(That’s him in the black trench coat cavorting with a shopping cart around the 2:43 mark, twirling toilet paper at 3:05, and he’s clearly seen at 4:19 in the bottom left corner.)
Back when I was taking a break from university, struggling to escape the vestiges of my teenage years and stuck in a quest to find my feet in whatever industry would have me, a friend of mine handed me a CD. “Take a listen to this,” he said.
I was immature and irresponsible: in my The Graduate-like wander the only two concerns then were weed and women. In a smoke filled apartment bedroom that was very much beyond my means, I popped in that CD; an ethereal voice emanated from the boombox backed by synths, organs, and guitars. Its language was indecipherable, and yet it spoke to me. I had discovered Radiohead.
Did I understand a word that was falling out of Thom Yorke’s mouth? Nope. But, that didn’t stop me from phonetically crooning along with the band’s frontman. More than a decade has passed since those dismal times (Radiohead’s sound is not necessarily a bastion of joy), and now you can routinely catch me watching Rick and Daryl and the gang fighting walkers on The Walking Dead every Sunday night (hurry up, February!).
Who would have thought these two media beacons would collide at some point? Before a serialized TV program made zombies mainstream again, and before I even knew who Thom Yorke was, Radiohead and The Walking Dead had crossed paths, unbeknownst to me and maybe even you.
Feast your eyes folks on Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) in this video for “Fake Plastic Trees” off Radiohead’s 1995 album The Bends. He’s the one wearing the long black coat, and if you look really close, you can almost see the tears streaming down his face in memory of Beth.
