Van Gogh & Yorke...Separated at Birth?

Silly geniuses with their weird haircuts and manic eyes... just wait a couple years and Thom will be missing an ear. Granted these dudes were born more than a hundred years apart, 115 years to be exact, but these brothers-in-art share the same wildness that often inspires groundbreaking, out-of-the-box creativity.

Both Thom and Vince (as he will henceforth be known) are well known for their ability to conjure abstract expressions of the world around them from unique, albeit disturbed perspectives. Van Gogh wore his crazies right out on his sleeve- be it the bloodletting, ear gouging moments, or twisted works like Skull with Cigarette. Yorke's eccentricities, though subtle in nature, still scare the living hell out of you once you wrap your head around them. Take for instance his spine-tingling, deranged falsetto that sounds like frostbitten wind whipping through a desolate house. Or take the surrealism of "Jigsaw Fall Into Place":

The walls abandon shape
You've got a Cheshire cat grin
All blurring into one
This place is on a mission
Before the night owl
Before the animal noises
Closed circuit cameras
Before you're comatose

Yeah, not exactly "Love Me Do". This is the kind of stuff I'd imagine Dali painting after a long night of LSD.

But beyond the weird, there is at the heart of both these artists something that connects with us lowly, less deranged humans. There is this looming feeling that everything isn't in it's right place- that at our core there is something very fucked up in each and every one of us. Warm, isn't it? But that's the whole point- life can be a strange fate. It reminds us that for every Mick Jagger and Tila Tequila out there smiling for the camera, somewhere out there is a tortured artist tucked away in his room, pouring out less-than-pretty stories that we so often call life.