Thom Yorke on the dodgy circus

I've just been listening to an interview with Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the band Radiohead who just released his own solo album. Yorke's conversational style is occasionally maddening - he says "blah blah blah" a lot, for instance. But one thing he said about playing an unsatisfying tour struck me.

Mostly it was just not interesting. It just got boring, which sounds incredibly selfish, but why would you just carry on playing these tunes? I mean, the trouble was that by the time we had done that record we were so sick of those tunes. And then you're faced with the prospect of having to play them for another year and a half. Which, you know, you've got to do because you've got to let people know what it's about and one of the things that we're good at is playing the tunes and blah blah blah. But there just sort comes a point where you're going through the motions, and as soon as you realize that "I am going through the motions, this is sounding tired," that's it. This is rock and roll, there's no point in you being there. It ceases to be rock and roll and just becomes some sort of dodgy circus.

Most of us have been there I'm sure - just not inspired or motivated. And the recognition that things aren't working sometimes seems only to make them worse. It's a trap we set for ourselves. The only real solution, I think, is to seek out new ideas, new inspiration - new tunes, probably.

Anyway, I know I haven't been writing much here lately, and I want to let you know I'm fine, I just haven't felt inspired to blog about anything much. And I'd rather not turn hella frisch into a dodgy circus. Thanks for visiting!