--Ed O'Brien

At least tonight it's beautiful
I am yours and you are mine
BECAUSE I JUST GOT PAID

--calendar