Thom Yorke calls to “bring down this UK government”
In case you haven’t noticed, the UK government is a bit of a shit show right now. Certainly, some of my British colleagues can speak with a little bit more insight into it, but as a red-blooded American, even I can see that having a Prime Minister for 40-ish days isn’t a recipe for success.
Do you know who else thinks so? Thom Yorke. The Radiohead singer and current lead vocalist for The Smile took to Twitter today to voice his opinion on some of the disarray that’s surrounding the UK’s political sphere at the current moment. Do you think he held back or tempered his words at all?
“Bring down this UK government, they do not speak for us, right the fuck now,” Yorke wrote on Twitter. “They have no authority, no mandate, no clue, cats in a bag tearing themselves to pieces while the country suffers in extreme distress. Enough of this shit. Shame on them.”
If that particular cadence sounds eerily familiar, people are already noticing the similarities between Yorke’s tweet and his lyrics to the classic Radiohead track ‘No Surprises’. That track includes the lines “Bring down the government / They don’t, they don’t speak for us” and “With no alarms and no surprises,” as opposed to the “no authority, no mandate” that Yorke writes about.
Hey, it’s okay for a writer to plagiarize his own work. Besides, ‘No Surprises’ isn’t Yorke’s most political song anyway. If you really want to get riled up about revolution, maybe it’s time to reference ‘Electioneering’ or ‘Wolf at the Door’. Or better yet, maybe it’s better to just put on the entirety of Hail to the Thief to see if anyone is paying attention.
Check out Yorke’s tweet down below.
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