Radiohead Contest Winners

nik.mercer — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 08:06:38 -0700

Thanks to everyone who entered our Radiohead giveaway and submitted their favorite lyrical gems that "sprang like a golden sapling out of the mad, beautiful head of” Thom Yorke. (Thanks, Daniel Day.)

Top honors went to Brooklynite Reynard Li, who chose a couplet off of Yorke’s solo album: "Peel all of your layers off / I want to eat your artichoke heart” ("Atoms for Peace.") Li helpfully sent along a picture of an actual artichoke heart before elucidating the song’s hidden message. "In these lyrics he’s saying he wants to get her naked and eat her pussy,” he wrote. "It’s pretty touching, really. Despite this girl’s shitty state, he still loves her and wants to get down 'n dirty. The song is the ultimate metaphor for loving someone through the thickest of times.” For his efforts, Li scores the complete-except-for-In-Rainbows Radiohead box set, plus a brand new DVD of 21 music videos.

Dave Madden wins honorable mention for explaining how he mistook the Yorkeian line in "Scatterbrain"—"…than any fool can easy pick a hole (I only wish I could fall in)"—for the more obscure, absurdist "any fool can eat a pickle, whole." His Radiohead-loving girlfriend had to set him straight. "However, 'pick a hole' will always be 'pickle, whole' to me," Madden says. "I suppose that shows how great a band Radiohead is: even when they don't make sense, I still want to lay on the floor and analyze their every move."

And finally, David B picks up the second honorable mention with Yorke’s violently weird sentiment from "Wolf at the Door": "Get the flan in the face / The flan in the face / Dance you fucker, dance you fucker." "Something about the combination of disparate elements makes this lyric special," B writes. "It’s Yorke’s bizarrely threatening tone mixed with the mention of delicious dessert that does it."

Both our honorable mention winners receive the new 2-disc Radiohead Special Edition, plus the DVD.