this one drops a payload
This thing has happened to me with Kid A. When it came out a year or so ago, I recognized it as brilliant but I had a very hard time actually listening to it. It freaked the hell out of me. There was this inexplicable menace behind the layered keyboards, and the oblique, inarticulate lyrics seemed to skirt some awful truth that could only be conveyed through obliquity. "Idioteque" gave me conniptions. And then of course I found the hidden liner notes behind the CD tray, and those were no fun. "THE INNOCENTY HAVE BEEN USED TO THICKEN THE SOUPY THE SOUPY CAN BE USED TO FEED THE TROOPYS FROM TIN CANS" and so on. The album essentially convinced me that something terrible was going to happen soon, and the more I read about First/Third World relations the more apparent it became. This is the reason for last year's brief fling with far-left politics, which embarrasses me a little now.
Anyway, now the first terrible thing has happened. And granted it's not over, and granted it's going to get much worse before it gets better. But I've discovered that Kid A has suddenly become comforting rather than agitating. As soon as the international shit started going down, part of me felt a tremendous sense of relief: at last it's arrived, it's finally out in the open, we can observe it and define it and try to figure out what to do. It's not that I was self-satisfied about being proved right—no one wanted this—but at least I was no longer the only one worried. Though I shouldn't say "the only one"; many friends of mine report similar experiences. I think these events must have produced karmic shock waves traveling back in time or something, and it was hell to be on the receiving end. At least fear has been given a shape now.
