Fitter Happier More Productive, and the Radiohead album that isn’t
OK Computer?
“Radiohead and the album that isn’t”
But with the remarkable tracks that end their nine studio albums, maybe it should be
29th October 2021
It’s been five long years since Radiohead as a band released their last studio album and five years without brand new creations in the form of a combined band created album is a long time for this particular fan. During this period, four of the five members have released either solo albums or created soundtrack albums for films and especially so Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke who have both created solo and/or soundtracks for many years. But one thing has struck me since my earliest days of fandom of the band as a whole, and that is their final album track has always been an instant hit for me regardless of so called popular opinion. Radiohead legend has it, especially so for The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A albums, that finding and agreeing on a formula for the running list of the albums was a torturous process before finally committing it to wax. And so with this in mind I’ve created my own Radiohead album that will never be, of album ending tracks that have always immediately resonated with me and struck a pun intended chord with songs that (with one notable exception) had no commercial success and will have passed by a non-Radiohead fan.
Only two, maybe three of the nine are ever played live with any kind of regularity, but I adore them all and here, in chronological album order, I present the Radiohead album that will never be!
“Blow Out” (Pablo Honey 1993) is a fascinating mix of musical genres as we progress from a lounge room type groove into a full on band combination playing as loudly and as reminiscent of the garage/grunge rock of the album it resides on before repeating the same pattern again mid way through the song before a fuzzy/scratchy and deliberately discordant Jonny Greenwood guitar solo brings the song to an end. Colin Greenwood’s bass is somewhat lost in the mix but what isn’t is Phil Selway’s drums, Jonny and Ed O’Brien’s complimentary guitars and Thom Yorke’s searing vocal. The vocals are also shared (Thom and Ed I believe) with each playing off the other, almost finishing the other’s sentence as if two characters are discussing and agreeing on a subject or perhaps it’s a deliberate take on a schizophrenic point of view of dealing with inner pain and it’s intended as one protagonist but two inner voices? Over the years I’ve also interpreted the song as an illusion to drug use as the character wails that everything he touches is “wrapped up in cotton wool” or “sugar coated”. It’s perhaps a stretch to suggest this, but it isn’t a stretch to confirm that the opening track in my unofficial Radiohead album is some song indeed.
“Street Spirit (Fade Out) (The Bends, 1995) is the only song of the nine to receive any critical or commercial success and was released as both a single from the album and became a MTV phenomenon in the early stages of this new satellite and video TV platform with it’s iconic black and white video merging live action with ultra slowed down motion in the same constantly moving frame. Musically, the song itself is relatively simple but perfectly executed by the trio of guitar players (Jonny, Ed and Thom) as they interweave a brilliantly melodic and appealing riff whilst Thom implores the listener to “immerse your soul in love” as this magnificent creation comes to its conclusion. Before this though, Thom weaves a sonic journey of birth (“cracked eggs”) death (“I can feel death, can see its beady eyes”) and an apocalyptic vision of humanity going under and fading away. There is a portent of things to come on the next album and OK Computer’s theme of dislocation and strained communications in an ever connected and computerised world as he wails “this machine will, will not communicate, the thoughts and the strain I am under”. Or perhaps it’s a personal reflection on his own inner torments of the time, but regardless, this is a wonderful song and the second album closing song that made an immediate impression on me.
“The Tourist” (OK Computer, 1997) The beauty of this song is the direct opposition it has to the rest of the album and it’s warnings of the beeps and blips of a coming computerised world, of being completely and utterly connected yet never more isolated and disconnected, a constant feeling of being busy and everything moving “at a thousand feet per second” and as Thom implores the listener (and perhaps autobiographically himself) “Idiot, slow down”, enjoy life, re-connect with a real, physical life rather than the coming imposition of the machine like world. The Tourist is quiet and ambient and a brilliant stand alone song as well as a perfect counter punch to the amazing album that comes before it.
“Motion Picture Soundtrack” (Kid A, 2000) Played almost entirely on an organ or mellotron (a favoured instrument of Jonny’s), the song lasts for 6 minutes 59 seconds but the track itself (aside from snippets of music) ends at just over 3 minutes and perhaps lends itself to the title, of a piece of music at the end of a film with the remainder silent over the rolling credits of an unseen film. This is my interpretation, as is the following as the lyrics can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. Firstly, the song is outstandingly beautiful BUT it’s depressingly so, and, in a further but, in the hands of Radiohead they twist the darkest of themes and set it against the most up beat and positive of musical notes. Lyrically, the song can be interpreted as a loss of a loved one or an unrequited love or more likely simply missing a loved one as the narrator is desperate for help to “get back to your arms” and “where I belong”. The narrator may also be seeking an escape from the mundanity of life via “cheap sex” alcohol and pills and there’s also a further implied notion of terminal escape with the lyrics of “I will see you, in the next life” but this could also be interpreted as a twisted life review on the brink of death. So few lyrics. So many interpretations!
Kid A was a difficult beast of an album to initially love, but I adored this song the minute I first heard it.
“Life in a Glasshouse” (Amnesiac, 2001) 8 years and 5 albums into their career, this song represented yet another musical departure from the norm as they collaborated with the jazz legend Humphrey Lyttelton and his band on a free jazz and frenetic take on the intrusion of outside forces on modern life (see OK Computer) but here it’s taken even further with a barbed attack on the secretive dark forces that intrude on our lives more and more and “Well, of course I’d like to sit around and chat. But someone’s listening in” as well as using the metaphor of not throwing stones in a glasshouse and, perhaps more telling, the hypocrisy that constantly surrounds us, of industrialised farming, millions of people in food poverty and the need to stop taking lectures from politicians and royalty as Thom pointedly announces “Don’t talk politics and don’t throw stones. Your royal highnesses”. The song is brilliantly and poignantly used in the 2006 film “Children of Men” and although not my favourite overall Radiohead song, it is my favourite album song. Hey, I’m a Radiohead fan. I’m allowed these contradictions!
