Radiohead: 2+2=5 Meaning

Song Released: 2003

2+2=5 Lyrics

(We're on. Thats a nice way to start Jonny)

Are you such a dreamer
To put the world to rights?
I stay home forever
Where two and two always makes up five

I lay down the tracks
Sandbag and hide
January has april's showers
And two and...

1. anonymous

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   Jun 6th 2008 !⃝

   2+2=5 in your own world.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
2. KurtCocaine_BH

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   May 25th 2008 !⃝

   I think he's talking about the other songs he's written I mean when the song changes to the harder part all he's saying basically is you haven't been paying attention...almost as if that no one was getting the meaning of his lyrics..and this is why he starts the album off this way.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
3. anonymous

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   Apr 21st 2008 !⃝

   THIS SONG IS AN INSIGHT TO GEORGE ORWELL'S NOVEL 1984. one of the band members read it and inspired him to write about it...
   
   **Great book by the way, it freaks you Out
4. anonymous

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   Apr 8th 2008 !⃝

   I believe Thom Yorke is heavily influenced by George Orwell...
   and I know he loves Pynchon. W.A.S.T.E. comes from The Crying of Lot 49, and I know he makes another Pynchon reference somewhere, but I can't remember what it is.
   
   I definitely think it has something to do wish brainwashing or possibly medication.
5. anonymous

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   Jan 20th 2008 !⃝

   I believe it's how god can make things greater than the sum of its parts

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
6. criostoir

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   Dec 28th 2007 !⃝

   Http://poor-blogger.blogspot.com/2007/07/2-2-5.html
   
   Often, Christians (and many modern folk) will use the following theorum to say that some truths are inevitable.
   
   2 + 2 = 4
   
   C.S. Lewis said, in Mere Christianity, that to say otherwise is devoid of common humanness and morality.
   
   In George Orwell's essay Looking Back on the Spanish War, published four years before 1984, he wrote: "Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as "the truth" exists. […] The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the Leader, or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but the past. If the Leader says of such and such an event, "It never happened"—well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five—well, two and two are five. This prospect frightens me much more than bombs […]"
   
   Orwell was probably referring to Hitler's propaganda minister, Hermann Göring, who said: "If the Führer wants it, two and two make five!"
   
   In 1984, Orwell wrote: "In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?"
   
   Victor Hugo said, referring to the Napoleonic coup: "Now, get seven million five hundred thousand votes to declare that two and two make five, that the straight line is the longest road, that the whole is less than its part; get it declared by eight millions, by ten millions, by a hundred millions of votes, you will not have advanced a step."
   
   In other words, Lewis, Orwell and Hugo agree that to deny the veracity of 2 + 2 = 4 is to deny any sort of truth, or makes truth negotiable. In fact, it seems to be a sinister plot by either the despot (Hitler) or the people (in France) to turn the world on its ear and remake it to suit the whims of the one, or ones, in power. It makes Truth the property of Sophists, to be sold to the man with the best argument or the most armies and weapons. It is a difficult proposition to deny. The potential results are quite scary! They are so scary that Pythagoras drowned his pupil.
7. anonymous

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   Oct 4th 2007 !⃝

   In Dostoevsky's 'Notes from Underground' (1864) the monologist tries anything to contradict the abstract certainty of logic and soforth.. disproving 2+2=4. It's a person struggle between freedom of choice and such.
8. anonymous

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   Sep 23rd 2007 !⃝

   Of course this song has to do with us being blind, with American Politics and with bush stealing the election, in spite of Thom saying the opposite over and over. No coincidences. He lives in this world too.. He don't need an enemy called bush.
9. anonymous

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   Sep 9th 2007 !⃝

   Basically Thom is saying things don`t add up right in this in this world.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
10. anonymous

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    May 17th 2007 !⃝

    I think the song is about how successful the various systems of indoctrination in the powerful nations of the world has been in quelling public uprising against policies that continue to alienate the same public more and more.
    
    'Are you such a dreamer to put the world to rights?' - no, who are you? you can't change anything. That's what most of us are taught to believe throughout our lives so most of us 'stay home for ever' and watch the important people getting on with running the world without ever questioning their right to do it or their motives.
    
    In so doing they feed us a lot of crap that we're trained to just accept even though if we ever stop and think about it never adds up. 2+2=5.
    
    How many people do you know who like to keep up to date with current afairs, read papes, watch news etc. but haven't a clue what anything's actually about? Just lap it up and accept.
11. anonymous

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    Apr 17th 2007 !⃝

    It's no doubt about 1984...there seem to be a lot of recurring lyrics and sayings throughout the entire album. Snakes and ladders, little man being erased. Honeymoon is over...and a lot of the subject matter of the songs seem to relate.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
12. anonymous

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    Feb 3rd 2007 !⃝

    This song is about political ideologies....
13. anonymous

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    Jan 3rd 2007 !⃝

    This song is without a doubt a song inspired by nineteen eighty-four. "2+2=5" and "dont put me in a box" meaning don't close me off from the truth. It is talking about the degradation of being forced to be ignorant.
14. anonymous

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    Nov 18th 2006 !⃝

    all right. I agree mostly with the connections between 1984 and the song, but I have to take down a miscommon belief. "Hail to the Thief" has nothing to do with American Politics. It doesn't have to do with bush stealing the election. It was said so in a number of interviews with thom. I don't remember what the real meaning of the label was but he specifically pointed out that it was completely coincidental. and the band could really care less about american politics
15. FlightRisk

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    Sep 30th 2006 !⃝

    2+2=5 is most likely a criticism of george bush's political affairs and foreign relations.
    The lyrics "two and two always makes up five" are a blatant reference to george orwell's "1984", but specifically the doublethink mindset, in which an individual holds two opposing beliefs in their mind simultaneously. This illustrates thom yorke's frustration with the self-contradictions and allegations that the bush administration has made. "are you such a dreamer/to put the world to rights?" states that it is impossible to try to justify what is going on in the world today and that no one can create justice within the existing system.
    The middle section of the song illustrates the folly of people who are ignorant to the political issues of the world, because they will one day wake up to a world that they are not able to change. ("it's the devil's way now/.../it is too late now/because/you have not been paying attention")
    the "hail to the thief/.../don't question my authority or put me in a box/.../oh, go tell the king that the sky is falling/" section of the song is a potential reference to bush's alleged election hijacking, but it could also be referring to the desire for resources and the iraq war, believeing false information without thinking ("the sky is falling" being a reference to the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction).
    
    Most of the points I have made are aforementioned, but I thought that I should organise them into a single post.

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