SA2: "The Bends"

Balancing introspective self-doubt to resigned acceptance, Radiohead’s “The Bends” employs metaphoric allusion, grimy objectification, and massive hyperbole in order to impart a feeling of loneliness and self-loathing.

                The allusion made throughout the song, and within the song’s very title, is to the Bends, medically known as decompression sickness. Decompression sickness is a painful affliction that most commonly affects scuba divers as they return to the surface. How this applies to the song’s meaning is not immediately obvious, but the term is used in multiple lines – “But who are my real friends?/Have they all got the bends?”; “My baby's got the bends, oh no/We don't have any real friends, no, no, no” – and seems to indicate the absence of someone/something important – according to the narrator, this seems to be his “friends”. One might imagine the narrator bobbing just above the surface of the water, anxiously waiting for the return of his companions. This is a more literal interpretation of the lyrics, but it is a literal interpretation that helps convey something abstract; in other words, the narrator finding himself confused and alone.

                The objectification of the narrator’s fears -“I need to wash myself again to hide all the dirt and pain/'Cause I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath” - indicates clearly the narrator’s deep sense of dissatisfaction with themselves. “Pain” is not something that can be washed away; “Dirt” can be, but it’s likely that the word refers to something more abstract than just grime. What’s more, the narrator’s fear that “there’s nothing underneath” indicates how entangled they are in their own weaknesses – they are dwelled upon so frequently, have become so integral to his being, that they have practically become a physical part of his body, even the primary part.

                The hyperbole of “The Bends” is most readily apparent in the third verse, with the lines “They brought in the CIA, the tanks and the whole Marines/to blow me away, to blow me sky high”. This massive exaggeration could be interpreted as an expression of how the narrator feels he is viewed by others. In short, the narrator believes himself to be so aggressively worthless, even hazardous, that the authorities want him to be wiped from the planet. Whether or not this is how the narrator is truly perceived by those around him, it speaks to his lack of self-confidence.

Lyrics:

Where do we go from here?

The words are coming out all weird

Where are you now, when I need you

Alone on an aeroplane

Fall asleep on against the window pane

My blood will thicken

I need to wash myself again to hide all the dirt and pain

'Cause I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath

But who are my real friends?

Have they all got the bends?

Am I really sinking this low?

My baby's got the bends, oh no

We don't have any real friends, no, no, no

Just lying in the bar with my drip feed on

Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen

I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy

I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen

Where do we go from here?

The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear

And where are you?

They brought in the CIA, the tanks and the whole marines

To blow me away, to blow me sky high

My baby's got the bends

We don't have any real friends

Just lying in the bar with my drip feed on

Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen

I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy

I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen

I wanna live, breathe

I wanna be part of the human race

I wanna live, breathe

I wanna be part of the human race, race, race, race

Where do we go from here?

The words are coming out all weird

Where are you now when I need you?