Kriston Capps

Guy Clark, one of the finest songwriters in Texas country history and a Nashville legend, has died. A Grammy Award–winning artist, Clark wrote songs that were recorded by Johnny Cash, Vince Gill, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and many other country-western stars. Among his 13 studio albums were scores of outlaw hits, including “L.A. Freeway” and “Desperados Waiting for a Train.”

My very favorite Guy Clark song is a ballad that he recorded in 1976 with Emmylou Harris and Waylon Jennings. (By pedigree alone, it’s got to be good.) “Anyhow, I Love You” is that rare love song that’s salty, not sweet. It captures such urgent emotion without a hint of cliche, pretense, or even much romance—“anyhow, I love you,” as in “anyhow, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

I wish I had a dime for every bad time
But the bad times always seem to keep the change
You been all alone so you know what I'm sayin'
So when all you can recall is the pain

Just you wait until tomorrow when you wake up with me
At your side and find I haven't lied about nothin'
I wouldn't trade a tree for the way I feel about you
In the mornin', anyhow I love you

Everyday it gets just a little bit better
And half the gettin' there is knowin' where I been before
I'm sure you understand 'cause I ain't your first man
So when you feel like runnin' for the back door, don't

Just you wait until tomorrow when you wake up with me
At your side and find I haven't lied about nothin'
I wouldn't trade a tree for the way I feel about you
In the mornin', anyhow I love you

Clark was 74.

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This morning, Mother Jones unveiled new designs for both the magazine and website to celebrate the publication’s 40th anniversary. In a note introducing the changes, editor Clara Jeffrey says her coworkers are “obsessed with our new favorite color, orange.”

My first response to the new look was an unbroken string of applause emoji.

My second take was self doubt. Is that ... is that what orange looks like?

Toward the top of the graphic, sure. As a University of Texas alum, I’d recognize burnt orange anywhere. I’m comfortable declaring part of the new logo to be burnt orange or Longhorn-adjacent. Hook ‘em, Mother Jones!

But the bottom of this logo treatment is far from the comforting colors of campus, instead awash in grapefruit hues. Adrienne shared the same reaction—at least, the part about seeing a gradient that changes from orange to pink. And we weren’t alone.

“If you hadn’t told me some people see a wash, it probably would have looked all one color—orange—to me,” texted a friend, a painting professor I consulted, fearing that others might see a white-and-gold logo.

But nope. No need to consult color theory. No need to dredge up traumatic memories. This Mother Jones sample is no illusion. Using highly sophisticated forensic analysis tools going well beyond the droplet function in Paintbrush, I deduced two distinct tones, with totally different hashtags and coordinates:

Now, orange you glad I asked?
*closes tab*
*deletes account*

When Radiohead set out to disappear completely last weekend, deleting every post from their Twitter and Facebook accounts, they left their YouTube page untouched. Probably smart: “Lotus Flower,” a single from the band’s last album, 2011’s The King of Limbs, has wracked up 36 million views.

The video for “Burn the Witch,” the single that Radiohead dropped on Monday, is already doing numbers. “Daydreaming” may do even better. The video, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and posted today, captures the bleak unease of the song exactly:

The video follows pale king Thom Yorke as he walks through a series of inter-connected hallways, corridors, and tunnels. He appears to be lost but not aimless, the world around him oblivious to his existence—an anxiety particular to Radiohead’s catalog. He passes through one door after another: from kitchen to hospital to prison to library and other magically linked spaces. “Dreamers, they never learn/ They never learn,” Yorke sings.

The psychic distress mounts as the song builds, until in the end Yorke passes through a utility stairwell door to a snowy landscape. He trudges through the drift until he finds what he was looking for (maybe?): a cave carved out of the ice, a fire burning inside the cave. The sounds that finish the song are too strange to describe, but Genius says that it’s York chanting “Evol ym dnouf ev’I”—I’ve found my love, backwards and all chopped and screwed.

This isn’t PTA’s first collaboration with Radiohead: Jonny Greenwood, the group’s mop-headed multi-instrumentalist, has composed the soundtracks for several of the director’s films, including There Will Be Blood and Inherent Vice. Last year, Anderson released Junun, a rockumentary that followed Greenwood to India, where he recorded an album of the same name with Israeli composer Shy Ben Tzur, producer Nigel Godrich, and an ensemble called Rajasthan Express.

More videos may be on the way: Radiohead’s latest and as-yet-untitled album comes out on Sunday.

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