My edition - I assume it’s the regular one - has a couple of pages of maps, in addition to the lyrics and all the titles.
Yes, but not 100% yes. There is a book about the electoral… uh, shall we call them “irregularities?” in Florida called Hail to the Thief, and it was a slogan I think I remember seeing on signs at the DC protest of Bush’s inauguration (my first trip to DC for a protest, actually).
But the band says there’s more to it than that. This quote - actually stupidly unattributed on the band’s website, but I think it’s from Thom - explains.
“The Gloaming” [the name of one track] was going to be the album title" (according to Colin, the rest of Radiohead vetoed the idea for “sounding too proggy”). [Good call, says I.]
“It’s the subtitle now. It refers to a general all-enveloping darkness that’s slowly taking over mankind: like some plague from the middle ages that seems to be on the horizon again. In the middle ages, everyone was obsessed by people who were “possessed”. The same thing is happening now. The same sense of a malignant force ripping apart civilisation. Then towards the end of the record I read a ‘Murakami’ book called “Wind-Up Bird Chronicles” and it all fell into place in my head. That’s what I was trying to say about the darkness that envelops people. They don’t know it’s happening to them and they think they’re doing the right thing but the rise of fascism and ignorance are what they’re really calling into play. And that to me is the real “thief”. The thief is someone who takes possession of one’s soul in order to inhabit their body. And with the few politicians I’ve encountered personally, I’ve always got the sense that there’s fuck-all going on behind their exteriors. If I met Blair, I wouldn’t say anything. I’d just sit and watch him. I’d sit and watch his mouth move and see the air flying around.”
Later on, Colin Greenwood says “People need to focus on bigger issues instead of whether George Bush is an idiot or not.”
Jonny Greenwood adds “We’d never name a record after one political event like Bush’s election. The record’s bigger than that. Hopefully it will last longer than Bush unless he’s getting a whole dynasty together, which is always possible. One of the things Thom’s singing about is whether or not you choose to deal with what’s happening. There are a lot of lines about escaping and avoiding issues, about keeping your head down and waiting. Everybody feels like that from time to time as much as they feel frustration about things they can’t change. It’s a confusing time right now but that doesn’t mean that we’re issuing any kind of manifesto. It’s more like we’re summing up what it’s like to be around in 2003.”
Thom adds: “We don’t have to stand on a soap-box and preach because hopefully we’re channelling it through the new record. We didn’t start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what’s going on around us. The title of the record goes so much deeper than just being some anti-Bush propaganda.”
There are a number of lyrics (and the song title 2 + 2 = 5, borrowed from 1984) that would seem to refer not so much to the election, but to the American (and international) political situation - which wouldn’t be new to Radiohead; they’re quite politically active, and the song Electioneering from OK Computer is, in part, a dig at Tony Blair - but I agree with the guys when they say there’s more going on.
