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The track’s title, “Faust Arp,” combines the name Faust (sometimes spelled Faustus) – a man who sold his soul to the devil for happiness and almost unlimited power – and Jean/Hans Arp, a French sculptor.

Regarding the legend of Faustus:

The second part begins with the spirits of the earth forgiving Faust (and the rest of mankind) and progresses into rich allegorical poetry. Faust and his devil pass through the world of politics and the world of the classical gods, and meet with Helen of Troy (the personification of beauty). Finally, having succeeded in taming the very forces of war and nature Faust experiences a single moment of happiness.

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With a modern literal meaning of “midnight,” the term witching hour refers to the time of day when supernatural creatures such as witches, demons, and ghosts are thought to appear and to be at their most powerful and black magic to be most effective. It may be used to refer to any arbitrary time of bad luck or in which something bad has a greater likelihood to occur (e.g., a baby crying, or a computer crashing, or stock market volatility.)

Or, in this case, the start of a war.

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Making your escapist rabbit hole is easy (Any fool can easy pick a hole) but to get there is hard. (I only wish I could fall in.)

Or maybe it is about choice: rather than picking a hole for themselves (a career, a house, a public persona) the character just feels it could be easier just to fall in there by accident.

This line is possibly a reference to Murakami’s “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles” which Thom spoke of around the time of recording the album. The book’s protagonist spends copious amounts of time in a self-dug hole.

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The image here is of the rain droplets once again hitting the windowsill, in the storm that already pulled off his roof. Except now they don’t sound like bullets, but ratter like more gentle rapping.

It could be interpreted as being about escapism. The world described is stormy and vicious (birds thrown around, bullets for hail, yesterday’s headlines blown by the wind), but something is calling you away- “Your voice is rapping on my windowsill” – could be a person, memory, anything.

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Here’s what Thom said about it:

It’s a really, really difficult song to describe. My favourite type of weather in the whole wide world is extreme winds. It is a bit dangerous. I have a house in the middle of nowhere and the house next door, the roof blew up and we just watched it and it was exactly like ‘The Wizard of Oz’. It was fantastic. And this was a similar incident in the city. But it’s kind of a love song as well, in a way.

Alternative Title: “Scatterbrain (As Dead as Leaves)”

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The “pot calling the kettle black” is a metaphor for hypocrisy, describing a dirty pot criticizing a shiny kettle for imperfections which the pot itself may be guilty of. Some interpret the saying as the proverbial pot seeing its own black reflection in a shiny kettle.

The phrase is similar to the biblical parable of “the speck and the log,” found in Matthew 7:3-5:

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

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People like you are unspeakably destructive.

This is also a play on words, based on the phrase “a bull in a china shop”, which connotes clumsiness or bluntness in a situation that requires delicacy (a “china shop” meaning a place full of china dishes i.e. very fragile). A bullY in a china shop would be the same thing but much more mean-spirited.

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These background vocals reference the previous two lines in which a siren lures sailors to her “call” only to cause their shipwreck.

Ultimately, we must learn how to resist temptation and remain on a righteous path. Life is filled with distractions and deceptive forces that can lead us astray.

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Just because you feel the presence of God, doesn’t mean he’s there.

This line could also work for relationships. Just because you feel the presence of love, doesn’t mean you’re receiving it.

These lines appear after Thom describes his character fumbling as he navigates “your landscape”, which I’d interpret as his inability to maintain a comfortable relationship (romantic or otherwise) with the “you” character.

More specifically, the previous line sees Thom’s character tripping over branches.

Here, however, he’s noting that not everything one experiences is real. The troubles and turbulences in this relationship may indeed be imagined. Thom’s character’s psyche may be their own enemy.

More on this when the chorus returns.

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‘The Gloaming’ was born when Radiohead recorded Kid A during the experimental electronica-only sessions in early 2000, when the band split into teams who worked on different things seperately. Colin and Jonny created an instrumental track, that would serve Thom much later as the basis for working out a melody. A version called ‘33.3 Recurring’, that most likely represents the state of work from the Kid A sessions, appeared on an EMI acetate disc in 2003, suggesting it was considered for b-side release. (Source).

Thom Yorke said before performing this song:

The next song we’re gonna do is a song about the rise of fascism and the right wing. The only way to stop them is to do something. If you do nothing, they’ll win. And these people are fucking crazy.

Alternative Title: “The Gloaming (Softly Open our Mouths in the Cold)”

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