Dissect - S11E11 - Videotape by Radiohead (Season Finale)

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

We conclude our season long analysis of Radiohead's In Rainbows with its final track "Videotape." We reveal the "secret rhythm" of the piano, give a step by step explanation of the stuttering percussion, and discuss the touching lyrics written from the perspective of a man saying a final goodbye before he dies. Finally, we take a look a Goethe's Faust as a possible reference point for the song and album before sharing some key takeaways from In Rainbows as a whole. Shop Dissect Season 11 Merch. Follow @dissectpodcast on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Looking to fall down the rabbit hole of Videotape's syncopation debate? Start with these videos: The Secret Rhythm Behind Videotape - VOX The Hidden Syncopation of Videotape - WarrrenMusic Is There Really a "Rhythmic Secret" in Radiohead's "Videotape"? Host/Writer/EP: Cole Cuchna Additional Analysis: Dr. Brad Osborn Song Recreations: Andrew Atwood Audio Editing: Kevin Pooler Theme Music: Birocratic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, Cole here with a few quick announcements before we start today's episode. First, this episode is technically the finale of season 11, but I'll be following it up with three additional bonus episodes throughout the month of December. This Friday, December 8th, will be releasing an all-things radiohead conversation with Dr. Brad Osborne, the preeminent Radiohead scholar that help with the analysis this season. Then on Tuesday, December 12th, I'll be releasing a Radiohead songdraft with me and the ringers Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan. Finally, on Tuesday, December 19th, we'll publish our annual favorite music of the year episode,

where myself, Camman Ostrander, and The Ringer's Charles Holmes and Justin Sales will share our favorite albums and songs of 2023. All right, lastly, in today's episode, you might notice my voice changing tones a few times. That's because I recorded this while recovering from a stomach bug and a cough that annihilated my voice. Usually I'd wait to record, but in order to get this episode out on time, I just had to roll with it. Anyways, hope it's not too distracting, and I hope you enjoy it. today's finale on Radioheads in Rainbows. From Spotify and the Ringer, this is Dissect, long-form musical analysis broken into short

digestible episodes. This is episode 11 of our season-long dissection of Radioheads in Rainbows. I'm your host, Cole Kushner. Last time I Dissect, we discussed In Rainbow's penultimate track Jigsaw falling into place, a song that details the failed pursuit of a romantic connection at a bar, where Tom observes groups of people indulging in the simple pleasure of drinking and dancing as an escape from their daily reality. Jigsaw's relentless propulsion and cathartic crescendo is the album's last burst of energy,

collapsing into In Rainbow's 10th and final track, the subject of our episode today, videotape. Like most songs on In Rainbows, videotape's origins can be traced back to at least 2006, when Radiohead performed the song a handful of times on their pre-album tour. The song's musical evolution, from its early live performances to the recorded album version, has been a point of debate amongst a certain segment of Radiohead fanatics. That's because the early arrangement of videotape is much different from what appears on the album, though it begins more or less the same, with Tom singing over a solo piano. As the song progresses, additional instruments are added, including a full bass line, a guitar part,

and a drumbeat. This rising tension bursts open to an all-out crescendo that crucially features a straight-ahead drum part. Radiohead went into the studio with the intent to record this version of the song, but struggled to produce a recording they were satisfied with. I'm a videotape was the absolute, the last track, it was the absolute agony because that went through every possible parameter. I had an absolute obsession that it should be like surgeon, which is a really hard post-raved trans track. And tried endlessly, you know, and to be fair to the others,

they didn't, they didn't, as they possibly should have done, kick me out the room. You know, we tried it and possibly we got something out of it, but probably not. But, you know, and the other thing was that with that track was that Johnny was absolutely obsessed about the fact that the piano is in the wrong, you know, the piano is ahead. It's an eighth ahead of where the one is. You don't, the one is an eighth ahead. And he wanted to just structure the whole rhythm an eighth ahead. But it didn't, you know, so there's a constant argument about where the one was. And I'm shifting it and blah blah, blah.

Tom here offers two key insights into the band's failed attempt to record this original arrangement. First, he admits that he pushed for the song to be like Surgeon, an English electronic artist and DJ known for his hypnotic drum loops. This influence would seem to explain the band's initial attempts to put a straight-ahead beat behind videotape, central piano and vocal parts. This drum part heard in the live recording effectively makes the song, double time, meaning that instead of the pulse being a slower count like this, one, two, it's actually double this tempo and should be counted like this.

One, two, three. Let's now listen to an excerpt of the early live version again, focusing on this faster pulse. Now the other insight Tom revealed about this early version of videotape was Johnny Greenwood's belief that the central piano part was quote unquote ahead of the beat. So instead of the piano chords falling directly on beats one and three like we just heard, One, two, three, four. Johnny felt that the piano chords should fall just before beats one and three on the upbeats of two and four. One, two, three, four.

This is what Tom meant in the interview when he said an eighth ahead, because the chords are heard just ahead of beats one and three, not directly on them. This version, where the piano falls in between the beats, is what's called syncopation. And from this point on, we'll refer to this version of the piano part as the syncopated version, the version in which the piano chords are ahead of the beat. Now, the chords being syncopated makes sense given that Tom was attempting to create a dance-influenced arrangement like Surgeon, as syncopation plays a big part in creating a danceable groove. I mean, just listen again to the difference between the piano being placed on and off the beat.