Anyway, shush, someone’s listening in.
“A Wolf at the Door” (Hail to the Thief, 2003) Another long and winding tale that is open to many differing interpretations but it’s important to note yet again that this fantastic song is another departure of genres for Radiohead as they delve into something nearing rap for this breathless 3 and a half minute tirade that leans heavily on the fairy tale image of the titular wolf being at your door, but is far, far deeper than that. Set against a dreamlike beginning on the mellotron(?), Phil’s brilliantly irregular drum beat quickly kicks into the first verse and a scattergun of images fill the mind as Thom breathlessly lets rips at the intrusion of the outside world again, as well as perhaps the fraudulent and disposable nature of modern life, credit cards and being held to “ransom” and delighting in a UK MP being slapped with a custard pie in 2001 as he wails about getting “the flan in the face” and my particular favourite lyric of “take it with the love it’s given, take it with a pinch of salt, take it to the taxman”. The second verse is equally scattergun but perhaps a little easier to interpret as he rails against the inequality of society and our disposable attitude both to it as a whole and the human beings caught in its trap. Stepford Wives/Investments and Dealers/Wives and Mistresses and Class are all rattled off in quick rapping succession before the verse concludes with the telling lyrics of “Boys in first class don’t know we’re born, just know that someone else is gonna come and clean it up, someone always does”. The repeated chorus refrain of being called on the telephone by wolves and being threatened unless a ransom is paid continues the ugly twisted fairy tale vibe, and although this is my least favourite of the nine songs on my non existent album, I absolutely adore it.
“Videotape” (In Rainbows, 2007) Where do we start with this truly beautiful song? Before we delve into my interpretations (and as ever, there are many to be had), it’s an incredibly simple arrangement of Thom’s angelic singing set against himself on the piano and Phil’s irregular time beats on the drums. It’s beautiful. Haunting. Morose. Uplifting. Depressingly sad. Delete as applicable! It could be viewed as a suicide note or a death bed lament at a lover the subject of the song cannot bear to see again or say goodbye to. It could also be viewed as a videotaped message of love to someone far away. The iconography and lyrical content is fantastic, from the “pearly gates” and “Mephistopheles is just beneath, and he’s reaching up to grab me” but from here the song really takes a more positive vibe (despite the interpretations noted above), it’s a video recording of the “good days” and how the receiver of the tape is the “centre” of their existence, before the incredibly moving final verse as the subject implores the receiver not to be afraid and “today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen”. This beautiful song never fails to move me and I don’t want any further interpretations as I have my own, and I hold them dear to me.
“Separator” (The King of Limbs, 2011) This is the most difficult of the nine to interpret and I’m probably way off beam with my own dissection but the theme of dreams, dreaming and waking up may be a metaphor for awakening from a real life trouble or situation rather than the “vivid dream” of the song. It could be argued that the waking is walking away from an old relationship or waking to a new one but the song is drenched with the surreal quality of being in a dream like state and finally being “free from all the weight I’ve been carrying”. It’s a beautiful piece of music which at first, like Radiohead, is simply Thom’s fantastic vocals accompanied by Phil’s brilliantly irregular drumbeats. As the song progresses, Colin’s subtle bass is introduced before Ed’s high and positively pitched guitar solo winds us towards the end of a wonderful song.
“True Love Waits” (A Moon Shaped Pool, 2016) As a song, True Love Waits had been kicking around since the very early days of the band but had never been polished enough or deemed suitable for inclusion on an album. This Radiohead fan thanks the musical Gods that the boys finally saw sense! It was often played live in the mid to late 90’s to rapturous audience reactions and Thom particularly played it live as an acoustic number in his solo/charity shows and all these years it finally arrived on an album in an all encompassing band form. Well, sort of.
It’s certainly more polished now but still very much a singular vision from Thom as he sings with a slightly distorted vocal set against a piano ballad interspersed with snippets of further overdubs of other piano pieces. Now, this Radiohead obsessive has adored this song for many, many years and here it is in it’s final album glory and it’s never sounded so beautiful, and some of the bootleg versions of Thom singing this alone on acoustic are monumentally brilliant, but here it is and it never fails to move me and often moves me emotionally to tears. Lyrically, yet again, Radiohead merge the downbeat with the beautifully uplifting and as urban legends have long suggested this is a love song merging both Thom’s relinquishing of his own thinking “I’ll drown my beliefs, to have your babies” as well as a real life tale of a young child left alone by his parents and living on whatever snacks they could find: “And true love waits, on lollipops and crisps”.
Relinquishing control or beliefs for the good of a loved one that the singer implores to “don’t leave” and being so in love with someone that your entire world revolves around them and the spirit crushing refrain of “I’m not living. I’m just killing time”. It’s an old Radiohead song for a new world and a Radiohead song that is so damn Radiohead! A twisted, downbeat love song that has its heart firmly rooted in the right place.
So there’s my Radiohead album that isn’t but perhaps should be.
Nine songs over nearly three decades with one stone cold commercially and critically acclaimed classic and as many musical genres you could shake a stick at.
“Radiohead and the album that isn’t” also moonlights as a lucky chapter 19 inside my recently self-published book “At the end of a Storm”.
"At the end of a Storm" - available at Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.