Paranoid Android

***Paranoid Android*** is the second track from Radiohead's third studio album *OK Computer*. The song was written primarily by singer Thom Yorke, following an unpleasant experience in a Los Angeles bar. The track is six minutes long and consists of four distinct sections.

While making the song, Radiohead fused together parts from three different songs, each of which had been written by a different member of the band. The idea to combine the pieces into a single track was inspired in part by the format and structure of The Beatles' *Happiness Is a Warm Gun*.

The title of the song is taken from Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams' *The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy* series of books. Yorke has said about the title:

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> It was chosen as a joke. It was like, 'Oh, I'm so depressed.' And I just thought, that's great. That's how people would *like* me to be. And that was the end of writing about anything personal in the song. The rest of the song is not personal at all.
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Thom also has said this about the song on radiohead.com on a page under the title of “waving or drowning”:

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> in a bar in hollywood\* the centre of the western universe, standing at the bar (social drinking) after doing the talk show bit. do you want to know this? this is what we aspire to is it? it is dark, there is a woman opposite me o is as sociably anorexic as her poodle, she looks desolate in her make up and lost eyes, next to her her husband boyfriend is persuading a younger fleshed half his age stewardess to come back to the hills to their mansion to sample his wine. she looks t him like he's a character in a hammer house horror. one of our friends spills a glass of wine over a vacuum packed gucci outfit complete with matching white hand bag. the witch goes crazy, we think it is fuunny. until we see the evil in her eyes. m friend is asked to leave. the gucci creature is the closest thing i have seen to the devil. the woman is possessed. i cannot sleep that night asking what we've got our selves into. voices talking like fax machines, hissing and spitting like demons, this is the master race. and now im part of it. anyway you didnt want to know that.
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The first edit of the song was over 14 minutes long and included a long organ interlude performed by Jonny Greenwood.

## Lyrics

please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest

from all the unborn chicken voices in my head

what's that... I may be paranoid, but not an android

what's that... I may be paranoid, but not an android

when I am king, you will be first against the wall

with your opinion which is of no consequence at all

what's that... I may be paranoid, but no android

what's that... I may be paranoid, but no android

ambition makes you look pretty ugly

kicking, squealing Gucci little piggy

you don't remember you don't remember

why don't you remember my name

off with his head, man off with his head, now why don't you remember my name

I guess he does

rain down, rain down oh come on rain down on me

from a great height from a great height... height... rain down, rain down

oh come on rain down on me

from a great height from a great height... height...

that's it sir, you're leaving the crackle of pigskin

the dust and the screaming

the yuppies networking the panic, the vomit the panic, the vomit

God loves his children

God loves his children, yeah!