Here's the piano on the beat again. And now here's the syncopated version again. Notice how this simple alteration makes the same part much more danceable. Now, in a vacuum, this syncopated piano wouldn't be such a big deal. It's not the most complicated rhythm in the world. However, because the song starts with just piano without drums or any other instruments, virtually every listener is going to assume the piano chords are falling on the downbeats. To prove this inclination, here's another live clip of videotape in which the audience begins

clapping along. Notice how they are clapping as if the piano is playing on the downbeats, the basic one, two, three, four count. Hearing the piano this way makes logical sense. There's no context, no clues pointing to this being anything other than a straightforward piano part playing the down beats in 4-4 time. But in the early live version, about two and a half minutes in, the full drumbeat enters. And in this version, the drumbeat reveals the song's magic trick, that the piano is not in fact playing on the downbeats like everyone's suspected,

but rather they're syncopated, playing the upbeats of 2 and 4. Now at this point, we should recall our discussion of the metric fakeout from our episode on Body Snatchers. As you might remember, a metric fake out misleads us about the song's meter or pulse and makes us feel the beat incorrectly only to reveal the correct way once more elements enter the song. We use the simple example of a 311 song to illustrate the basic illusion of this technique, where solo guitar chords are played without context, and as a result, we instinctively feel them on the downbeats. When the drums enter the song, it becomes clear we've been faked out. The guitar chords are actually playing the upbeats.

That's the metric fake out. We're fooled into feeling the groove or meter one way, only to realize with more context that our initial feeling was wrong. And this is essentially what Radiohead did in the early version of videotape. The extended solo piano and vocal introduction tricks us into feeling the piano on the downbeats. However, the drumbeat later reveals that the piano is not only syncopated, but also that the song is in double time. Its pulses twice as fast as we initially felt. It's one big, long, intricate metric fake out.

Now, if all this is a little confusing for you, that's okay. It actually confused most of the members of Radiohead too. drummer Phil Selway told the New York Times, quote, We spent about a year in rehearsal on videotape, actually, all trying to agree on where the one was, each of us over the course of a year, we'd all lose it, unquote. It would appear that Radiohead was being faked out by their own metric fake out, lost in their own rhythmic illusion.

And it's actually not all that surprising. They're human like the rest of us, and their natural intuition is to hear those straightforward piano chords as the downbeats. To hear them any other way without context is counterintuitive. Thus, they struggled to produce a recording of this syncopated version they were satisfied with. I mean, videotape was the one where, like, this chinkled videotape that we got, that was just driving me crazy, absolutely crazy. That we kind of had an idea what we just couldn't see it through,

and there was like a couple of rehearsals where it just like, I just can't, I can't deal with this. Radiohead's studio struggles with videotape went on for months, and as Tom tells it, the breakthrough actually came when he left the studio altogether. I was semi-kicked out for being a negative influence. Stanley and I came back a bit worse for wear about 11 in the evening. Johnny and Nigel had done this stuff to it that reduced us both to tears. It completely blew my mind. They'd stripped all the nonsense away that had been piling onto it, and what was left was this quite pure sentiment, unquote. And this is how we arrive at the stripped-down version of videotape we hear on in rainbows. Among the many things removed from

this final recording or call in space guitar and both Johnny and Ed's guitar parts. But most importantly, the fully developed drumbeat is omitted, the drumbeat that revealed the rhythmic illusion, the drumbeat that made clear the piano chord syncopation. And thus, the great videotape debate was born, a debate centered around a central question. If the drumbeat that once revealed the piano syncopation has been removed from the song, is the piano still syncopated. Remember, a metric fake out is only a fake out if additional context enters the track and forces us to reconsider our initial understanding. And so if that additional context never comes, is it still a fake out?

Are we still to hear the piano as syncopated? These kinds of questions are like catnip for music nerds, and there's been some great discussion online debating the subject. I've linked a few videos in the episode description for those interested in diving deeper into this theoretical rabbit hole. But suffice it to say here that there are two primary schools of thought. The syncopated believers argue that Radiohead recorded videotape with the piano syncopated and therefore intended it to be syncopated,

and that the artist's intention matters. While it may be difficult or counterintuitive to hear, it is there, and it adds a rewarding layer of depth to the art for those willing to take the time to decode the illusion and feel the piano syncopated. The non-believers argue that there's not enough musical information in the album version to justify hearing the piano syncopated. I mean if 100 out of 100 listeners naturally hear the piano chords as playing on the downbeats and there's not enough additional context to convince them otherwise,

then how could you expect anyone to possibly hear it syncopated? I could say I painted my wall blue, but if 100 out of 100 people think it's purple, then is the wall still blue? Does intention outweigh intuition? Hell, it seems the band members themselves couldn't hear it syncopated half the time, so if it's difficult or not convincing enough for them, how can we expect anyone else, especially non-musicians, to feel it any other way than a straightforward rhythm? Now you can see why the debate has legs. Both sides make pretty good points. I, for one, am not going to attempt to make a definitive case for either side. As someone who tries to encourage more active and engaged listening,

