Radiohead and a Hail to a Thief

The “prog rock” album that isn’t really but continues to age like a fine whine

The “prog rock” album that isn’t really but continues to age like a fine whine

“Hail to the Thief” (2003)

2003 was a momentous year for this particular scatterbrain. Given that all the track names on this album were given subtitled or supposed “prog rock” alternatives or extra names, I should be “as dead as leaves” in regard to scatterbrain, but let’s leave the progressive rock thing to one side for now. We may well return to this theme in due course but I’ve never particularly seen this album in that musical genre. I’ve always regarded Radiohead as my generation’s Pink Floyd (a heinous comparison to some I know) and although a huge Pink Floyd fan myself, I never really regarded or labelled them either as progressive rock. I dislike labels and overt statements of confirmation, which, if you take another look at the album cover above will be deeply ironic. Or will it? If there was a genre for angry and discontented and scared for the direction the world was travelling in, then this album would certainly be classed as such, but there isn’t, but we will return to these particular human emotions as the album is drenched in such emotions and many more. The album title itself is a play on words on the USA Presidential anthem of “Hail to the Chief” and although Thom Yorke would distance himself and occasionally concede this was the case, 21 years on from the inauguration of President George W Bush in 2000, the confirmation or the theft of the presidency, the Al Gore celebration, the TV channels seemingly calling it for Bush, Florida and those “hanging chads”, the debate on the whole sorry debacle rages on. Skip forward 20 of those years and a similar debate still rages as to the Trump/Biden election and in fairness four years earlier with Hillary Clinton. And so the world turns. “I’ll stay home forever, where 2 and 2 always makes a 5” rages Thom on the first song of the album and how prescient that seems today. All the world is indeed a stage and we have so many actors playing so many parts and in the mind’s eye of this particular heathen who has been politically homeless since 1997, it matters not what colour rosette your actor wears. It certainly doesn’t matter to them. But we’re veering off course in an elongated ramble that’s going nowhere, so maybe “Hail to the Thief” is a prog rock album after all?.

2003 was indeed a momentous year. My corporate career was sailing to the moon rather nicely, I’d proposed marriage but alas there would be no punch up at a wedding but there wasn’t any gloaming either. I was as happy as I can vividly recall and although the wedding would have to take a back seat for a while at least there was a very good reason for doing so as I was to become a Father. In the space of six short months, and in chronological order, “Hail to the Thief” was released, my son was safely brought into this world by a sterling and thoroughly exhausted Mother who I then dragged to see Radiohead in Manchester promoting this album a few weeks after giving birth. One of us was as excited as a new born lamb and one of us didn’t know whether to sit down or stand up and simply wanted to go to sleep. Which she duly did partway through an incredibly loud and naturally brilliant gig. Considering her favourite song on this album at the time (as I played it constantly around the house) was indeed “Go to Sleep” this is all rather apt in retrospect and I’m not embellishing this story one iota for narrative kudos. My son’s Mother is not a Radiohead fan in the slightest but, faced with your humble narrator playing this album constantly from June 2003 onwards it is indeed rather appropriate she slept through the second half of the gig.

“I’m gonna go to sleep. And let this wash all over me”. Indeed!

The five geniuses from Oxford. As happy and cheery as ever!

At 56 minutes and 14 tracks long, this album remains to this day both their longest and with the largest number of included songs. This retrospective will be a ramble through these tracks as I try to pick themes, interpretations and give an honest if myopic appraisal of an album that has aged like a fine wine (whine?) over the years. The album as a whole marked yet another musical departure for the band, another genre and indeed a mash up of several genres and one that becomes immediately identifiable and distinctly Radiohead. I endeavour to keep my blogs on every subject, Radiohead or not, uniquely personal so in keeping with that ethos these are my personal thoughts and interpretations for yet another beautiful piece of art.

