Everything in Its Right Place

How can so many people be so wrong about one song?

This song is about the conception of a sentient being. I.E. Kid A.

The phrase Everything in it's right place is common parlance for 'two eyes, two legs, four fingers and a thumb on each hand, etc.' In other words 'Kid A' has been brought into the world with no defects/mutations/disabilities.

The sucking a lemon, as already pointed out on this board, is a phrase referring to 'looking miserable'.

What is the first thing newborn babies do?

Why, cry of course! Face like he's sucking a lemon covered then.

There are two colours in my head.

I.E. black and white. As a newborn, Kid A is an innocent. He has no 'grey' concepts or befuddled morals. He is a blank slate without malice, and only the ability to distinguish between things that make him happy 'white' or make him unhappy 'black'.

The part which is most disturbing is the line 'What is that you tried to say.'

This implies that 'Kid A' has developed the first stage of sentience, the ability to understand speech. He is about to have all manner of dubious thoughts and concepts thrust into his open mind, corrupting the innocence therein, and robbing him of his monotonal morality.

Fare thee well Kid A.

God bless you, and all who sail in you.

This song, in my view, is specifically about the human condition. The two main opposing metaphors, sucking the lemon and the two colours highlight a common blight and a common desire. Its the awful bitterness of waking into a banal and impossibly complicated world contrasted with a desire for easy answers, for black and white solutions in our problems. In reality the two colours in our heads just dont fit the world around us- and that causes bitterness. Its probably one of the most powerful of all the radiohead songs for its spineshivering musical composition as much as its lyrical beauty. We all yearn for everything to be in its right place- this song is about our longing for contentment.

Well to me this song has to do with dreams. You know when you wake up sometimes and you're not sure if what you dreamed was actually only a dream, and you look around to make sure "Everything" is "in it's right place"? Also, "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" has a metaphorical sense to it, the way your face looks after sucking on a lemon, scared, as if it was a nightmare. Finally, the line "There are two colors in my head" is probably the thing I'm most sure of. The two colors are most probably Black and White. The idea being that black represents nightmares while white represents good dreams. And these colors are "inside his head" when he dreams. This is all a longshot I guess, but you never know. Also the mood of the song is very mellow and dreamy.

My only backup for my analogy is this: The soundtrack for Vanilla Sky was chosen pretty carefully, and if you look at the lyrics to most of the songs you will find they all have something to do with plot. Therefore, using a song having to do with dreams (maybe they actually know what this song is about?) would be a good choice.

Oh well, who knows? I could be totally off...

being manic-depressive, i connect so much with the line 'there are two colors in my head'. describes it perfectly

Beautiful and sad song, my favorite radiohead song.. though some have pointed out that some lyrics were "pulled from a hat" I believe this song has a personal meaning to Thom Yorke from reading alot of his interviews. "Yesterday i woke up sucking a lemon" could refer to waking up in a bad mood but with radiohead its usual not that simple, I believe hes expressing his bitter disappointment aka sucking a lemon.The two colours in his head( spelled the english way) again speaks of the mood of a human being, and how we are influenced by our moods it would be interesting to see what these colours are but we know dont we? from Videotape red, blue and green."What is that you tried to say" is in my opinion a reference back to the o.k computer days where all the "noise" of our lives drowns out everything, we cant even express our inner thoughts, to Thom Yorke this is the prison of our lives.Finally "Everything in its right Place"signifies our desperate need for order, for everything and everyone to be in its "right place". Amazing that Radiohead could say so much with just five lines about the human condition but thats why they are the greatest band in the world.

sucking a lemon is a common uk phrase, it means you look miserable.

Perhaps a ref. to Fahrenheit 451?

"you weren't hurting anyone, you were only hurting THINGS! And since things couldn't really be hurt,since things felt nothing, and things don't scream or whimper,...there was nothing to tease your conscience later... you were simply cleaning up..."(p.37)

Thom could be relating these "things" to the emotions of kid A, who is, after all , an android, having the inability to feel.

"Everything to its proper place" (p.37)

just a connection...

Overall, I get the picture that waking up sucking on lemon starts the song which means to show that you have been living life but somehow it is a souring experience and you have now come to realize this on a conscious level. Yet as you try to question why things aren't the way they should be or why you are not as happy as you could have been, there are domineering tones of "everything in its right place" that come through the obvious experience of living in a world rife with systems and positions and rules for everything. So you are struggling to break free from convention and yet still not sure of why or how this going to happen..you have just a splinter in your mind that something is not right as things just don't feel right. And as you begin an introspective search, you find there is a repeating theme of absolutes that your logical mind will always offer in place of your heart's greatest aspiration. In this rumination, you have delved in so deep you are distracted by everything even the inner voice that has tried to say there may be another way out or perhaps you tried to say is an external person or event that has been warning of some kind of foreboding danger while you continue ever deeper in thought.

regardless the dark dangerous tones speak to me of conflict..an internal one in my opinion.

Tonight as I'm listening to the song I feel is about being bitter and sad, and living on a little bubble of confinement: You are alone and everything is "In its right place" not necessarily good,it's just that you can not do anything to change things. Then you realize there is other people outside and the colours in your head might be memories about something/someone very specific. But is too late and you are not sure about their intentions, you can not comprehend what they mean, so you go back to your own crazy world, where everything is "In its right place" You try to explain yourself but it is just a futile effort.

Basically I think is about how hard is to put into words your thoughts and feelings. Even more to try to understand what the other people means.

To me this song speaks about the confusion an individual goes through during a difficult period such as growth, change, loss etc as situations like these are the rare moments when you actually get an opportunity to see things out of the glazed routine you may have been seeing them through.

This is about the eternal struggle to find oneself and those rare, lucid moments of clarity when you realize you may be at odds with someone's ideas..even if they are so close to you. Or it may be the alienated feeling when you come to realize you are at odds with everything around you.

Waking up sucking on lemon is waking up with a bad attitude..but it is that sour taste that alerts you something isn't the way it should be.

Everything in its right place is actually IMO, a taunt to describe a view of a totalitarian type culture that can often pervade our day to day lives, government democratic systems and in many other ways. This phrase serves as a threat that may encroach upon our personal freedoms.

There are two colors in my head what was that you tried to say? Perhaps this is a description of someone who knows they want to think outside the box but are chained in to black