04-02-19
Fitter Happier sits right in the middle of Radiohead’s OK Computer. It plays a pivotal role to the overall narrative of the album effectively summarizing what the album is working at describing, however aesthetically it is felt significantly different than most other songs, especially the ones before and after it. As a child when I would listen to this album it’s a harsh change in pace was often a shocking and surprising event.
The song acts as a list of significant bullet points that break down the expectations of society into a few lines, feeding the listener the series of rules we share with one another. Its manner of listing directions as oppose to conveying thoughts speaks to the robotic nature which is to also imply our robotic natures in relinquishing our rights and freedoms. It works to reflect how Radiohead and specifically Thom Yorke views the ethos of modern society, that of being unemotional, cold, and subservient. The computerized voice layer on the static-filled background melodies helps deliver a powerful effect, inducing fear and panic while never being abrasive or more focal than the dialogue.
From describing the steps necessary to build an “approved” life to establishing a family, and how we should respond in the middle, Fitter Happier explores a lot of profound conceptual ideas within a short two-minute track. In breaking down human existence into a series of steps, it minimizes our perceptions of our own impacts and contributions.
Radiohead aims to make you question a great many things, and that’s where Fitter Happier rest comfortably. The entirety of OK Computer felt like an impressive artistic growth for the band after producing The Bends only two years earlier; as the world was adopting advanced technologies and collectively approaching a new millennium the concepts of traditional societal structures began to be reevaluated by a larger mass of people. Radiohead did everything within their power to help push this sentiment.
Lyrics:
[Spoken]
Fitter, happier, more productive
Comfortable (not drinking too much)
Regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
At ease
Eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
A patient, better driver
A safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
Sleeping well (no bad dreams)
No paranoia
Careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
Keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
Will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
Favours for favours
Fond but not in love
Charity standing orders
On Sundays ring road supermarket
(No killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
Car wash (also on Sundays)
No longer afraid of the dark
Or midday shadows
Nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
Nothing so childish
At a better pace
Slower and more calculated
No chance of escape
Now self-employed
Concerned (but powerless)
An empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
Will not cry in public
Less chance of illness
Tyres that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
A good memory
Still cries at a good film
Still kisses with saliva
No longer empty and frantic
Like a cat
Tied to a stick
That’s driven into
Frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
Calm
Fitter, healthier and more productive
A pig
In a cage
On antibiotics