Decoding the hidden meaning in Paul Thomas Anderson’s music video for Radiohead
Radiohead have released some of the greatest music videos the industry has ever seen, but their collaborations with Paul Thomas Anderson remain truly special. Anderson has directed music videos for many artists, often claiming that these short projects are the perfect way to revitalise his creative energy in between bigger features.
Anderson’s most famous collaboration with Thom Yorke has to be the 2019 visual art piece Anima. It accompanied Yorke’s eponymous album, which dealt with dystopian anxiety and disillusionment themes. The film was screened in IMAX theatres before its Netflix release and is now cited as one of Anderson’s most conceptually interesting short films.
However, the subject for this essay is Anderson’s music video for Radiohead’s ‘Daydreaming’. An elegiac rumination on passing time and changing emotional landscapes, the song is a tragically beautiful exploration of the human condition.
Anderson’s interpretation of ‘Daydreaming’ is equally poignant, as Rishi Kaneria points out in his video essay about the short audiovisual gem. The music video mostly focuses on Yorke’s journey as he passes through various doors “like a ghost, walking through the background of seemingly random people’s lives”.
At the time, some critics pointed out that Yorke’s sadness influenced the song following his separation from longtime partner Rachel Owen. Others noted that ‘Daydreaming’ was more of a reference to Radiohead’s journey as a band over the years and their gradual disillusionment with the contemporary state of culture.
While talking about the central motif, Kaneria describes it as “a metaphor for the choices Thom has had to make in his life, of the doors he’s stepped through, while never quite knowing what’s on the other side. Because he can never go back, we see him constantly pushing forward, continually searching for meaning and an ultimate resting place.”
Ranked as one of the year’s best songs, ‘Daydreaming’ is one of the most significant Radiohead songs in recent memory. Anderson did the band justice by constructing such a moving and powerful rendition of their musical ideas. Kaneria perfectly decodes the short film in his 15-minute essay on the subject.
Watch the video essay below.