I love the fact the debate exists, and I actually think the musical exploration and philosophical thought and inspires is more interesting and rewarding than arguing for one side or the other. With that being said, for the purposes of this episode, I'll be analyzing the song as if the piano is not syncopated, simply because for most listeners is just much more practical. But if forced to give my opinion, I'd say I agree wholeheartedly with what Radiohead's produce,

producer Nigel Godred said about the song. Quote, well, frankly, like everything in life, it depends on how you look at it. But technically speaking, the piano chords are all pushed. They're ahead of the beat. That's how Tom hears it in his head, even if it's possible to think of them as on the beat. I hear it both ways. How about you? It begs the question, if you hear the chords on the beat and he loved the song,

doesn't matter. I don't think so. Videotape opens by establishing the song's central piano part. There's a lot of ambient room noise included in the mix, making it feel as if we're right there in the room with Tom as he plays. We hear odd creaks, what might be Tom moving as he plays or lifting his foot up and down on the piano's sustained pedal. It provides a kind of intimacy, as if it's being performed for us in the moment every time we listen. The piano part itself is based on what's called an ostinado, which is when a short melodic phrase is repeated over and over, often while other elements change around it. Here the ostinado is heard in the upper voice and consists of four notes that repeat over and over.

This ostinado is descending. Each note is lower than the one before it. In music, we often associate descending lines with melancholy, especially at slower tempos. This melancholy is accentuated by two minor intervals present in the ostinado, a minor second and a minor third. This ostinado is later supported by a bass line, which is played not on a bass guitar, but a Nord synthesizer. This minimal instrumental texture is sustained for over a minute, allowing Tom's voice and lyrics to take center stage. Before discussing the words Tom sings here, we need to acknowledge the magic of his voice. It's a quality that honestly transcends description, but I think we can all recognize just how angelically entrancing it is, and an emanating warmth of tone that cuts straight to the human heart.

And in such an intimate, bare musical environment, this incredibly moving, superlative quality is laid bare. The emotional resonance of his voice alone is heightened by the words he sings as he plainly addresses human mortality, the most universal of themes. He begins, when I'm at the pearly gates, this will be on my videotape. The pearly gates, of course, evokes the afterlife, specifically the gateway to heaven. It's an incredibly effective opening, with the majestic beauty of the music and voice matched with the most beautiful of images. After all, the pearly gates transcend human imagination. they quite literally represent divine beauty, the kind of beauty that can only emanate from a god. Meanwhile, this will be on my videotape implies that this recording, what we are currently hearing,

was made with the intent to be heard after death. Of course, videotapes specifically evokes a visual element, likely a home video, but the effect feels the same. We are hearing a dead man's final words, a memento for the living from the dead. The next line adds more context. When Mephistopheles is just beneath and he's reaching up to grab me. Contrasting with the image of heaven is an image of hell, as in German folklore, Mephistopheles is an agent of the devil. He's most well known as the central character in the legend of Faust, which in short tells the story of a successful scholar Faust, who is unsatisfied with his life. Faust then makes a bargain with the devil via his demon agent Mephistopheles. In exchange for his soul and eternal damnation in hell,

Faust will receive magical powers that allow him to indulge an unlimited pleasure and knowledge while on earth. Now, we're going to talk more about Fausts later in this episode, but at this point in the song, Mephistopheles and his association with the devil seems intended to contrast with the opening reference to heaven. We therefore get a mental picture of a man in a biblical state of limbo, between heaven and hell and the afterlife. It's unclear at the moment if these contrasting images are used simply to evoke a man imagining his own death, or if there's more behind the references. To know, we'll have to keep listening, which we'll do right after the break. Welcome back to Dissect.

Before the break, we heard the opening lines of videotape, where Tom contrasts images of heaven and hell to evoke a man imagining his own afterlife and leaving behind a videotape momento. As the song continues, we get a little more clarity about what this videotape is captured. Tom begins this passage singing, This is One for the Good Days, and I have it all here in red, blue, green. The latter part of this line, red, blue, green refers to the RBG or red, blue, green color modeling system that's used to create colors for nearly every device that displays video. So it seems Tom is

using the reference as another way to say he's captured something on videotape, with the reference to a color spectrum being a fitting nod to the album's title and rainbows here at its end. Saying this is one for the good days seems to imply that Tom's character has captured fond memories, conjuring images of old home movies being played back with low fidelity. This gives us a us our first clue that Tom is looking back at his life with affection, satisfied in knowing that some of the beauty he enjoyed has been immortalized, able to be remembered and coveted by future generations. Here's to the good old days is also something that's said during a toast, which tangentially adds to this character reflecting on and celebrating his life here at its end.

Tom then sings, You are my center when I spin away. Here we get some insight into who will receive this videotape, a loved one, most likely a partner, the person who kept Tom's character grounded during difficult times. It's a beautiful line, one of Tom's very best in my opinion, as it encapsulates the critical importance of companionship and love in a single eight-word poetic phrase, You are my center when I spin away. The idea of spinning away also relates to death, as we imagine this character spinning away from this life into another realm, be it divine light or absolute darkness. We can even think about spinning away as relating to the spinning rollers of a VHS tape or film projector, with out of control on videotape, perhaps

alluding to what happens when the tape runs out or comes off the rollers, an analogy for those moments when Tom's character became out of control, spinning away. When Tom begins to repeat videotape at the end of this phrase, percussion enters the song for the first time. At its core, this percussion part is just two elements. The first is what's called a side stick, where the drumstick is laid flat across the snare drum and strikes the outer metal rim of the drum instead of the actual drumhead. The second sound is a basic strike of the Tom drum. Together, the pattern sounds like this. It appears his percussion part was taken from a longer pattern fill recorded, because if we return momentarily to the early live version, we can hear this sidestick tom couplet at the very end of his drum sequence. So in essence, Radiohead sampled this snippet of their own drum sequence and removed the rest of the part.

