RELEASED SONGS
1997
Paranoid Android
Polyethylene (Part 1 & 2)
Pearly*
A Reminder
Melatonin
Airbag
Subterranean Homesick Alien
Exit Music (For A Film)
Let Down
Karma Police
Fitter Happier
Electioneering
Climbing Up The Walls
No Surprises
The Tourist
Meeting In The Aisle
Lull
"It really started out as three separate songs and we didn't know what to do with them," explains Thom of the creation of this six-and-a-half-minute epic. "Then we thought of 'Happiness [is a Warm Gun]' -- wich was obviously three different bits that John Lennon put together -- and said, 'Why don't we try that?'"
After being asked if the song was about the Fall of the Roman Empire, Thom adopted this explanation, but other band members have likened the lyrics of the track to those of "The Bends". On one level, the lyrics are absurd; on another, they're quite serious. During the band's 1996 live sets, when they were opening for Alanis Morissette, the song ended with a very long Hammond solo courtesy of Jonny, drawing it out to the eleven-minute track. The live version from Glastonbury is an amazing version.
This opens as a short acoustic number (part1) before blowing up into an incredible rock song. The lyrics perpetuate Thom's health fixation, but the actual meaning of the song isn't clear. "Polyethylene" was a welcome addition to the band's live set on a few occasions during the 1997 and 1998 tours.
The obscure lyrics of this song deserve pondering. The version available on the Paranoid Android CD1 and the US Airbag EP is considered the original, and the remix is available on the No Surprises/Running From Deamons EP. The latter has clearer production values and a slightly louder guitar at the beginning; Jonny plays a different ending on the guitar. Both versions open with both Phil and Ed on drums. "Pearly*" made it into the band's live set on the latter half of the Ok Computer tour.
"That song was written in one of those days off you have on a tour where you literally, all you can do is sit in your hotel room cause there's nothing," explains Thom. "It was a Sunday, and it's somewhere near Hershey, i got no idea where we were and there was just nothing to do at all. And i had this idea of someone writing a song, sending it to someone and saying, 'If i ever lose it, you just pick up the phone and play me this song back to remind me'". The song is brilliantly performed and captures the idea Thom expresses perfectly. It also contains a sample from a train and opens with Czech voices. Definitely one of the best songs in the band's roster.
Based first on the keyboards and then a drum line, this track never caught on with fans. It's an interesting piece, though -- the lyrics take the perspective of parents watching over their son. Melatonin is a hormone produced by the body to regulate sleeping and waking cycles, but its production decreases with age. A hormone supplement has now been formulated that compensates for this decrease.
Originally titled "An Airbag Saved My Life," a headline that Thom read in an Automobile Association manual that came in the mail, the song is "about the wonderful, positive emotion you feel when you've just failed to have an accident; when you just miss someone and realize how close it was and stop the car and just feel this incredible emotion". The title is also a play on the 1983 Indeep song "Last night a DJ saved My Life".
The song reflects the influence DJ Shadow has ad on Radiohead, as the band made the track with a drum loop based on a three-second sample of Phil's drumming. "Airbag" was an excellent choice for first cut on Ok Computer: it opens the proceedings with the chorus, "In an interstellar burst / I am back to save the universe." The live version released on the UK No Surprises EP captures the song's intriguing and oppressive atmosphere.
Originally called "Uptight," wich is how Jonny referred to it in its early stages, the song pays homage to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." It deals with alien abduction and stems from two incidents in Thom's life. The first occured at Abingdon School, when he was assigned an essay question that went something like this: "If you were an alien from another planet arriving on Earth, how would you describe what you saw?". The second incident occured when Thom was driving down a country road and hit a bird (wich he believed was a pheasant). He stepped out of the car and at that moment began thinking about alien abduction.
"Subterranean Homesick Alien" was first played acoustically back in 1995 during radio broadcasts. It wasn't until Ok Computer was made that the organ was added. Many fans prefer the earlier versions to the album version, and the earliest version was released on the compilation Rare On Air: Volume 4, wich sees Thom and Jonny playing the song with acoustic guitars; both versions are sung together and the song closes with the chorus. This version is a treat, and a great addition to any Radiohead fan's collection.
While on tour with Alanis Morissette in September of 1996, Radiohead was sent the last half-hour of Baz Luhrmann's film William Shakespear's Romeo And Juliet and asked to write a song for the closing credits. Band members were impressed by the clip, and Thom wrote this song for the movie. At first he attempted to use lines from Shakespeare's play as lyrics, but finally ditched this idea.
The moment in the film when Claire Danes (Juliet) holds a Colt 45 to her head was actual inspiration for "Exit Music." Thom also had the 1968 version of the film in his head : "I saw the Zeffirelli version when i was 13 and i cried my eyes out, because i couldn't understand why, the morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away. The song is written for two who should run away before all bad stuff starts. A personal song."
