What does National Anthem mean?

Radiohead: National Anthem Meaning

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Album cover for National Anthem album cover

National Anthem Lyrics

Everyone
Everyone around here
Everyone is so near
What's going on?
What's going on?

Everyone
Everyone is so near
Everyone has got the fear
It's holding on
It's holding on

It's holding on [x3]

  1. anonymous
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    Dec 18th 2011 !⃝

    Well, keeping apart the lyrics that like people say are about "Mass hysteria" the part that we have to fous on is in the trumpets, all of them are playing one jazz solo but in different times, if the trumpets were played in order they would sound better and the song will work out, thats what this song means, imagine every trumpet and saxo as the "society"(all messed up)without an order to work out...

  2. anonymous
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    Apr 7th 2010 !⃝

    Dude "I might be wrong" but I'm pretty sure this song came out in... lets see the year 2000... This was when we were all worried about y2k... I believe the song itself being called "the national anthem" is the bands attempt at the modern way of thinking. The trumpets being played all over the place in the beginning sounds a lot like when stringed musicians warm up to the ACTUAL national anthem. This is RADIOHEAD'S "national anthem"

    its about who we are as a society
    and what we are all dealing with


    he keeps saying "its holding on"
    because for some reason, with all the mass hysteria and crazy shit that was going on around then.... Somehow everything was still holding on.... The whole album has an elemental feel of where they were as a band... or where thom was... but I believe the band is the true mind...

    when you look at it from an artists perspective with what radiohead does with their sounds in combining with their lyrical content and harmonies... They've mastered what true artistry is.

    true art is any type of expression of showing how you see your environment. and radiohead just got big as soon as I started actually following music, therefor they remaain my favorite band. because they never tried to outsmart you, but its so good that some people love it so much they look for a meaning that's deeper than how it is.... This is when artists sit back and laugh and why most of the time we don't reveal what our enterpretation is because that would spoil it for everyone else.... why not let everyone else just run with their imaginations and believe whatever they want to

  3. anonymous
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    Sep 9th 2009 !⃝

    this is one of the only radiohead songs im pretty sure i know.
    This song i believe is about the crowd mentality
    How every one flocks to see something
    If you see a group of people looking at something then of course you will go to see whats happening.
    everyone is so near
    whats going on?
    it seems pretty obvious for that one
    everyone has got the fear
    its holding on
    Thats probably about mass hysteria, when everyone gets scared and they know everyone else is, fear tends to hang on longer because everyone else being scared justifies your fear.

  4. dorianflawz
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    May 31st 2007 !⃝

    I think this song is about social anxieties. And could probably be about Anti-Socialism. "Everyone is so near".


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