Crucially, the deep tom drum strikes in unison with the piano chord, which only reinforces our intuition toward feeling the piano chords on the downbeat. Now, while this percussion part is pretty simple at first, it doesn't remain this way for long. Let's listen to how it slowly transforms over time, then we'll break down what exactly is happening to it. All right, so there's a lot of magnificent things happening during this moving instrumental passage. Let's start with that percussion part. As you heard, a kind of ghostly trail of echoes precede each side stick strike, and over the next two minutes of the song, this trail will grow longer and more intense. This effect was created with an inventive use of delay, which is an audio effect that records an input sound

and then plays it back after a period of time set by the user, essentially creating an echo of the original sound. For example, I can create a quick delay effect on a side stick strike, setting it to play or echo back an eighth note after the original strike is heard. You can also add what's called feedback to your delay. Feedback reroutes that delayed sound back into the delay mechanism, resulting in multiple echoes of the delayed sound. The more feedback you add, the longer the trail of echoes. All right, so that's the two basic elements you need to know. Delay repeats the sound and feedback creates a trail of echoes with that delayed sound. Now Radiohead utilized these effects in a very creative way. First they set a long delay time on the

side stick so that it plays back just before the next real side stick occurs. So let's break down what we just heard. There were three strikes in total. The first was a real strike, the second was the delay strike which comes just before the third strike, which is another real strike. So that's the basic delay setting. Next they crank up the feedback so that with each repetition, we hear one additional delay echo just before the delay strike. As we listen, notice how the trail of delay strikes increases by one each time, creating a snowball effect, as the trail incrementally grows longer and longer with each repetition. It's pretty cool, right? Now let's hear it with the tom drum for the full effect. This is one of those uniquely

radiohead parts. I mean, who else thinks to put something like this in a ballad? Functionally, the ever-evolving nature of this part incrementally elevates the dynamic intensity, propelling, calling the song forward. The piano also adds to this intensity, as the chords tom plays are now beefed up with low end to thicken the texture. But what really takes this section to a nearly transcendent level are Tom's wordless vocals. He stacks multiple harmonies that also feature a delay effect, and as a result, they overlap on top of each other, creating a rich, beautiful bouquet of vocal textures.

Unfortunately, Radiohead never released the official isolated tracks for videotape, like they did for nude and Reckoner, so I can't play you these vocals in isolation. But combined with the percussion, the piano's repeating ostinado, and text that centers human mortality, the overall effect is an emotionally resonant, almost hypnosis-inducing drone, which for me inspires deep introspection about one's life and its meaning. Beautifully, Tom matches the new intensity of the instrumental with an emotionally charged and climactic delivery, singing, This is my way of saying goodbye. It makes clear what's been implied through context to this point, that this is the This videotape is a document of departure to be played by his loved one after he passes.

He follows by saying, Because I can't do it face to face, so I'm talking to you before. In the official lyrics for in Rainbows, this line is left incomplete and ends with an ellipsis or dot dot dot. It would seem the implication is something like, so I'm talking to you before it's too late, or before I die. In all, it's an absolutely crushing line, as Tom's character admits he doesn't have the emotional strength to say a final goodbye in person, understanding full well,

the tragic, overwhelming intensity of that conversation. And who can blame him? Anyone who's lost a loved one and knew they were going to pass ahead of time understands the unimaginable gravity of a final goodbye and the impossibility of articulating anything that remotely conveys the depth of your immense love and appreciation for them. Now, as videotape continues, Radiohead makes two changes to the instrumental. First, they remove that overlapping stack of vocal harmonies, and then shortly after that, they removed the low-end octaves that were added to the piano chords to beef them. up. These two changes create a decaying effect, bringing the song's dynamics back down to a more intimate level. It's a subtle but effective move, ensuring our focus is primarily back on the words

Tom sings, as they are the final words of not only videotape, but also the final words of in rainbows as a whole. Tenderly Tom sings, no matter what happens now, you shouldn't be afraid, because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen. In what might be his final moments, Tom's character chooses to comfort and console his beloved, though the direct address of you at this moment here at the album's end feels like a universal address. It's as if he's speaking directly to us, similar to his dedication to all human beings back on Reckoner. There's a genuine feeling of contentment present in the lines, as we get a sense that the narrator is looking back on his life with satisfaction and gratitude, no longer fearing death knowing that his life was well spent.

Such a warm, optimistic, universal address resonates deeper at this point of the album when we consider all that we've experienced to this point. Let's recall what Tom said himself about the album's sonic and thematic progression. In Rainbows very much explores the ideas of transients. It starts in one place and ends somewhere completely different. The first half of it is pretty raw, pretty hectic. After a while, everything calms down and you get it out of your system. You feel better.

