An old college classmate once told me this kooky old conspiracy theory, that Radiohead‘s landmark 2000 album Kid A anticipated 9/11:

-Opener “Everything in It’s Right Place” for example, purportedly represents the ominous sense of dread we felt on that Tuesday morning, despite everything appearing normal as usual;

-Then track 2, “Kid A“, recreates the ambient noise you hear in the background as you meander through the city on your way to another dull day of work;

-It is then on track 3, “The National Anthem,” when that repeated bass-line starts pounding like your heart, when you witness the first plane hit the first tower–suddenly you’re wide awake, alert, aware, the adrenaline is pumping; and then the moment when that cacophonous, atonal brass band strikes up at 2:39 is when the second plane hits, so now you know for sure something terrible is happening, and the panic sets in, as the “fear” is “holding on”;

-Then track 4, “How to Disappear Completely,” is when the dust-cloud envelops you after the towers fall;

-Track 5 “Tree Fingers” is the eerie stillness after the fires have been put out and the twisted wreckage sits there silent;

-And then on Track 6 you try to be “Optimistic” in the face of this terror attack, grasping at straws, despite all evidence to the contrary;

-Then you feel trapped “In Limbo” as news-footage of the towers collapsing plays on constant repeat on every single TV;

-Then on “Idioteque,” you realize that the absolute most idiotic people in charge (e.g. the W. Bush administration) have started making the absolute most idiotic decisions in the aftermath (e.g. invade Afghanistan and Iraq), as you are forced to acknowledge that “we’re not scaremongering/this is really happening”;

-And then “Morning Bell” is that awful anxiety you feel when you wake up the next day and realize it wasn’t all just a terrible dream, that you are going to have to live forever with this new post-9/11 reality, and etc.

This is of course complete nonsense. All this fan-theory really reveals is that Kid A does a surprisingly good job of reproducing the series of reactions one feels while watching a catastrophe unfold in real time. (Turns out our responses are strangely predictable; perhaps this is why Nephi says the course of the Lord is One Eternal Round). As such, Kid A can resonate in a wide variety of catastrophes.

Certainly I began listening to Kid A a whole lot more in the early days of 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when everything abruptly locked down at once; I also dusted it off shortly after Russia suddenly invaded Ukraine last year. Kid A certainly didn’t predict either of those catastrophes anymore than it did 9/11; but it did articulate how it felt to experience them in real-time.

Yet even the sincerest partisans for this fan-theory don’t quite take into account how the CD ends: “Motion Picture Soundtrack,” a quiet, calming, major-key resolution to all of the album’s anxiety, with the closing line of, “Maybe I will see you in the next life.” It has none of the forced cheerfulness or irony of “Optimistic,” but instead feels genuinely–almost uncharacteristically–hopeful.

It even finishes with a sort of “hidden” track, that sounds nothing less or more than a brief burst of angelic choir, as though it were the sun breaking through the storm clouds.

And I reflect on how we are named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (as President Nelson keeps repeatedly insisting upon), which signifies, at a bare minimum, that we are looking forward to the biggest catastrophe of all–the Second Coming–but that we are also looking forward to the sunburst that comes after it. “The day dawn is breaking/The world is awaking,” we like to sing; “We know Armageddon is coming, but so is Adam-Ondi-Ahman,” said Neal A. Maxwell, with characteristic alliteration. We get so fixated on the coming catastrophe itself, that we forget what comes immediately after it; and as the final two-odd minutes of silence that finish Kid A indicate, it will indeed be a “peace which surpasseth understanding…” a still small voice, beyond utterance, beyond discourse, yet all the more present in the silence.

Now, I readily concede, there is no sure-knowledge here; none of us are yet like the Brother of Jared, who had “faith no longer,” but “perfect knowledge,” least of all Radiohead; but there is faith here, and hope for, that yearned for next-life.