Side A
Artist	Song
Less Than Jake	That's Why They Call It A Union
The Beatles	Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
The Saints	Lipstick On Your Collar
Nancy Sinatra	These Boots Are Made For Walking
Creedence Clearwater Revival	I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The White Stripes	I Think I Smell A Rat
The Darkeness	Get Your Hands Off My Woman
The Eurythmics	Would I Lie To You?
John Lee Hooker & Miles Davis	Murder
Side B
Artist	Song	Buy
Queen	Bohemian Rhapsody
Joy Division	The Only Mistake
silverchair	Suicidal Dream
Michael Franti & Spearhead	Oh My God
Bob Dylan	Knockin' On Heaven's Door
Queens Of The Stone Age	Song For The Dead
Radiohead	Paranoid Android

Comment:

This might look like a pretty long 'comment' but I urge you all to read it, thanks.

After listening to Paranoid Android years ago I began to interpret the lyrics and music of the song to be telling some kind of story. I decided that I would use a mixed tape to tell the story that I personally took from Radiohead's epic.

The story I gathered is a tragedy and follows a paranoid and slightly insane man, his wife and her suspected lover, the man's best friend. I have written the story below including how the specific songs on my tape apply to the narrative I find in PA but see if you can work it out by looking at the songs first before reading my explanation.

The Story:
We are introduced to the dark and dysfunctional marriage of the man and his wife in the introduction of PA (Less Than Jake -That's Why They Call It A Union). We first begin to see the man's insane and warped mind as Thom sings "Please can you stop the noise I'm trying to get some rest/from all the unborn chicken voices in my head" (The Beatles - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds). The man thinks he finds some evidence to support his paranoid suspicions that his wife is having an affair as we hear "what's that" (The Saints - Lipstick On Your Collar). The man then goes ahead and threatens his wife, "when I am King you will be first against the wall" (Nancy Sinatra - These Boots Are Made For Walking) Thom then repeats "what's that" - the man finds something else out to reinforce his false suspicions (Creedence Clearwater Revival - I Heard It Through The Grapevine) and comes home to find his best friend innocently in the kitchen with his wife, wrongly accusing him of having an affair with his wife (The White Stripes - I Think I Smell A Rat). The man then confronts his friend and begins to threaten the man with a knife - "off with his head man" and attack him - "kicking screaming Gucci little piggy" (The Darkeness - Get Your Hands Off My Woman) but his wife won't give up and continues in vain to attempt convince her husband that nothing is going on between her and his friend (The Eurythmics - Would I Lie To You). The angry and insane man cannot be convinced and proceeds to violently kill his friend and wife (John Lee Hooker and Miles Davis - Murder) this moment occurs in PA during the aggressive and violently thrashy guitar solo following the lyrics "I guess he does." Immediately after the murders both the man and the music get calm again and there is an obvious element of sorrow (Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody). The man reflects on the destruction he has caused and begins to regain some of his sanity realising that he has just killed his wife and best friend based on insane and false suspicions (Joy Division - The Only Mistake). He's ashamed and begins to have suicidal thoughts, asking to be punished "rain down, come on rain down on me from a great height" (silverchair -My Suicidal Dream). The man begins to have chaotic flashbacks, reflecting on his life and society as he knew it "That's it, sir/You're leaving/The crackle of pigskin/The dust and the screaming/The yuppies networking/The panic, the vomit..." (Michael Franti & Spearhead - Oh My God). He tries to convince himself that he will be OK because "God loves his children" and decides it is time to go (Bob Dylan - Knockin' On Heaven's Door). His suicide, represented by the final guitar solo that finshes the song, is long and intensely excrutiating, yet his final breath, like the end of the PA itself is extremely sudden, as though there still needed to be more (Queens Of The Stone Age - Song For The Dead).

Cheers, Josh.

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