There's this feeling of elation, unquote. Throughout this season, we've tracked this album-long progression through the more anxiety-ridden first half of In-Reymbos to the more elated, warm expressions of its second half, and has perhaps no more succinct way of observing this progression than comparing the sentiments of its closing track videotape with its opening track 15-step. As an opening thematic statement, 15-step establishes In-Ramboes as an album confronting the human condition. The song centralizes the confusion of making progress.

Tom keeps finding himself back where he started, where he went wrong, running in circles, and failing to move forward. And then, as the song's bridge makes clear, this confusion is compounded by the reality that death looms over all that we do, that our time here is finite, making Tom's crisis an existential one. Tom himself formally acknowledged the fear of death when asked whether the album was about middle-aged malaise, saying, unquote. It was much more about the fucking panic of realizing you're going to die, and that anytime soon I could possibly have a heart attack when I next go for a run, unquote. This anxiety about our mortality runs through the first half of the album, felt in the themes of detachment and disconnection and body snatchers, the chronic dejection and dissatisfaction described in nude, the rock bottom

alienation and desire for escape in weird fishes, and the unhealthy obsession of all I need. Then as in Rangbos moves into its second half, the weight of these anxiety-ridden themes begins to lighten. We get the empathy and universal beauty emanating in Reckoner, the warmth and sensuality of House of Cards, and even the drunken seduction of jigsaw falling into place, which Tom himself described as partly expressing the kind of elation felt when going out with friends. Now, here at the album's end, we find Tom still directly confronting the human condition, but the initial fear, anxiety, and alienation this confrontation inspired has by this point all but dissipated, replaced with sentimental gratitude for the life he's been gifted. I mean, the album's final line finds Tom quite

literally telling his beloved to not be afraid of death. It's a complete 180 from the album's start, a transformative conclusion to its thematic arc, supporting Tom's assertion that in rainbows begins in one place and ends somewhere completely different. Now there's more to address in this final line, but I first want to analyze the remainder of videotape and return to this line once we're done. Because from here on now, from the three-minute mark on, videotape unwinds with an extended instrumental passage, where we're going to notice a subtle alteration to the main piano part, as it extends from a three-measure chord progression to a four-measure progression. Specifically, the tonic or home chord C-sharp minor will now get two full measures to itself, twice as long

as the other chords, providing a sense of dark finality or resolution. We're also going to notice that the ongoing side stick and tom drum sequence begins to fade out, making room for a new percussion instrument, a Roland TR-909 electronic drum machine. Recall that in rainbows actually began with the Roland TR-909, as it's featured in the electronic drumbeat heard throughout the album opener 15-step. Hearing the 909 return on videotape for the first time since the album's opening track makes for a fulfilling, full-circle musical moment, a subtle sonic book-in that pairs nicely with the album's thematic progression from anxiety to elation. Now, as we just heard, as videotape's extended instrumental outro progresses, additional percussion elements are added.

Specifically, we hear the return of the tom drum and the echoing trail of feedback delay. But instead of the original side stick hit, we now hear an electronic side stick imitation, which like the other electronic percussion sounds is produced by the Roland TR-909. Now at this point, we have what we might consider a full electronic drumbeat, complete with a kick drum, snare, and hi-hats, the three basic elements of a standard beat. If we continue to analyze the song with the piano chords on the downbeats, we'd be hearing the kick drum, which is in sync with the piano on the downbeats too, with the snare and high-hats being syncopated.

One, two, three. However, for those hearing the piano syncopated, this section of the song makes the best case for that interpretation. That's because we now have two elements, the snare and the hi-hats, playing what could be considered on the beat if you are in fact hearing the piano as syncopated in a double-time feel. In this hearing, the snare hits fall on beats 2 and 4, which is the standard placement for the snare in most drum beats. Just for the sake of making it easier for you to hear it this way, with the piano syncopated and the drums straight, we've created a beefed-up version of the 909 beat, preserving the the original placement of the kick, snare, and hi-hats, with additional elements added to create a more convincing groove. Totally changes the feel, right? This gives you an idea of how the syncopated believers are hearing this portion of the song. Here's the same backing groove,

with Tom's vocals added back in, giving us a taste of what could have been, and for some, still is. Now returning again to videotape proper, the new electronic snare doesn't actually play for very long at first, as it disappears after just two and a half measures, but it quickly reappears a few measures after that, and this time it sticks around for good, locking in this final and trancing, meditative groove that feels like a soundtrack for contemplating your own mortality. As the album's final chord dissipates into the ether, we're brought to the end of the rainbow, so to speak, completing our journey through the 10 beautiful tracks of Radiohead's seventh studio album in rainbows. Ending on such a contemplative mood certainly befits an album that,

like all great art, so honestly confronts the human condition. However, careful little, listeners will notice that as the final chord fades, you can actually hear something faintly in the distance, a kind of mechanical clicking sound. If we tweak the EQ a bit, we can hear this sound a little more clearly. What we're most likely hearing is the metronome Tom was using in his headphones while recording videotape, with a metronome being a device that clicks in perfect time to assist musicians to stay in tempo. Now the interesting thing is that the metronome clicks are playing in double time, meaning that instead of clicking on each piano chord like this, the metronome is actually clicking twice as fast, making the piano chords half notes, playing on every other click.

