Life in a Glass House – Lydia Ibrahim
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSFmMzCVf5A&w=740&h=422]
‘Life In A Glass House’, which perhaps should be titled ‘Life in a Bleak House’, is a track that is fitting for a Louisiana funeral scene. While people who have not explored the broad works of Radiohead may recognise them only for their “doom and gloom”, which sells them short of their bold talents, ‘Life In A Glass House’ is in all due credit raw and bitter.
With the addition of trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton, Yorke’s vocals appear to spontaneously meander along the sympathetic jazz orchestral piece. Inspired by a story of a woman harrowed by the press, the lyrical nature of the song animates the ideas of media intrusion and hypocrisy, most notably reflecting on condemning the lives and actions of others: “She is papering the window panes / She is putting on a smile”.
Not only lyrically, but musically, this song is poignant for its ambiguous and yet cordial nature, dealing with the paranoia of everyday life; which poses as something that appears inevitable to many in such an age. As just one of the tracks on Amnesiac, a visionary album described by Thom Yorke as “standing inside that town (controlled by totalitarianism) as it burned”, the track deals with hopelessness in the most divine form possible.