A Moon Shaped Pool

My story with Radiohead begins at the end, from A Moon Shaped Pool, their latest album at the time of this comment. What I mean is that, for me, before that, I knew two handfuls of their songs and I liked them all, a lot, that's all. It took me a relatively long time to break away from the genres I'd stuck with for years. First, I followed the progressive rock my father used to respectfully nod to. Then, to compensate for the silence of my voice, I listened to the heaviest metal I knew at the time until my ears bled. As I grew up and learned to speak, the chaos in my brain began to fall into place (yes), and so I unconsciously began to seek out new sounds, new vibes. Then I lost interest in music, found it back, started playing, stopped, started again, and so on, whatever. Anyway, I've always had a fluctuating relationship with music, and a quick approach. I'd listen to a track that represented the moment, I'd consume it, then on to the next, and so on. I'd rarely listen to albums in their entirety - which is hysterical and useless, yes, for a (supposedly) prog snob. Then, in 2016 or so, I came across the CD of A Moon Shaped Pool. I think I was obsessed with black and white back then, that's why. I had also recently started collecting CDs and vinyl, a hobby that, fortunately for my finances, I abandoned a few years later. I put it on, volume up, and on it goes. Burn the Witch was perhaps the first song that instinctively made me dance. I've always been terribly ashamed of doing so, so deeply that I wouldn't even dance when I was sure I was completely alone, only the thought of it would give me low-flying panic attacks. Maybe it shouldn't have this effect on me, but it does, the album sings and I dance. Then, suddenly, slowly and softly, Daydreaming comes on. A song that comes on like that, while you're sweaty and agitated, has a bitter taste of guilt. Why did I dance?, I shouldn't have danced. This is one of the few songs that, in my opinion, must be also watched. The video, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is something that transforms the melancholy of this track into something terrible. The low-flying panic attack. Up today, when I listen to this song, I feel my soul getting heavier and heavier by the second. When I get to Ful Stop, I start dancing again. But the route so far has been muddy, fresh concrete, heavy shoes, so I dance distantly. Ful Stop is a song that makes me want to dance for no reason, no joy, dancing because it has to be done. It's a visceral song, that comes from within and shakes and strikes. It reminds me, a little, of "Sit Down. Stand Up." Then, the rest is, for some reason, amnesia, yes. The songs that follow, before the finale, pass quickly but endlessly. They bathe me in drops of sensations of peace and calm, a return to life after the frenetic desperation of the first half of the album. They are kind, and I return to kindness. True Love Waits isn't new, like most of the other songs on the album, they've been played by the band in some way, somewhere. Certainly not as they were recorded here, but they already exist, they're popular. For me, that was the first time I've heard True Love Waits. Following, the lyrics: I'll drown my beliefs To have your babies I'll dress like your niece And wash your swollen feet Just don't leave Don't leave I'm not living I'm just killing time Your tiny hands Your crazy kitten smile Just don't leave Don't leave And true love waits In haunted attics And true love lives On lollipops and crisps Just don't leave Don't leave For some reason, maybe the childlike notes, Yorke's high-pitched vibrato, the slowness, the simplicity, the songs that came before it, the songs that will one day follow, this piece makes me think of death, mine, and the death of others. It makes me, somehow, accept it. It makes me feel at peace. I rarely listen to it, because it seems right to me that this song is not consumed. True Love Waits seems to whisper to me, simultaneously, both that "it's okay, it's just music" and that "from now on nothing will be the same again." And it's true, nothing is the same as before. Years have passed since I listened to it, and like the atmosphere of this album, the memories are a bit hazy. Because it's true that my life has changed drastically in the last few years, and I don't remember much of it. But I can definitely say that music, with its ups and downs, played a major role. And this album, like it or not, played a very important role. I wish I could listen to it again for the first time. What album would you most like to listen to again for the first time?