Reviews for No Surprises Lyrics

I think, it doesn't actually matter wether this song is just a clever strategy or not- the only thing, that depends for me, is how the song is related with me and my life.
Who cares really, what people thougt writing a song? Nobody but them, if I knew it, it wasn't my song anymore, so I don't mind being fished...

Wow. A couple comments down someone made a comment about Radiohead writing songs for money, indirectly of course. What a ridiculous thing to say. I say HA! That is my response to that. Of all bands to write songs for money, radiohead. AH HAHAHAHAHA. Oh yeah. I'm sure they were doing that, because clearly they care so much about money that when In Rainbows came out, they let you pick how much you wanted to pay for it. Oh giggle me timbers.

Whoa! Who ever thinks Radiohead is a band that writes teenager relevant songs so they can make money is a rather large sized moron. Considering when In Rainbows came out, fans were given the option to choose how much to pay, something tells me that the last thing Radiohead is worried about is money.

I won't deny it, he's a sad man. This song makes me happy though. Because the writer does not make the meaning. And to me, this song is about making the choice to be happy in a world that is designed to work against you.

I think it means, sadness. But above all, I think this person's world view is a coutdown. I think they depended on things very strongly, like we all do. And then those things failed him, didn't show, they were no longer what he should depend on to keep his hopes high. And when he figures it out that those things aren't what he needs, he becomes a state of emotion that this song highlights. But after this point of emotion, he'll find something else to depend on, and life will continue. We ALL go through it, and we all need to be sad sometimes. And nothing's better then something thats right, or understands. I personally LOVE this song, but I won't be going under the hill any time soon.

I like to think it's about some middle-aged guy who seemingly has everything, but one day he up and kills himself by running the car in his garage. No alarms, no surprises. Just a quiet end to another meaningless life. After all, we're all pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Is that kinda depressing? It doesn't matter, really. The song means to me whatever I want it to mean. Just like it might mean something different to you. We only go around once on this crazy world. For me it's a message to live my turn to the fullest, and never take a damn thing for granted.

Simply one of the saddest, most depressing Radiohead songs around. But lets face it a lot of them are. To be able to write a song that rhymes, tells a story, and has and overarching meaning is... hard. Everyone wants to escape; school, work, people, even "Everything at all" from time to time. I cant speak for Thom York, but being frustrated with things you cant change seems to be at least a part of this song, and if being depressed, tired, and fed-up allows radiohead to write beautiful, all-be-it "sad"songs, more power to them. know one says you have to listen to them all the time. Listen to Gwen Steffani or Avril Lavigne if u are in the mood for something a bit lighter "OH Please" philosophy teenager kid. And whats wrong with a little melancholy? cant pretend to be happy all the time, even if you can play it off in front of others. As well as Radiohead marketing to/exploiting depressed teens through the unfair tactic of relation to lament, i call B.S. Why would R.H's Latest C.D "In Rainbows" be freely priced for consumers if they were just concerned with "shooting fish in a barrel." In conclusion listen to em if you want to, but don't say you are part of "Radiohead's proverbial barrel of money." Dont say u have anything to do with them if this is what you think. NOt a song by Britney spears, or J.T, i like to think there in it for more than just the money.

I believe this song is just his view on his life. It does sound suicidal but the song is awsome and if you think about it, this song can relate to all of of when we feel we are down to our final straw. Does anyone agree?

'This is a nice song -- but spare me the philosophy -- this song is nothing more than an expression of the knowledge that selling melancholy songs to teenagers and people who act like they are teenagers well into adulthood is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel -- because people love to feel sorry for themselves.'

This is the most intelligent comment I've seen on a song in a long time. Maybe they did want to have a 'deep meaning, but what you said worked for me. I'm a teenager. I like to feel sorry for myself. I'm like the proverbial fish in the Radiohead's barrel of money.

Anonymous, maybe you should get to know more people. It's nothing unusual about being sad, it's not something only emo's do. And Radiohead is one of the few bands who doesn't try to sell suicide to teenagers who think they aren't enough for the measure and really feel sorry for themselfs because of that.

This is a nice song -- but spare me the philosophy -- this song is nothing more than an expression of the knowledge that selling melancholy songs to teenagers and people who act like they are teenagers well into adulthood is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel -- because people love to feel sorry for themselves.

As Morrisey of The Smiths once said: "Heaven knows I'm miserable now". Ditto as Talking Heads hinted at in 'Once In A Lifetime'. So The Radiohead song No Surprises deals with very similar subject matter to these two songs. Even Pleasant Valley Sunday by Neil Diamond Stooges The Monkeys. It is as if the social comment baton was passed relay style on to Radiohead. Though this song musically is very different to the three mentioned, the song remains the same..
Basically, social sheepishness is in all of us (our hunter gatherer gregarious nature), we all want to belong socially seek approval etc. So when every so often we as individuals (often thinkers),yearn for evolutionary change; the flip side of the coin is that we dare not speak our deepest thoughts in fear of losing everything in this socially and politically engineered liberal capitalist material world. The job, the career, "Such a pretty (lego)house" etc they could all go. Either way you look at it; Is it your downfall? Or your salvation? Its a question of attitude really.
So advocating change is more often than not emotionally painful even socially alienating and ultimately can bring about rejection from our fellow humans even loved ones. Change and innovation can be one and the same thing. Involving an intellectual process. The person suffering from in socially conventionally terms a 'breakdown' is then often branded by those in societies comfort zone as an 'outsider'. Perceived to be 'thinking differently' or 'outside the box'. But all things decay and all things must pass its just the way it is otherwise there can be no no progress. Then 5 years later the sheep are playing catch up before being swept away in another economic recession once they have served their economic worker bee slave purpose...

Remember the traumatised character in "No Surpises"? Well at this point he/she has choices to make;

1. Slowly suffocate. Keep quiet get drunk take other socially acceptable drugs etc turn away from your real self and pretend these feelings will just go away....;

2. Accept the need for some intellectual change with all the implied social risks; or you will have a breakdown of some sort anyway; Or

3. Be negative. Give in, become a victim and a loss to the intellectual cause and seek some sort of martyrdom.

This is a song about what happens when you become dead inside. Floating, drifting far above the world. Participating in the routines of the everyday world, an imitation of life. But there is nothing left behind your eyes, no pain or joy, no sorrow or hope. Just the endless void, the endless abyss, the lost ones in the blizzard walking the endless road. You pretend. You try to kid yourself that you can live your life. You try to lose yourself in a million pointless details, and while away your life until its end. Each day the same, melting into one another, passing by in a blur across eyes that cannot see, eyes that have seen too much.
And you're never really alive. Never really there.

This is a song about what happens when you become dead inside. Floating, drifting far above the world. Participating in the routines of the everyday world, an imitation of life. But there is nothing left behind your eyes, no pain or joy, no sorrow or hope. Just the endless void, the endless abyss, the lost ones in the blizzard walking the endless road. You pretend. You try to kid yourself that you can live your life. You try to lose yourself in a million pointless details, and while away your life until its end. Each day the same, melting into one another, passing by in a blur across eyes that cannot see, eyes that have seen too much.
And you're never really alive. Never really there

I always thought this song, along with most in OK computer, was about escapism, struggling/embracing the dull & mediocre suburbia life.

A dull unrewarding job, a pretty house with a pretty garden, all the stability with no alarms and no surprises, just routine.

"My final fit" could be interpreted about suicide (or pondering it) but actually, and frighteningly, it could be about fully embracing this unrewarding life. Killing the last bit of humanity and becoming a pig in a cage on antibiotics?