wakey wakey rise and shine
it's on again, off again, on again
watch me fall like dominoes
in pretty patterns
fingers in the blackbird pie
I'm tingling, tingling, tingling
it's what you feel
not what you ought to, what you ought to
reasonable and sensible
dead from the neck up
because im stuffed, stuffed, stuffed
we thought you had it in you
but no, no, no
for no real reason
squeeze the tubes and empty bottles
and take a bow, take a bow, take a bow
it's what you feel
not what you ought to, what you ought to
an elephant that's in the room is
tumbling, tumbling, tumbling
in duplicate and triplicate and
plastic bags and
duplicate and triplicate
dead from the neck up
I guess I'm stuffed, stuffed, stuffed
we thought you had it in you
but no, no, no
exactly where do you get off
is enough, is enough
I love you but enough is enough
enough of that stuff
there's no real reason
you've got a head full of feathers
you're gonna melt it to butter
As suggested by the title of this song, the guitar playing in 'Faust Arp' is probably influenced by the German band Faust, one of several "Krautrock" bands like Neu! or Can, which all had some impact on Radiohead. Although they ususally play a different kind of music, the song 'Giggly Smile' from the album Faust IV prominently features guitar arpeggios similar to the ones of 'Faust Arp':
This page appeared in radiohead.com during the Kid A period under the title 'K I N G R A T'. Apart from other lyrical fragments that would end up in the finished lyrics to 'Worry Wort', the line "dead from the neck down" appears, which would be used much later as a slight variation "dead from the neck up" in 'Faust Arp'. The original html file was created on november 1st 1999, but the text itself could be much older:
no
use dwelling in whqat might have been water metalelipsicals.
when im in the dark
i forget the light
going in a circle
dead from the kneck down
dead in the water
frozaen in a pond
take hold of my hands
atissueallfalldown
tell that to my face
tell that to my face
crawling skeletons
no use telling them
what might have been
no excuses please
no apologies
to a walking skeleton
movingin the next world
say it to my face
say it to my face
walking skeletons
and what might have been
dont find yourself in doldrums
dont find yourself in doldrums
theres too much to be done
too much to be done.
no use dwelling on
no use dwelling on
what might have been
i am a
'Faust Arp' was one of the titles that appeared on the blackboard the band used during two weeks of rehearsals from september 19th to 30th 2005. At the end of that session, Colin posted a picture of this board on Dead Air Space on september 30th, unfortunately (and probably intentionally) in rather low resolution, so that some of it can't be deciphered:
'Faust Arp' was notably absent on the second blackboard posted on march 8th 2006, which contains songs considered for the upcoming tour. Indeed it would not be played yet during that year.
On april 19th 2007, this piece of artwork with the phrases "dead from the neck up" and "in triplicate" on it was posted in the Hodiau Direkton section of radiohead.com:
On february 9th 2007, Thom posted a part of the lyrics on Dead Air Space:
On june 15th 2007, Nigel posted a video on Dead Air Space, that showed the playback of a reel of assembled tape snippets, which were cut out during the editing process. The reel contains 2 fragments from the finished recording of 'Faust Arp', which actually flow seemlessly into each other and can be combined if one switches the order around:
Click here for a more detailed description of this reel, including all 20 snippets in isolation.
For the webcast on november 9th 2007, Adam Buxton and Garth Jennings filmed Thom and Jonny in the evening of november 8th at Wittenham Clumps in Oxfordshire. They ran through 'Faust Arp' three times, and the last of those was used in the webcast the next day:
'Faust Arp' was not part of the regular touring for The King of Limbs and had its sole (and so far last) live performance at the Haiti benefit gig while Radiohead were in Los Angeles to record the new album. This was also the only occasion where 'Faust Arp' opened a setlist: