Let Down
i7yci7cyi**let down.


transport.    motorways & tramlines.    starting and then stopping.
taking off & landing.      the emptiest of feelings.     sentimental drivel.
clinging onto bottles.    when it comes it's so so.  disappointing let down and hanging
around.      crushed like a bug in the ground.
let down and haNGiNG arouNd.
shell smashed.   juices flowing.   wings twitch.   legs are going.  donT geT senTimental.
  it always ends up dRRiveLLLL.   one day.        i am goiingtogrow wings.        a
chemichal reaCtion.  hysterical & useless.   hysterical &let down and hanging around.
crushed like a bug in the ground.       let down and haNGiNG arouNd.  you know where you
are with. you know where you are with. floor collapses floating bouncing back annd one
day                 youlLL know where you are .
version originale
21 mai 1997, OK Computer
25 août 1997, Karma Police Japon et France
1997, promo Let Down
4:59
reprises
17 avril 2001, Plastic Mutations, mitchell sigman
3:49
23 octobre 2001, Strung Out
4:22
27 octobre 2003, True love waits, Christopher O'Riley
5:32

Let Down a été enregistré à 3 heures du matin dans la salle de bal du manoir de Jane Seymour (qui leur a servi de studio pour OK Computer). Les blip-blip de la fin viennent d'un vieil ordinateur, le ZX Spectrum, qu'ils ont tous possédé dans les années soixante-dix. Ce titre n'est pas joué très souvent en concert, parce que le groupe a du mal à le rendre comme il le voudrait (mais il a quand même été joué au Zénith le 18 octobre 1997, et plus récemment en 2006). Dans la version originale, Thom joue l'intro en acoustique, mais on ne l'entend pas sur le mix final. En live, ils remettent la guitare acoustique, mais c'est très différent sur scène, on ne peut pas conserver ce son de guitare sèche.

transport.
motorways & tramlines.
starting and then stopping.
taking off & landing.
the emptiest of feelings.
sentimental drivel.
clinging onto bottles.
when it comes it's so so.
disappointing
let down and hanging around.
crushed like a bug in the ground.
let down and hanging around.
shell smashed.
juices flowing.
wings twitch.
legs are going.
don't get sentimental.
it always ends up drivel.
one day.
i am going to grow wings.
a chemichal reaction.
hysterical & useless.
hysterical &
let down and hanging around.
crushed like a bug in the ground.
let down and hanging around.
you know where you are with.
you know where you are with.
floor collapses floating
bouncing back and one day
you'll know where you are.
Thom
I was pissed in a club, and I suddenly had the funniest thought I'd had for ages - what if all the people who were drinking were hanging from the bottles... if the bottles were bung from the ceiling with string, and the floor caved in, and the only thing that kept everyone up was the bottles? It's also about an enormous fear of being trapped.
Je m'emmerdais en boîte, et j'ai eu soudain la pensée la plus marrante depuis longtemps - et si toutes les personnes qui buvaient ici étaient pendues à leur bouteille... si les bouteilles pendaient au plafond avec des ficelles, et si le plancher s'effondrait, et que la seule chose qui retienne les gens soit leurs bouteilles ? Ça parle aussi d'une peur énorme de se faire enfermer.
Select, juillet
1997
Thom
There's only a one certain time when you should record a song. Then you're going through the emotions and you're finding things about yourself. If it takes too long you have gotten bored with it and you don't undestand the sentiment of it. Like when we recorded Let Down we were going to the point of being bored with it. I had a nightmare doing the vocal because I was bored with it, I didn't undestand the song. Now after a year I have a distance on it and I kinda like it.
Ed
It's about the lack of control. You feel more sad than angry. But why Thom sings 'crushed like a bug in the ground', I don't know.
 
Jonny
Andy Warhol once said that he could enjoy his own boredom. Let down is about that. It's the transit-zone feeling. You're in a space, you are collecting all these impressions, but it all seems so vacant. You don't have control over the earth anymore. You feel very distant from all these thousands of people that are also walking there.
C'est comme quand Andy Warhol disait être content de s'ennuyer. C'est à propos de ce sentiment qu'on a de ne pas être aux commandes - on ne fait que passer devant des milliers d'endroits et des milliers de gens, et on est complètement en dehors de ça.
Melody Maker, 31 mai 1997
listeclip
page stuck in a frozen lake du site officiel (gallery.html)
let down*in the midst of monster tour the momentum getting drunk to talk bombarded by dangerously high levels of radiation from xray machines. one day, one day...
page waving or drowning du site officiel (gallery2.html)

transport motorways and tramlines starting and then stopping taking off and landing the emptiest of feelings disapppointed peoople clinging onto bottles and when it comes its so so disappointing.
Ed
WEBCAST DAY......................these days are a bit like being a child again...just throw it all in and see what comes out. 'amateur hour' got extended to four hours ....and dare i say it but i think we're getting ever so sophisticated........the campfire, the 'nice' logfire, the upside down table football, the zx spectrum programmers. [...]
journal, 10/2/00
Ed
[...] ....................might throw it in there myself to stir things up a bit.....the running order for an album is so important...... i don't think you have any idea how vital it is until you actually fuck it up which we did big time on the first record.....for 'OK Computer' it was a nightmare, agendas had been set and at one time it was like bloody horse-trading............. "if you want 'let down' on the record then it only makes sense if 'electioneering' is on there too"......maybe it won't be such a torrid experience this time........somehow i don't think so and that's probably right anyway.
journal, 16/4/00
enregistrement
Canned Applause
équipement mobile
production
Nigel Godrich
ingénieur
Nigel Godrich
mixage
Mayfair, Abbey Road, Air Lyndhurst, Courtyard
and the church using the wonders of a digital and analog age
master
Chris Blair
Abbey Road