A person or persons who take into their own hands the checks and balances of experience.

One must first be a victim before they become victimizer.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Push water hard enough in one direction and it will "bounce" back and slap you with the same force.

Also a really good Radiohead song.

A marvelous song by Radiohead, an English band, whose singer is the talented Thom Yorke.

I have written out two ways that i have viewed this song. My interpretations are just that, and not know information about why Thom Yorke wrote this song.

Example: "Karma police arrest this man, he talks in maths, he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio"

I see this as a man that maybe Thom has met or just your average Joe, who talks like he knows what he's saying but his words are making absolutely no sense. It's like math, well at least to me. For me, math goes in one ear and out the other leaving me completely lost and extremely perturb. This man mindless babblings have gone on so long that they've become like the annoying drone of a refrigerator on a hot summer's day. "He's like a detuned radio", means again that the man’s words are lost in the static, the frustration builds and you want something to be done to silence the man. The Karma Police repay the irritation and frustration that the man has caused.

The rest of the song follows the same theme of your actions coming back on you, by way of the Karma Police. So be careful of your actions because you never know when they'll come back to haunt you and you be stuck regreting what you have done becuase you are now facing the music .

This song can also be viewed as a way of ridding ourselves of those things that we don't understand. This song opens with an order for the karma police to arrest a man. The karma police must be a group of people who make their arrests based on an evaluation of a person's actions, and thus the speaker must make a "charge" against the man he wants arrested. His charge is that "he talks in maths," that he is unintelligible, and of course we always want to rid ourselves of what we don't understand. The next charge is against a girl with a "Hitler hairdo." I am not quite sure what a Hitler hairdo is, but obviously the speaker finds it grounds for arrest by the karma police, presumably because he does not like it and the girl looks different from the norm, and so should be put away. I see the speaker as a sort of "Hitler" himself; a person who wants to shun or get rid of anything he doesn't understand or like. Thus he crashes the girls party, even though he presumably does not know her or have anything against her besides her hair. The final verse is the speaker's plea for help. He has tried but he cannot get rid of all the things that upset him. He has given all he can but there is still more to do, in his eyes. I see Thom as taking on the persona of the speaker for most of the song, because we all want to hide from what we don't comprehend at times, but at the end he snaps out of it, admitting "For a minute there, I lost myself." The song is a comment on the people who desire what the speaker desired, and a warning to the rest of us not to fall into the temptation to judge quickly, like the karma police and the speaker, before we understand.

In addition to the information and analysis contained in the above writeups, it should be noted that "Karma Police" bears a striking resemblance to The Beatles' "Sexy Sadie". The piano lines on Karma Police are very similar to Sadie Sadie (hearing the piano intro of Sexy Sadie the first time was absolutely uncanny), only much slowed down on Karma Police.

Additionally, a couple of lyrics in Karma Police seem to mirror those in Sexy Sadie:

(1)

"This is what you get when you mess with us." Karma Police

"Sexy Sadie, ooh, you'll get yours yet." Sexy Sadie

(2)

"Karma Police, I've given all I can, it's not enough...but we're still on the payroll." Karma Police

"We gave her everything we owned just to sit at her table." Sexy Sadie

Interestingly, as I far as I can tell, nothing has been said officially by either Radiohead or the surviving members of the Beatles (or Michael Jackson's lawyers for that matter... haha) about the similarities between the two songs.

A case of inspiration by replication? Inspiration by unconscious rememberance? Or simple coincidence? We may never know. At any rate, this is one of those resemblances that don't really detract from the song - Karma Police stands on its own as a quite powerful piece of music and an important part of OK Computer, regardless of the similarities it carries on its shoulders.

One of the most surreal moments I've ever had happened courtesy of this song.

Imagine, a dreary day. The rain has subsided, momentarily. You're driving in your '85 Mercury Grand Marquis (aka, The Boat), on your way to another long, miserable day at work. You get stopped at a light right before the exit for the highway. Your antiquated tape deck player won't spit out your copy of OK Computer so you've been driving around for about 2 months listening to every track until you now recognize every song within the first second it plays.

End Let Down. Pause. Begin the first haunting chords of Karma Police.

The corner of your eye catches lights flashing to your right. Police coming from behind you. A motorcade escort. They ignore the red light as a funeral procession follows the poor wet bastards on their police bikes. The hearse passes by and Thom Yorke sings:

"Karma police, arrest this man..."

Expensive classic cars and suspicious black suburbans keep coming in an endless line of cars. You watch the passersby wondering what they're thinking. Are they thinking of their deceased friend in his cozy ride up front? You see who you can only assume is his wife staring out the window at the darkened sky and can't tell if the drops on her face are the reflection of the rain on the window or her own.

"This is what you get, when you mess with us...."

A Dodge Viper or two. A Shelby no doubt. A classic baby blue cadillac. The guy must have been important for the collectors to have their babies out in the rain. A rainy day funeral. Bragging rights in the afterlife. "Even the sky cried when I left the earth."

Someone's dead. Did they have regrets? Maybe I should call in today and go visit my parents. Screw dieting, some fried coconut shrimp with some french fries sounds mighty fine for dinner tonite. Maybe even some butter toffee ice cream to boot. I really should go back to school...

How many red lights have I been here, waiting for this depressing procession to end?

"For a minute there, I lost myself. I lost myself..."

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