Radiohead’s sixth album, “Hail to the Thief” released June 3, 2003. The United States had begun their invasion of Iraq several months prior. The waves of American soldiers were preceded by swells of nationalism. The home of the Free and the land of the Brave had cloaked itself in God and Country.
The British blokes of Radiohead foresaw the birth of a bleak world. Orwellian in its scope. Government surveillance was coming. Wars against undefined enemies. An eventual obscuring of facts and reality.
It was the first album I reached for after the surreal appointing of Donald J. Trump as leader of the free world. While “Hail to the Thief” was inspired by the Bush era, it resonated stronger than ever after Trump’s bellowing inaugural speech.
As our 45th president placed his wandering hand on the Bible and swore to uphold our Constitution, Thom Yorke’s lyrics captured the spirit of that grey DC day.
Creeping electronics blipped around Johnny’s guitar as we stared down at our phones to watch Trump take office. “Hail to the Thief’s” music and track arrangements are as scatterbrained as I’m sure many of us felt. Cutting jaggedly from one emotion to another, at one moment depressed, the next enraged. From watery ballads to synth storms.
Thirteen years ago, “Hail to the Thief” began with aux cord static and a narrative of the first day in Trump’s America. We watched Saturday as White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, mouth of the President, presented fantasy as fact to the American people.
“This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period,” Spicer shouted, trying to conjure authority from thin air.
Simple math is enough to show what he’s asking us to believe.
D.C. Metro numbers on the day of Trump’s inauguration: 570,557
D.C. Metro numbers on the day of Obama’s first inauguration: 1,100,000
Rounds 