In the deepest ocean
The bottom of the sea
Your eyes,
They turn me.

I can distinctly remember the first time I listened to it. Somehow I had managed to stay relatively immune to the Radiohead hype up to that day. I might have had a bootleg CD of OK Computer in my car, but everything besides that record had always eluded me. It was Christmas 2007. I’d read a bunch about the release of “In Rainbows”, the media frenzy that ensued after their self-distribution stunt, but somehow I had never taken the time to pay zero dollars for the record online. Hey, it was way overhyped anyway.

Why should I stay here?
Why should I stay?

There was a party at a friend’s place on Christmas’ eve, because that had somehow become a thing. Conveniently, that gave me a plausible excuse to go out on Christmas eve, which even at 22 was not very acceptable in my parents’ home. I wasn’t particularly interested in some family party at friends though, we had plans to go clubbing, but being Brazil and especially being Christmas, nothing would start before 2 AM for sure. Eventually I got to the club. It was a monday and Mondays were rock nights at the club. I never understood why they would stick to the weekly music selection on Christmas eve, but hey. We moshed hard to AC/DC and Rage Against the Machine and all was fine and fair.

I’d be crazy not to follow
Follow where you lead
Your eyes
They turn me

Sometime around 4 AM the DJ put “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” on. It felt like I was in a Chemical Brothers music video. As if the world around me stopped for a second to contemplate transcendence and beauty. The racing drums, the guitar arpeggios, the desperate lyrics. I walked out of there without knowing what song that was.

Turn me on to phantoms
I follow to the edge of the earth
And fall off.

Googling lyric snippets eventually lead me to the song, which I promptly bootlegged and made my personal soundtrack. My messenger status became …I’ll get eaten by the worms and weird fishes, and it probably staid that way for at least half a year.

I can’t put my finger on what exactly it is about that song. I admire the sounds and the production immensely, and it just fits perfectly together. The drum beat is hypnotic and dancing, the guitar sounds are the warmest hue of clean with the exactly appropriate amount of echo, the baseline just wraps everything together and there’s the singing too. At the same time, I know it’s not really about the specifics. I’ve been obsessed enough with this song that it has devolved into an obsession with covers of that song. I spent weeks excited about a cover by a Swedish band, shot in a club in Stockholm on a shitty phone camera in portrait mode.

A couple of weeks ago I found another couple by Lianne La Havas and i was equally taken aback. I spent days listening to her nonstop. So it can’t have been the song’s sound. It might have been the lyrics. The imagery, the deepest ocean, the existentialist dread. That urgent line “everybody leaves if they get the chance…”, it all came together.

After that, the gates were open. I’ve been semi-obsessed with Radiohead and pretty much anything they release ever since. I came around to “Kid A”, got addicted to that as well and have learned to cherish every phase of their discography. Idioteque is great, OK Computer is amazing, Amnesiac has gems as well, and the early stuff holds its ground as well. but for me, it’ll always be weird fishes.

Everybode leaves,
If they get the chance.
Well this
Is my chance.

That night, something changed in me. I can’t say what. Somehow finding that song, finding Radiohead, was finding myself. I’ve found myself in multiple other bands and songs since, but somehow that night felt different. It felt like I escaped something, escaped a life without weird fishes in it. Weird fishes and arpeggi gnawing at our comfortable despair.

I’ll hit the bottom and escape.