So this is where the syncopated piano believers are screaming right now. See, they recorded it in double time, the version in which the piano is syncopated. So the piano is technically syncopated because they recorded it that way, and this metronome is proof. I mean, it's a fair point. Given Nigel Godrich himself said that Tom hears it syncopated in his head, it does seem very likely Tom recorded it that way, recorded it syncopated. Still, all the arguments against the piano syncopation remain, namely that it's not convincing enough for the common listener to recognize or feel, so it doesn't actually matter how it was recorded. But now that we've reached the end of the song and album, allow me to add one final thought to this hidden syncopation

conversation. And it has to do with the album's title, in rainbows. Recall what Tom said about it, quote, it's a phrase that I had for a while. It kept coming up in my notebooks. The more I thought it, the more it seemed to go with the idea of trying to reach something you can't. It's there, but you can't reach it, unquote. Now, isn't that literally the perfect description for the elusive syncopation and videotape? Because it is there, but just out of reach, existing in some nebulous dimension, like a magic eye picture, revealed only if perceived just so. In this way, in Rambos concludes with an incredibly symbolic musical articulation of its central theme, with the faint metronome heard in its final moments an evidential artifact of not only videotape's evasive syncopation,

but of radiohead's constant artistic striving, their incessant reaching to find the best possible expression of their creative ideas, to come as close to touching a rainbow as they possibly can. And videotape, at least for Tom, seems to be the one song that best represents this idea. In January of 2008, three months after In Rainbow's release, the BBC asked Tom if he had a favorite song on the album. His response? Well, listen for yourself. Do you have a favorite song on the record? A videotape. I want to put it first, but until someone pointed out that if it did that, if I'd have it turned straight off. But I like it because it very much happened despite me. The others sort of took the reins on it, turned it into this really stripped down thing.

Personally speaking, that's my favorite thing we've ever created because it has this inexpressible substance thing going on behind. what's the specifics of the song, so I'm really, really proud of that. I'm going to repeat part of his response for emphasis, quote, personally speaking, that's my favorite thing we've ever created, because it has this inexpressible substance thing going on behind the specifics of the song, unquote. Of course, Tom here is spot on, cutting right to the heart of what exactly great art does, because as much as I tried to conduct a thorough analysis of videotape today,

the specifics of the song, its individual elements, can't quantify in any substantial, way, the totality of what we feel when listening to this song. In other words, videotape is more than the sum of its parts in the most transcendent and powerful of ways. This is, of course, the magic of music, its ability to capture that inexpressible substance that touches the very essence of who we are, that connects us to the greater we. It's something that a line-by-line note-by-note analysis can never truly explain. Yet it's the reason you're all here right now listening to this podcast, and it's the reason I make this show. We wanted to somehow understand the mystery of music, knowing full well we never will.

Because if we could, the world would no longer need it. Music exists because it has to, because there's no other medium capable of communicating what it does. And for a lot of us, videotape is a moving example of this transcendent quality, this ability to capture that inexpressible substance. And thus we return to videotape's final line and our meager attempts to explain its significance. sings, no matter what happens now, you shouldn't be afraid, because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen. The line presents a causal relationship. It is because Tom has seen or experienced a perfect day that he is no longer afraid, presumably of death. We can only speculate

what this perfect day entailed or represents. It could be that he experienced something so sublime that he feels his life is complete, that he can die happy. It could be that some kind of personal revelation allowed him to appreciate what he already had, or that he'd been lucky enough to be born in the first place, the idea that every day is perfect, because it's another day that we're alive, experiencing this gift of life. But some have also proposed that this final line once again references the legend of Faust, which was tangentially mentioned earlier in the song when Tom sang about Mephistopheles reaching up to grab him. Now, as I summarized before, the basic legend of Faust is about an unhappy scholar who makes it deal with the devil, trading

his soul and eternal damnation in hell for temporary pleasure and knowledge on earth. However, the most intellectually influential version of Faust, the version will find most relevant to videotape and in rainbows, was written by the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Now I have to acknowledge up front that I'm going to be summarizing Goethe's Faust in criminally broad strokes here. His version of the legend is a two-part epic of extraordinary scope, consisting of 12,000 plus lines of poetry written over 60 years and is considered one of the great artistic achievements in human history. But for our purposes today, I want to take five or so minutes to highlight some of the central points and themes of Gertes' version of Faust, as I think we'll

find them extremely additive to our final takeaways from in rainbows. Now, in Gertes' telling, Faust Spargan is actually the result of a bet Mephisto, aka Mephistopheles, makes with God. Mephisto argues that reason and intelligence has made mankind unhappy and dissatisfied, and wagers that he can corrupt God's favorite human Faust and influence him away from his righteous pursuits. God counters this by saying that man has an innate will for good, that errors are inevitable in the human progression toward righteousness, and that ultimately reason and intelligence will guide Faust to the understanding and peace of mind he seeks. We are then introduced to Faust on earth, who yearns to gain knowledge of absolute truth and the meaning of existence, but feels that