This track was recorded in the ballroom of actress Jane Saymour's mansion at 3 A.M. it closes with computerized sounds created by ZX Spectrum computers, wich all members of Radiohead owned in the 1970s. Jonny explains what it's all about : "It's like when Andy Warhol said he enjoyed being bored. It's about that feeling that you get when you're not in control of it, you just go past thousands of places and thousands of people and you're completely removed from it".
"It was a band catchphrase for a while on tour, whenever someone was behaving in a particularly shitty way, we'd say, 'The karma police will cath you up with him sooner or later,'" says Jonny. "It's not a revenge thing, just about being happy with your own behaviour". Thom laughs, "This is a song against bosses, fuck middle management!". "Karma Police" was debuted back in 1996 during the Alanis Morissette tour. Thom sang the line "This is what you get" an octave higher than he does on the album, with brilliant result. Ed was the one who originally suggested they do a song based on the cath-phrase.
Many people mistook the computerized voice on this track for that of physicist Stephen Hawking. The strange voice was, in fact, created by Thom on his Mac computer. He recorded it one night in an isolated area of the rehearsal space that the band had set up. Ed told me about it : "Thom basically had this cheklist, like a nineties checklist if you like, and he had written it out. There is a bit of him playing the piano, [wich was] in the rehearsal room. He was very drunk one night, wich you can tell by the sloppy playing on it, and he just played out this little melody and stuff. He was very anxious that it wasn't him saying the lyrics (this voice is neutral). By the computer saying it, it doesn't become a bit of pretencious art-wank, it's something neutral in the way that the computer stumbles over words and doesn't get the prononciation or the inflections right." Adds Thom : "The reason 'Fitter Happier' exists is 'cos of mental background noise. Some days you're in a distrurbed state and it moves to the front". The track was used as an entrance song for the band on their 1997 tour.
Thom describe this song as being about preaching to others through a microphone. He uses the metaphor of politician selling his party platform to critique the live promotional shows Radiohead was doing to sell its music. In its original, 1996 live form, the song ended on a very catchy note with Thom repeating the line "Doin It All." Many fans were surprised and a little disappointed at the final version that made Ok Computer.
This is first track in the band's repertoire to be described as "scary." It relies heavily on strings, but not in the conventional way. The string section, covered by Jonny alone, features 16 different violins playing quarter tones apart from each other.
The audience's cue that the band is about to play this song live come when Jonny pulls out a small radio and begins tuning it to different stations. During the band's sound checks, Jonny locates classical-music or new-oriented local radio stations, and uses these to execute "Climbing Up The Walls."
Two remixes of this songs exist, and both are truly unique. The first remix, the "Zero 7" by Henry Binns and Sam Hardaker, is a very mellow, string-induced, trip-hop version that only briefly brings in the original melody. The final screaming by Thom is placed low in the mix ; television sounds are played over top. The "Fila Brazillia" mix also strays far from the original. This version uses a few different types of beat, a little organ, and some other unusual sounds ; Thom's vocals go over top. While both remixes are worth listening to, neither re-creates the horror that emanates from the original version.
Thom introduced this song to his bandmates and the members of R.E.M. on the R.E.M. tour. It was 3 August 1995, in Oslo, Norway, and they were all gathered in a dressing room. The lyrics have been changed since then, but they originally told the story of a man who has become fed up with the way things are working out for him and is having problems with his girlfriend. Two lines from the version are, "He was sick of excuses / to not take off her dress when bleedin' in the bathroom." Preparing to record the song, Thom altered those lyrics, but the meaning remains essentially the same. Aside from the fact that it features a glockenspiel, this track has a simplicity that proves Radiohead's ability to create a basic song with straighforward lyrics and make it fit smoothly into an album as complex as Ok Computer.
"The Tourist" was written by Jonny, who, explains Thom, was "in a beatiful square in France on a sunnt day, and watching all these American tourists being wheeled around, frantically trying to see everything in ten minutes". Jonny was shocked at how these people could be in a place so beautiful and so special and not realize it because they weren't taking the time to just stop and look around.
For this track, Radiohead explored a new avenue (it's an instrumental piece). While the band has yet to play it live, "Meeting In The Aisle" was used as an entrance song (taking the place of the much-loved "Fitter Happier") for the band's 1998 shows. The track was programmed by Henry Binns and sam Hardaker.
A very simple song featuring Jonny on the xylophone, "Lull" is personal in nature. It sees the singer inexplicably losing control, for wich he is apologetic. With the lyrics "The stress and the tension / I'm in a lull," and later, "I'm sorry that i lost control," this song reflects a trait Thom admitted to having : he often loses his temper without really knowing why he has become angry.