Today we are going to learn everything about “No Surprises” which is a song performed by the English rock band “Radiohead (formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985)”. The song had made its place as the fourth and final single on their third studio album, OK Computer (1997), and released on May 21, 1997. This single was produced by Radiohead & Nigel Godrich. According to Genius.com It was the first song to be recorded for the album, and the band actually stuck with the original recording: Singer Thom Yorke is quoted as saying that
“We did endless versions afterward […] and they were all just covers of the first version. So we gave up and went back to [the original] .”
“No Surprises” Song Meaning
It’s about taking the easy option, realizing you can’t win. Sinking into a life of contentment by giving up hope of fulfilling your dreams. Your heart becomes filled up by default: filled with love for your partner, for your children, for your day-in-day-out life. What more could you want? And sure, the job does take more out of you than it gives you, it’ll get you in the end; and sure, the damage done to you, the little compromises you make, they won’t go away, and eventually, they’ll bury you completely, but that’s okay.
The handshake of carbon monoxide isn’t referring to suicide at all, but an acceptance of death-in-life. If someone else seems unhappy, then by all means they should rant and rail against the world and that bad old government, but in all honesty why bother. Just settle down, hold that pillow to your mouth as if you’d really go through with it – just once more, for old times’ sake – and look on the bright side: when the heart attack hits you fifty years from now you’ll finally get out of here, and your family can collect on the insurance. So smile
