Katherine Jung ’26 is a journalist, Calliope editor and Pingry Community Research Journal co-editor-in-chief, and writing center tutor at Pingry. She is also a dedicated violinist, studying at Juilliard Pre-College and playing in Pingry’s string orchestra. In her column, For the Record, she hopes to connect the community through music and personal stories.
Social relationships stand at the heart of humanity, shaping our entire civilization, from the cities and towns we used to build near water to the virtual webs we’ve created across the internet. Yet in this era when we have never been so connected to others, even those on the opposite side of the world, Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer (my favorite album of all time) presents a warning about increased isolation and alienation in the coming century even amidst unprecedented technological advancement. Let Down, one of the album's most well-known songs as well as my #3 most-listened-to song of 2025, encapsulates this paradox. In its lyrics and melodies, it addresses the feeling of disappointment and loneliness. However, there’s an underlying desire for transformation and change beneath the surface, leading the listener on a journey between despair and hope. The resolution of the song leaves it unclear as to whether we sink, or finally rise.
Through the lens of a passenger in constant transit, Let Down describes a life of movement through planes and trains, accepting destinations that one is being carried to rather than actively shaping fate. The first few lines give the listener the sense of riding past their own life without being able to interfere, a bystander to the events that happen to them and the people they encounter. The next verse paints a picture of people longing to escape reality. It warns us not to be too involved or grow too attached to anything, leaving us with a sense of numbness and melancholy. Even when Radiohead mentions metamorphosis, the beautiful and almost magical change from caterpillar to butterfly, they reduce the event to mere chemistry, stripping it of its symbolism and meaning.
As both a musician and writer, I see the same sense of emptiness in one of Philip Larkin's poems, The Whitsun Weddings, which takes the reader on a train ride through England. Through the windows of the train, he watches numerous weddings happen. He views the celebrations through an ironic and almost sarcastic lens, reducing the beauty of the event to something plain and ordinary as he zooms by them. However, his tone begins to shift near the end, as he reflects on his journey. Both works convey emptiness mixed with glimmers of hope, creating the sensation of being isolated not only from others but from yourself.
Yet both The Whitsun Weddings and Let Down are far more complex than simple disillusionment. Let Down is often described as one of the saddest songs ever written, but it’s oddly comforting at times. The melody continues to pulse and move forward despite the dark lyrics that accompany it, as if we’ve already accepted the world as it is. Ironically, the tension and dissonance come from the most hopeful (and memorable) line in the song: “One day, I am gonna grow wings.” As the song reaches its climax and comes back down, Radiohead repeats two contrasting phrases, singing about being let down over and over again while insisting that we’ll grow wings someday. This declaration of persistent faith cuts through, yet blends in with the hopeless atmosphere of the song; although it’s unclear what wings or flying away truly represent, it’s repeated like a promise to ourselves.
Larkin employs a similar strategy with weddings in The Whitsun Weddings. He ignores and discards the romanticism from an act that many call the most important moment of their lives, transforming joy into a shallow formality. Observing dozens of weddings during a single train ride on Whit Sunday, he realizes that they’re all copies of each other: people are merely going through the motions, just like the nameless passenger described in Let Down. The bank holiday on Whit Sunday made the date economically advantageous, resulting in an endless stream of identical celebrations. Through his imagery of industrial decay alongside the empty beauty of weddings, Larkin creates a sense of futility. Each individual's struggles and celebrations are meaningless in the broader context of the world, meaningful only to themselves. But maybe our emotions and experiences only have to matter to ourselves; and perhaps, recognizing that we’re all holding on to our own meaningless, yet important, moments is what changes isolation into unity.
The two works mirror each other structurally. Both begin and end in transit, moving between points without fully settling down somewhere, filled with contemplation. At the end, the writer and the passengers transform from “they and I” into "we," as they head toward London together. The arrows aimed toward the city become raindrops, a metamorphosis from something that represents death into a source of life.
Both works leave their central question unanswered: In our fragmented world, are escape and change truly possible? Can we ultimately grow wings? The central theme of both Let Down and The Whitsun Weddings isn’t darkness, but the desire within all of us to make light out of darkness. Although we’re never given a definite resolution, we’re still left constantly in search of an answer, leaving it up to the listeners or readers to create their own ending.
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To contact the author: Katherine Jung '26
Photos by: Chris Birrittella '28