Jam of the Day – Wishing They Were Fake Plastic Trees

For any of you that were outside in the city last night, or anywhere near a window, I don’t have to tell you that there was one hell of a thunder and lightning storm. The storm, which only lasted for half an hour, between about 10 and 10:30, knocked down more than 100 trees in Central Park and damaged hundreds more.

Unfortunately, last night was the inaugural night of the seventh annual Central Park Film Festival, and they had to close down early because of the driving rain and powerful winds. The more than 2,400 people that were there had to run for cover as the storm clouds opened up over them, missing the end of the unnecessarily long Sex and the City movie (spoiler alert, they finally do get married in the end). As Adrian Benepe, the city parks commissioner, told the Times, “Central Park has been devastated. It created more damage than I’ve seen in 30 years of working in the parks.” Amazingly, although the storm brought wind gusts of 70 miles an hour, there were no reports of anyone injured around the city. Central Park Conservancy work crews are canvassing the park today to inspect the condition of the park’s more than 24,000 trees for loose and dangerous hanging branches.

Somehow foreshadowing this unfortunate turn of events, Radiohead released their latest song, “These Are My Twisted Words” for download on their website on Monday in response to speculation online that it was indeed a Radiohead track after it surfaced last week. If you dowload the song, you also get an accompanying pdf of artwork depicting scraggly, twisted, jagged tree branches. The artwork file is meant to be printed out on tracing paper for you to “put them in an order that pleases you.” The eerily appropriate sample of the finished product that they included is below.

The new song is ominous, the perfect soundtrack to the events of last night. Take a listen to “These Are My Twisted Words” below:

Radiohead – These Are My Twisted Words:

But Radiohead has always been ahead of the curve, even in an arboreal sense. Today’s Jam is one of the band’s best, “Fake Plastic Trees,” from their second album The Bends. It was the third single to be released from that album in the U.K., but it was released as the album’s first here in the U.S.

Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees:

-Melissa