#365songs (203 / 365)

I disagree that Amnesiac is just a lesser Kid A, or a collection of "Kid B-sides" or whatever. It's a great album in its own right, and it's another of my sweltering hot day albums. I can't find it definitively attributed anywhere, but Thom Yorke has apparently said that Amnesiac is the sound of standing in the fire that Kid A was looking at from afar, and no song on it bears out that feeling of oppressive peril and cataclysmic overwhelm quite like "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors."

This is music to lie perfectly motionless on the floor in a dark room to, which is why I like to listen to it when it's so hot that that's all you want to do, even if it's for a different reason. It's another in an intermittent series of songs in this series that expanded my understanding of what a song could be; if you find it pedestrian, don't be a snob; in 2001, when Amnesiac came out, I was 18.

I'll say it: I love this song, love how it intersperses nightmarish rhythmic static with pretty twinkling sounds, love how Thom Yorke's voice is so fucked-up sounding it's unrecognizable, love how it lasts 4 minutes and goes nowhere, has no narrative arc, no climax, no denouement, no melody, nothing of any kind to hold on to. It just kind of carries you along in a froth of directionless anxiety, an experience not unknown to me from regular life but one I enjoy intentionally subjecting myself to in the same way that some people suffering from chronic fear enjoy horror movies.

I love that this strange, mangled song has a strange, mangled name. Did you know John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats wrote a song-by-song breakdown of Amnesiac? You should look at his piece on "Pulk/Pull" and, speaking of horror movies, you should click on the title of the song in the paragraph of text at that link.