Psychoanalytic Analysis of Radiohead's Karma Police (1997)

Karma police
Arrest this man
He talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio

Karma police
Arrest this girl
Her Hitler hairdo
Is making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party

This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
When you mess with us

Karma police
I've given all I can
It's not enough
I've given all I can
But we're still on the payroll

This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
When you mess with us

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself
Phew, for a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself
Phew, for a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself

Biography and History on the Band Radiohead

OVERVIEW:

The song "Karma Police", released by Radiohead in 1997, features six stanzas of four and five lines apiece. Throughout the lyrics and in the song, repetition of lines and key points can be noticed such as "this is what you'll get", "I lost myself". The music video itself creates an interesting perspective on the lyrics as well, as the audience is put into the driver's seat of a car. The car drives for a while on a dark, dirt road, and the headlights illuminate a man, fuzzy at first, fleeing from the car which appears to be running him down. The first time "this is what you get" is sung by Thom Yorke, is when the man initially appears clearly, his face one of fear as he sprints from the catching car, which interestingly enough seems to be moving fairly slowly. Once he begins "phew for a minute there, I lost myself" the view zooms from the back of the running man to his actual face, the first time we see it so far in the video. Nearly right after this, the man stops running, walks, then drops to the ground. The car continues to move, stops, abruptly pulls away revealing an oil trail. The runner promptly picks a lighter from his pocket, proceeds to light it and the fire blares toward the car which reverses again trying to escape the flames. The video ends with this scene and the deconstruction of the music itself.

ANALYSIS MICRO

After watching the video with the music, the meaning behind the text itself becomes clear. Here we have a man, seeking revenge on these people, the man who "buzzes like a fridge" and the girl with "the Hitler hairdo". They wronged him in some way, so he calls upon the Karma Police, a figurative term. However karma is defined as "the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences." Thusly, Karma police takes on the meaning of those who enforce fate, or set into motion a series of events trigger by a specific act. Yorke is asking for help from the Karma Police to indict some kind of ultimatum they brought upon themselves by doing him wrong. He seeks revenge for these people in their acts that caused him some sort of harm or anger. It appears though, in the video, the speaker does not get their revenge, but rather the runner. We can't really tell what happens to either us in the driver's seat or the runner who stops to watch the flames catch and run down the car, but we can guess that the runner escaped and revenge was not heeded.

ANALYSIS MACRO

With the additive of the video, lyrics and definition of karma itself, the text can be read psychoanalytically. Here we have someone so caught up in the destruction of others and revenge against them for their wrongdoings to him, the man actually "lost himself" in the process of seeking payback. His own sense of self and identity is challenged with the introduction of blind anger as well as vengefulness. When reading something psychoanalytically, one of the big things you look for is ego, or strong emotions set in place to harm. Our singer certainly is feeling strong emotions that bring him to the point where he resorts to what looks to be a murder attempt in order to set things right between himself and wrongful act the runner must have committed. This causes him to lose himself, lose his own life and his own sense of self getting caught up in ruining other people's lives for his ultimatum. Blind emotions caused the ultimate crash and burn here.

The music and chords themselves at the end of the song symbolize the deconstruction of the singer as a person when the music deconstructs down to simple discord. His strong willed emotions and desire for payback end up ultimately causing him to relinquish part of his own humanity, his own sense of reasoning, and by chasing down the runner or the girl, attempting to exact his own method of treatment that he sees fit for their crimes against him, he becomes almost unrecognizable to himself. He ultimately suffers in the end for his attempts, not so much those he wishes to harm. His confrontation and fixation on their revenge becomes all consuming to the point where he has to step back and stop himself, realizing that it has gone to far and he lost control over himself and unchecked emotions that drive him to the point that he would actually consider hurting another human being outright to satisfy himself. This unconscious drive appears scary to the speaker once he realizes what he's doing, and he steps back from the situation considering himself lucky that he did not in fact exact his revenge because that would have resulted in him losing himself, his morals, his identity. The "phew" indicates that it must have been a close call once he realized what he was doing and the implications that would follow not only for the subject of his warring, but to his own character, would be devastating. The speaker's position and loss of self identity eventually seeps through his conscious as he sits back and thinks "what am I doing?" He ultimately realizes that his blind revenge, which he previously seemed unaware of, is undoing him as a person, reducing him to something he doesn't even recognize as himself.