What does the man whisper at the end of Radiohead’s ‘Just’ music video?
Following their lacklustre debut album Pablo Honey, Radiohead earned the respect of critics with their sophomore release, The Bends, in 1995. No longer were the Oxford outfit known for simply being the band who made ‘Creep’; their status was instantly elevated with their musically and thematically complex second album.
The Bends is one of the band’s most coveted records, with some of their most recognisable hits appearing on it, such as ‘High and Dry’, ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’. Then there’s ‘Just’, one of the band’s most anthemic cuts, and it’s hard to stop yourself from singing along with Thom Yorke’s declarations of “you do it to yourself, you do/ And that’s why it really hurts”.
The song peaked at number 19 on the UK Singles Charts and proved particularly popular with fans. According to Yorke, the song was guitarist Jonny Greenwood‘s attempt at “trying to get as many chords as he could into a song”. It was also accompanied by a music video, which remains one of the band’s most well-loved, mainly due to the mystery surrounding the end of the clip.
The video was directed by Jamie Thraves, who told Rolling Stone: “I wrote and directed the whole thing from scratch. It was written as a 10 page-script with dialogue. It was originally going to be my next short film, but when I heard ‘Just’, my story and the song suddenly exploded in my head and collided, like they were meant to be together. There was literally an explosion in my brain. I kinda went blind for a split second, dazzled.”
In the video, a man lies on the pavement and refuses to explain why. However, in the end, he reveals his reasoning to a passerby, but the audience is kept in the dark about the man’s odd behaviour. Many fan theories have been spread across the internet over time, with people dying to know what was said. However, Thraves has insisted that it’ll remain a secret.
He explained: “I haven’t told anyone in 25 years. I had no idea the video was going to cause so many people to ask what the man said, I really didn’t. At the time, I simply felt I had no choice but to subtract what was said, it created the magic. To reveal the answer would kill the video. There’s a very real logical and simple answer though, a concept, however — no matter how good the idea is, it will always disappoint someone if revealed. I’ve told a few close people things over the years.”
Thraves added: “Sometimes I’m very tempted to go online under a pseudonym on YouTube and plant the exact truth amongst all the conjecture. Perhaps I’ve done that already”.
He joked: “I will probably take the answer to my grave unless a rich billionaire Radiohead fan wants to buy the secret from me. I might actually seriously consider that, but it would cost them a fucking hell of a lot of money, and they’d still need to sign a contract to keep the secret.”
“I do actually want to reveal the answer, you see, that’s why it’s been a strange burden and yet also wonderful to be the only person who knows,” he added. “It’s like I stumbled upon the answer to the universe, perhaps I did. Please don’t make me tell you. You don’t want to know.”
Revisit the video below.