none of his many intellectual achievements have provided him with a sense of fulfillment. As a result, Faust seriously contemplates suicide. Mephisto visits Faust and urges him to begin a new life with his assistance. If Faust agrees to become his servant after death, Mephisto will be his servant during life and will guarantee to provide all that Faust desires. Faust is skeptical, but eventually agrees with one condition. If and only if Mephistopheles can grant Fausts an experience of transcendence on earth, a single moment so blissful that he wishes to remain in it forever, ceasing to strive any further, then he will instantly die and serve the devil in hell. Mephisto agrees and Faust's extraordinary journey begins. In part one of the poem, Faust, with Mephisto's assistance,

attempts to find fulfillment through emotion, most notably getting involved with a woman named Gretchen, who dies as a result of their love affair and illegitimate child. In part two, Faust attempts to find fulfillment through worldly accomplishments. He attains an important position at Imperial Court, becomes romantic with Helen of Troy, achieves great victories, and is renowned for his public works. But none of these things provides him with that single moment of transcendence, the moment that he wishes will last forever, the moment that validates his life and by allegorical proxy human existence. As Faust approaches a hundred years old, he begins a new visionary project in which he seeks to reclaim land from the sea,

new land on which other humans can settle, prosper, and thrive, symbolically expanding the boundaries of humanity. Faust is awarded a large strip of coastal land, most of which is underwater and considered worthless. In order to transform this land in his vision, Faust orders everyone in the surrounding areas to surrender their land to him. Everyone does, except for an old couple who refuse to give up their small cottage. Despite having grown skeptical of his reliance on Mephisto's help, Faust sends him to evict the couple, foolishly believing that the possession of their land will satisfy his moral craving and bring him the peace he desires. Mephisto and his gang end up murdering the innocent old couple and burning down their house. For the very first time in the story, Faust is overcome with remorse.

Even though he didn't order Mephisto to kill him, he realizes that he's morally responsible for their deaths and accepts full blame for the evil consequences of his acts. Faust soon goes blind and is told his death is eminent. However, despite his loss of sight, Faust is still determined to complete his land expansion project before he dies. Anticipating Faust's death, Mephisto goes to work on digging Faust's grave. In his blindness, Faust hears these digging shovels and mistakenly believes they're digging the canal for his visionary land project. Faust is then filled with a proud vision of the prosperity and happiness enjoyed by the people who will someday inhabit these reclaimed lands. And this selfless vision of a utopian land,

and future, Faust feels a profound connection to humanity and experiences the joy of participating in the continuous, constructive activity in mankind's progression. It is in this vision that Faust Faus wishes to remain forever, and he therefore utters the very words he bet Mephistopheles he'd never say. Stay moment, that art so fair. Fouce drops dead beside his grave. Mephisto believes he has finally won Fou's soul and is bet with God. Mephisto in a horde of devil surround Fouce's body awaiting to take his soul into custody. Suddenly, the heavens open up and a host of angels appear. To Mephisto's dismay, the angels take Faust's body in their arms and carry it up to heaven. It turns out Mephisto misunderstood the context of Faust's words. Faus did not say them about the present moment

he was experiencing. He said them in relation to his utopian vision of mankind's future his actions were striving toward. God absolves Faust of his sins and allows him into heaven because of his constant striving and effort towards righteousness. As the angels tell Faust at the end of the story, quote, He who strives on and lives to strive can earn redemption still. In other words, the essential feature of human existence and the law that governs the universe is one of untiring, purposeful, and positive effort,

the idea that man can find his place in life only through striving to participate in this vast cosmic movement. Faust's epic journey comes to exemplify this relentless striving. At the beginning of the story, Faust had nearly resigned from trying, a suicide is the opposite of striving and absolves oneself of the responsibility to contribute to the good of humanity. By the story's end, Faust embraces this very responsibility and finds his purpose not in individual pleasure or personal achievement, but in his positive, selfless contribution to human progress. His vision of utopia is a symbol for this progress, an ultimately unattainable, idyllic North Star that humanity forever strives toward, improving itself along

the way. Thus, Gertes Faust is a cautionary tale, just like the traditional legend of Faust. We are not meant to live like Faust, rather his story is meant to expedite our own discovery of life's purpose, to strive, to participate, and contribute to humanity's progress, understanding that our individual purpose here is not to reach Faust's utopia. Our purpose is to strive toward it. Our purpose is to try, to reach beyond where we are. With a basic understanding of Gerta's legend of Faust, we can use this context and our understanding of videotape. Like Faust, the song begins with the narrator describing both heaven and hell, God and the devil. And like Faust, the song ends with the narrator describing

his experience of perfection, an experience that provides him with contentment and resolve at the end of his life. We might also use Gertes Faust as contextual supplement for our broader understanding of in Rainbows and its progression from dark to light. Like Faust, in Rangbos begins with our narrator feeling stuck, unable to make progress, in the midst of an existential crisis. By the album's end, our narrator finds a greater connection to humanity, as expressed beautifully in the song Reckoner, and ultimately finds peace and contentment in his final moments. The idea that in Ramos was based on, or at least influenced by Gertes Faust was proposed by fans immediately after its release. The theory gained enough traction that Tom was asked about it directly, to which he responded,

quote, I vaguely know the story of Faust, but that would involve me having remembered it in some detail or picked it up off the shelf, which I didn't. But yes, hmm, Gertes Foux. I'm going to have to look that one up, actually, because that sounds suitably pretentious. We live in Oxford after all, unquote. It's a classic Tom response, as he's so often quick to undermine his own work in a tongue-and-cheek kind of way. However, intentional or not, I do believe there's value in comparing these two pieces of art, because like Faust, like all great art, in Rainbows clearly addresses the human condition, and both seem to come to a similar or at least related resolution.

