Back in 1995, before Radiohead had become Radiohead—the mythic sorcerer-mages behind the revelation OK Computer, the prophetic Kid A, the avant-garde Amnesiac, the Orwellian Hail to the Thief, and the industry game-changer In Rainbows; the one unimpeachable Rock band of the past quarter-odd century; perhaps the last one ever—the lads from Oxfordshire were just another grunge-era one-hit-wonder scrambling to escape the shadow of “Creep.” The first two singles off their sophomore effort The Bends (“High and Dry” and “Fake Plastic Trees,” respectively) were definitely softer, gentler, and more radio-friendly than their one big hit, and seemed to be openly angling for the Top 40 charts. Most the tracks on The Bends leaned in this Poppier direction, frankly. One can easily imagine an alternate history where this version of Radiohead comes to dominate the Soft Rock market, half a decade before their fellow falsetto-Brits Coldplay would do in 2000.

Happily however, The Bends‘ third single “Just” proved to be the true harbinger of things to come. The blueprints for so many of the songs on their breakout OK Computer—the anxiety, the paranoia, the ominous mood and even the go-for-broke chord shifts—were already present on “Just.” It is certainly the track from The Bends that has aged the best in the past thirty years; and especially in our present era wherein, just, so many people are learning firsthand the meaning of “You knew what I was when you picked me up,” I have found myself increasingly revisiting that blistering chorus of: “You do it to yourself, you do/And that’s why it really hurts…” But it’s not just the lyrics that are of interest to me.

In the official music video, the scenes cut back and forth between the band rehearsing the song in their upper-story London flat, and a middle-aged man in a nondescript business suit as he walks silently and broodingly down a city street below. Pausing below the window where the band appears to be practicing, the nameless man suddenly, wordlessly, lies down gently on the sidewalk.

Another pedestrian promptly comes along (clearly lost in thought himself), and trips over the man on the ground; the video resorts to subtitles to narrate their ensuing conversation. The pedestrian, despite the shock of his fall, is initially sympathetic to the man on the sidewalk, and offers to help him back to his feet—which the man curtly refuses. He then asks if the man has been drinking, but the man states flatly, “I haven’t been drinking.” The pedestrian then gets indignant, saying he could’ve broken his neck, but the man on the ground remains unresponsive.

At this point a small crowd of other pedestrians start to gather, wondering if he’s hurt, or even “mad”, but he steadfastly refuses to answer why he’s lying there, begging them all to please just leave him alone. “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” the first pedestrian asks in a more conciliatory tone; “Look, I can’t tell you,” the man on the ground responds, “It wouldn’t be right.” The situation further escalates when a police officer arrives on the scene and tries to help him up, which the man again refuses with increasing hostility.

At this point, the first pedestrian gets more hostile as well, and starts to insist that the man explain himself: “Just tell me why you’re lying here,” he cries, “Tell me!” The man on the sidewalk in turn says, “You don’t want to know, please believe me…”

Exasperated, the first pedestrian then asks sarcastically if it’s because the man on the ground is having just another cliched existential crisis: “You don’t think there’s any point right? What, we’re all going to die, is that it, is that why you’re lying here?” Such a negative and nihilistic epiphany in fact seemed to be what the whole video had been building towards up to this point. Hence the fascinating twist when the man then simply states, “No.”

There is something far more frightening than mere nihilism going on here. Indeed, when the man, after much cajoling by both the pedestrian and the cop, at last consents to explain why he’s lying there, he prefaces it with “God forgive me, and God help us all.” Such seems to imply belief not in an absent or nonexistent deity, but a terribly present one. The video intuitively understands that it is not the thought that nothing matters, but that everything matters, that most truly terrifies us–not the unbearable lightness of being, but the unbearable heaviness of being, that scares us most–that nihilism, not faith, is the anesthetizing cocoon we have all been trying to hide behind, to no avail.

But what does the man on the ground then actually say? Here the video teases us and cops out, jump-cutting quickly between the people on the sidewalk and the band performing above, dropping the subtitles entirely and showing us only brief glimpses of the man’s mouth moving—not nearly enough to lip-read from. As the song climaxes, the members of Radiohead look out their flat window and are perplexed to see the sidewalk below strewn with people–the first man, the pedestrian who tripped over him, the cop, and the entire crowd that had gathered around and called him “mad,” now all lay down paralyzed on the sidewalk, the camera panning over them as though a mass-grave. The band members are left as baffled as the viewer.

Naturally, I’ve spent decades absently wondering what exactly the man said that sent everyone tumbling to the ground! I of course understand that the mystery is the point, and besides, there is not a single plausible explanation one could come up with that wouldn’t ruin the ending of the video.

But then, that’s just thing: there really isn’t a single plausible thing the man could say that would send even one person to the ground, let alone everyone! (It’s not like telling everyone about, say, the severity of the climate crisis, or the evils of the U.S. government, has been able to shock people out of their apathy.) In fact, my experience as a missionary was typically the exact opposite: I would try and enthuse to investigators about the most wondrous things–the Heavens are open! The veil is rent! Visions of Eternity stretch before our eyes and the Second Coming is nigh!–and be met with only the most bored indifference. I never once had a King Lamoni experience, nor did any other missionary I knew. Often I found myself fantasizing like Alma in the Book of Mormon, “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people,” only to find that words are feeble things, and largely incapable of persuading anyone of anything, let alone shake the earth.

In fact, now that I reflect further upon it, I recall that the only times on my mission years and years ago that I ever got anyone to listen to me seriously, was when I shut up and stopped speaking entirely. The “Spirit itself,” which “maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered,” the “peace of God which surpasseth understanding,” were what converted the heart and touched the soul, not any words I could ever actually articulate. In this sense, then, the finale to the “Just” video by Radiohead was not cop-out at all, but entirely accurate and honest, when it cut out the man’s words completely; for it wasn’t any words he could actually say that sent the people tumbling to the ground, but the groanings beyond utterance, and the peace which surpasseth understanding—