I woke up late this morning. Or rather, I woke up early, before 9, to the sound of the garbage truck. It's never woken me up before, but then again, tonight the window in our bedroom was open. So I then fell back asleep and didn't wake up until after 11. This is a bad thing.
One thing about the work schedule I now have (3-11, Monday-Friday) is that it places at least some of the rest of my day under certain restraints. I have to do the dishes every day now, whether I want to or not, and I have to make a meal and also make and eat another one before leaving for work. Today I am going into the university with K. to see some people before work, so the time pressure I am under is much worse.
All of which makes me glad I chose Radiohead's 'Permanent Daylight' for this week's WES, and that I didn't do the responsible thing and get it finished the night before.
For a while, somewhere between The Bends and the post-OK Computer EP Airbag, Radiohead specialised in a couple different kinds of songs. One of these was the kind, and this is difficult to sum up in words, that could be easily soundtrack in a video to some white collar drone slowly going insane. In fact, for one of the Airbag tracks, 'Palo Alto', that's basically what the video was. The focus was on white collar in general, but when you're going for a mood of alienation and rejection, why focus on one person?
'Permanent Daylight' is an older b side, from the My Iron Lung EP, and from something I read on a fan site a long, long time ago, when I was just getting into music and Radiohead were the first band I liked, it was a bit of an homage to Sonic Youth. I don't see it myself, then or now. It's short, loud, and Thom Yorke's normally pristine vocals are distorted almost out of existence.
The lyrics are short. In their entirety they read:
The easiest way to sleep at night is to
Carry on believing that I don't exist
The easiest way to sell your soul is to
Carry on believing that we don't exist
It must be hard with your head on backward
As with many of this sort of Radiohead songs they speak of resentment not anger, frustration not despair, sarcasm not hate. Which is not to say that Radiohead would go on to include those latter qualities; their later-period work may not be the same thing at the era that spawned 'Permanent Daylight', but I've so far found no harm in giving it the benefit of the doubt.
This is an old song, and not one that used to be one of my favorites. So why did it pop into my head five minutes into shift yesterday and stay locked there?
The reason is the title. I have had nights where I have been goofing off and looked up and it is dark outside my window and I've thought 'oh, it's night now'. But working in a factory is entirely different. We tend to keep the side doors open so that some fresh air comes in, and I remember looking across at one of them at about 10 pm yesterday and being surpised that it wasn't night. When you're sitting in your apartment the light slowly alters as day draws on; the quality of light in the plant, open 24 hours, never changes. Permanent daylight. It kind of messes with your head.
But also, last night I was bored out of my skull for long stretches of observation. I actually spent part of the night walking in circles, to ease the pain in my feet and to occupy myself. Sure, Radiohead usually framed songs like this with scenes of officebound ennui and stress, but a more industrial setting for them wouldn't have altered the content in the least. And considering I'm going from an easy office job I've done for years to an interesting albeit challenging factory one, right now my mind is more where 'Permanent Daylight' is at.
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