For in Rainbows, that resolution is felt in the album's final moments, when its narrator determined or realized or learned that despite his suffering, his life was worth it in the end. It is perhaps the most potent expression of what Tom described as the guiding principle of in Rainbows, which was to quote, capture some of the simple joy of being alive. This revelation is complemented by the album's title in Rainbows, which both embodies and comments on the thematic arc experience over the course of the album. Let's recall one final time Tom's quote that explains its meaning. It's the idea of trying to reach something you can.

It's there, but you can't reach it. And this is the real reason I spent so much time on Faust here at the end of the season, because in rainbows expresses exactly the central philosophy put forth by Gerta, that our purpose here is to strive, to reach beyond where we are, to chase the proverbial rainbow for the sake of human progress as a whole. To this point, we can recall another thing we heard Tom say this season about the band's aim when making music, quote, that's what we should be aiming at.

A good piece of music is like knocking a hole in the wall, so that you can see another place you didn't know existed. If your consciousness is not constantly evolving and you just keep going around the same room again and again, then you're sort of trapped, and every good piece of music or art or writing stops you feeling trapped, unquote. In other words, great art expands human boundaries. It pushes humanity forward, and this is only accomplished through striving, through sometimes grueling effort. And for me, this became my biggest takeaway from in Rainbows, because not only is this idea represented in the album's title and thematic arc, it's represented and lived out by the band itself. As we documented throughout

this season, creating in Rainbows was a two-year struggle for Radiohead, full of false starts, a pre-album tour, a recording excursion to a dilapidated mansion, and numerous periods of stalled momentum. They tried countless variations and arrangements of the same songs, obsessively attempting to come as close to perfection as possible, breaking themselves to the point of nearly disbanding, of giving up. And this experience wasn't an isolated one. If you recall what we documented in the very first episode this season, almost every album Radiohead has created in their expansive, decades-long career, presented these same torturous creative challenges, challenges that only existed because of Radiohead's meticulous, uncompromising, obsessive attempts

to achieve the best possible expression of their ideas, to reach beyond where they were, to strive further, to inhabit a rainbow. And like Goethe's Faust, his life's work, Radiohead's music and the moments of transcendence therein is the videotape they leave behind for humanity. It's a document of a collective life of constant striving. It is art that when experienced connects us like Faust in his final moments to the greater we, and we're all the better and a little closer to righteousness because it exists, because they strived. This central idea present in both in rainbows and Gertes Faust of course extends beyond art. It's a guiding philosophy that

that we can use to steer the trajectory of our life if we so choose. Because when we look around the world, we see human error everywhere, we see it in the brutality of war, and the ignorance of prejudice, and the folly of injustice. Indeed, there's more than enough tragedy and destruction in the world to feel hopeless about humanity and resign ourselves from an awe, like Faust at the story's beginning. But if you choose to believe our purpose here is to contribute to humanity's progress, to reach beyond where we are, then it's our duty to strive to improve our collective condition like Faust at the story's end. Our contributions will vary depending on personal circumstances and limitations, but the important part is that we're all out here trying every day to make things

better. Now, I want to end this season by drawing your attention to one last connection between in rainbows and Gertes's Faust. In the beginning of Faust Part 2, Gerta chooses a symbol to represent the poem's central theme of human striving, one symbol that embodies the elusive nature of the utopian vision that guides human progress, and it just so happens to be a rainbow. Quote, yet how superb across the tumult braided, the painted rainbows changing life is bending, now clearly drawn, dissolving now and faded, and evermore the showers of dew descending, of human striving there's no symbol fuller, consider and it's easy comprehending. Life is not light, but the refracted color.

Thank you all for listening this season. I sincerely appreciate you sharing some of your finite time with me. I wish you all the best in your striving. Dyshex Season 11 was written and produced by me, Cole Kushna. If you enjoyed this season, please tell a friend about it, share it on social media, or leave a review wherever you're listening right now. All that stuff goes a long way in the sustainability of this show. You can also wear your support of the show with our Season 11 in Rainbow's inspired merchandise,

available now at Dysectpodcast.com. I'd like to express a big thank you to all the folks who make this show possible. Thank you to Dr. Brad Osborne for his contributions to the analysis this season. For any musicians out there looking to learn more about the theory in Radiohead's music, I highly suggest Brad's book called Everything in Its Right Place, Analyzing Radiohead. Thank you to Kevin Pooler for all the audio work this season, especially the beautiful original score he composed for the season opener. Thank you to Andrew Atwood, who had the near impossible task of trying to recreate all these

Radiohead songs this season. Truly incredible work. Thank you to Beirocratic for another killer thing. theme. And an extra special thank you to Justin Sales and Sean Fantasy at the Ringer for all the support. I couldn't have found a better home for Dissect than The Ringer, and I'm extremely proud to be a part of the team. And finally, thank you again to everyone who made it to the end of this season. I truly appreciate your support. All right, that's it for now. I'll talk to you all next season, where we'll dissect another musical masterwork note by note line by line, because great art deserves more than a swipe.