Reviews for No Surprises Lyrics

I heard this song when i was 16 years old. I remember feeling weighted down, almost out of breath despite the jingle like melody. Like a musical Brutus smiling music can conceal the knife aimed at your guts. It hurts beautifully. It could be a precursor on how to disappear completely

Radiohead's show on Pinkpop Festival, Landgraaf, Netherlands:
and before 'no surprises' (Thom Yorke said): "this song is for all of those who still believe that governments are in 'tight'(?) control of their countries..and not corporations.......suckers!!"

see the video in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmYd8hODRLA

Personally, I think the song is about a suicide by carbon monoxide, watching the house and the garden as he dies...

as for "no alarms" -- remember these are smart lads from public school... "no alarums" in the Shakespearean sense... no fuss, no bother, I'm just going quietly please (get me out of here).

When I watched the film" Was tun, wenn's brennt?"
,i heard this song.
it really shocked me.
great song,and great movie:)

This song is actually about a person who works in a tampon factory and her work colleague beside her used to play pratical jokes on her and she used to play her favourite joke of putting a white mouse in her crate of tampons, you see Joan was a tampon boxer and she was dreading a repeat performance of a prank some days earlier where she was scared to death because she found the mouse instead of a tampon.

I was listening to this just a second ago and it suddenly clicked, at least for me.

I'm sure he's writing about his friend's suicide. From the perspective of his friend in the car. The final giving up.
The bit that clicked is that I think No alarms and no surprises means that the guy in the car is certain he wants out. The biggest fear you would have if you'd decided to get out, and you were waiting in your car for it to happen would be that someone would disturb you. He's done, done with the privet hedges and picket fences, done with the apathy, done with cynical government which maintains the status quo, sick to death, literally.
So he wants out, and he doesn't want anyone to disturb him while he's doing it. That's my two cents. Hope it strikes a chord with someone out there...

The song was written about Thom's best friend who committed suicide by gassing himself in a car hence the line 'handshake of carbon monoxide'. his friend was an anarchist (within contemporary terms) and the song was written about his death.

I heard a rumour that this song is about cheese... Is that correct?

i really like this song for its soft lementing, sonunds like a man whos lost all the fight in him

I think this is a song about giving up, or, as someone has written before, about getting accustomed to unpleasant realities (both private, like job & lifestyle, and of general interest - the government, pollution and so on). Even the lines "bring down the government" etc. sound to me (thanks to the melody they're sung with) as if Thom was singing them just like another meaningless slogan which nobody believes anymore. Anyway the whole song a kind of "mild" but strong rebel yell, as shown by its aggrieving videoclip, as if Thom was saying: "ok I'll accept my filthy ordinary life, my ordinary house, I'll work a slave, I'll give up worrying and carry on without alarms or surprises... but something's REALLY wrong with me!! Get me out of here!!"
And I think such a mood perfectly fits with the one of almost contemporary british works such as e.c. Trainspotting. Remember the "choose life" poem?

I think this is a song about giving up, or, as someone has written before, about getting accustomed to unpleasant realities (both private, like job & lifestyle, and of general interest - the government, pollution and so on). Even the lines "bring down the government" etc. sound to me (thanks to the melody they're sung with) as if Thom was singing them just like another meaningless slogan which nobody believes anymore. Anyway the whole song a kind of "mild" but strong rebel yell, as shown by its aggrieving videoclip, as if Thom was saying: "ok I'll accept my filthy ordinary life, my ordinary house, I'll work a slave, I'll give up worrying and carry on without alarms or surprises... but something's REALLY wrong with me!! Get me out of here!!"
And I think such a mood perfectly fits with the one of almost contemporary british works such as e.c. Trainspotting. Remember the "choose life" poem?

I think its about how the Government kick up all sorts of fuss, causing alarms and surprises

Its basically saying ... thats enough palava now, i just want a quiet life hidden away from you people who think you can control us

singing about conformity?

they
DO have a sense of humor

lol
The music video sums this one up completley
Thom singing about the benefits?detriments of the soft life while his head is slowly drowned in a fish bowl

Radiohead have a great sense of rarely deployed humor

Intresting interpretation you had there about the suicidal messages like "I'll take the quite life - a handshake of carbon monoxide".
However, here's my interpretation:
As he is singing 'bring down the government, they don't, they don't speak for us' it is - for me - obvious that he's talking about a corrupt world, a world withouth truth and honesty. 'I'll take the quite life - a handshake of carbon monoxide' means that he chooses the life of silence. a life where he floats on and pretends that there's no problems. "I choose not to say anything, i choose to accept the problem of carbon monoxide" (climit crisis anyone?)

this is my interpretation, and It's meaningful to me in many ways. would be interesting to find out what he thought of when he wrote the song. anyone know any statement of this kind?

Btw, best radiohead song ever.