By wesley

A bitter song about the publics ignorance. The fact they the cant see past creep or other popular songs and pop artists. He believes that he should have faith, dont give up:

"faith your driving me away"
but faith alone is not getting the band anywhere.

"You dont mean it but it hurts like hell"
Maybe faith is telling him to go with what he believes.

The song is also very sarcastic. I think that the lyrics also portray the fact that the public see the band as an object rather than the a bunch of human beings. ie NME (new music express)

"SUCK SUCK your teenage thumb/ toilet trained and dumb/ when the power runs out we'll just hum."
The lyrics show that the artist is just so frustrated due to the fact that people in general cant appreciate music as an art and just want to hear pop pop pop all day long. They are described as children for their primative tastes.

"Toilet trained"
People are taught to like pop, cant be different, too much pressure.

The music just gets screwed up and distorted in frustation and something about head shrinkers and uncles is sung amoungst the mess and comfussion of it all.

And to top it off:

"And if you're frightened/ you can be frightened/ its OK"
I think this shows that the puplic are scared of difference because its upsetting to thier routened lives. They would rather let the head shrinkers get to them first.

Well this is what the song meant to me: "SAVE YOURSELF, SAVE YOURSELF FROM THE HEADSHRINKERS BEFORE THEY GET TO YOU"

For me, this song (other than the surface meaning of the
bands' predicament at that time) has detailed the good old
Radiohead theme of modern dissaffected Generation X angst.
The '20th Century Bitch,' all the things that we live with,
that we were born into that help us to live and breath but
these are things we never asked for.

'Suck, suck your teenage thumb, toilet trained and dumb,
when the power runs out, we'll just humm.'

This expresses the Douglas Couplandish theme of modern
(emotional) childhood stretching into adulthood. Educated,
dissaffected humanities students who don't know practical
knowledge - how to fix machinery, ie. survive on their own,
hunt - so they'll sit and humm until they are rescued.

This is turned around in the next line. Radiohead's Iron
Lung is the music perhaps.

The Headshrinkers, they want everything, my Uncle Bill, my
Belisha Beacon.'

Your standard hatred of higher powers taking control. The
monsters that currently roam the earth.

The refrain of Thom when he sings:

'And if you're frightened, you can be frightened... it's okay.'

Is the perfect wake-up call. It's okay to be like this. It's
okay to have these problems. Face up to them now.

A fantastic song on the best album I own. The Genius of The Bends.