From Jonny’s feedback as he plugs in his guitar for the opening track “2+2=5” or “The Lukewarm” as it’s alternatively called (I will now dispense with the additional prog rock alternate titles), we’re in for one hell of a ride and for a band who’ve apparently given up on producing guitar driven songs, this was a surprise on first listen but an absolute joy I’ve returned to time and time again. Allusions to George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984” are obvious in the title but it’s more than that as Thom rises from a gentle beginning to a thunderous and spitting condemnation of “You have not been paying attention!” over and over again before contradictory lyrics abound in a crashing finale’ of a “sky falling in” but maybe not and a reference to the album title and being a thief, “But I’m not”. To return to the beginning of the song, and dreamers putting the world to rights, there comes the telling line we can all perhaps relate to in recent times of staying home forever “where two and two, always makes a five”. This is yet another Radiohead song that can and has been analysed endlessly and for me, it’s the opening track on the album for a reason as it sets the tone for the time the album was created and in a world of dystopian lies, of lies repeated so often they become perceived as truths direct from Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, that the Western world was being taken into a war we could see was for bogus reasons but the reasons were repeated until they became truths and we didn’t pay attention, and 2+2 must therefore equal 5. Regardless of interpretation, it’s Radiohead and Yorke at their venomous best.

Jonny’s glockenspiel makes a welcome return on “Sit Down Stand Up” and like “No Surprises” from six years earlier, it’s from a song where the cheeriness of the up tempo notes from a simple instrument somewhat hide the downbeat nature of the song. This shouldn’t be that surprising considering the contradictory nature of the title itself and we’re invited to “Walk into the Jaws of Hell” to be wiped out anytime before the song fizzes to a conclusion with Yorke singing “The Raindrops” nearly 40 times! Interpretation? A return to the theme of war, control and at a push of a button, wiped out. “Sail to the Moon” is a return to the awkward time beats so often employed by the band and certainly here on piano as Thom sings an ode to his young son of building an ark and sailing to safety, as well as a rallying cry to us all as “Maybe you’ll, be President, and know right from wrong”. Much like “Pyramid Song” on “Amnesiac”, it may take a few listens but the beauty of the song will grow on you. “Backdrifts” returns to the central theme of the album. On the one side we have a general populace and “we’ve got nothing left to lose” set against an oppressive authority pressing ahead with their war plans and “All evidence has been buried. All tapes have been erased”. Thom warns “This far, but no further” but the evidence of our own eyes and ears ever since have sadly told a different tale. A mash up of genres here, techno beat with sampled cuts in the background as well as a beautiful, positively noted piano solo.

“Go to Sleep” continues the central theme as Thom warns about “Monsters” and “Loonies taking over” but the impressive aspect here is the return to the Radiohead of old with a fantastic, fast paced guitar driven song that is just sublime and is quickly followed by “Where I End and You begin” in a similar sublime and fast paced fashion. More ambient background than guitar driven here and with incredibly juxtaposed images of dinosaurs and being “up in the clouds” and the lyric “I can’t, and I can’t come down” could be interpreted as a return to the theme of death or dying or the boundaries of a dying relationship. Back to back, these two songs bring the album to a halfway mark quite brilliantly.

Officially and numerically “We Suck Young Blood” marks the halfway point but I’ve never liked this song and still don’t. Too ponderous and even for Radiohead, far too depressing. The connotations could be taken in a *very* dark direction but even my more palatable interpretation (sucking off the lifeforce of the population/young soldiers/any possible revolutionaries to the war cabal) are dark enough. It’s not a nice song at all! A B-Side at best and shouldn’t have made the final cut for the album.

The album resumes with “The Gloaming” and a deliberately distorted mix of scratches, beats and what appears to be a simple bass from Colin before Thom enters with crystal clear, high in the mix lyrics of genies being let out of bottles, witching hours and alarm bells but the three interpretations I have of this song are (1) It’s magical live (2) It’s a personal song where Thom has admitted to being tired and strung out at the time of the gloaming, at dusk or twilight when “the walls bend” and (3) A personal take of mine that this is another direct warning of the military industrial complex war mongerers intent on war and destruction “Murderers, you’re Murderers. We are not the same as you”. This is a song I have warmed to over the years.

“There There” was the lead single released off the album and remains utterly stupendous all these years on and another song that got a bigger lease of life when played live (with Jonny adding an extra set of drums and additional drum beat). Ed’s guitar is more to the fore than usual but interspersed with the irregular drum beats is a brilliant song about disillusion, personal struggles and trying to love a distant or indeed distanced, loved one, although I’ve always struggled with a clear interpretation. At 2 minutes and 25 seconds “I Will” is the shortest track on the album and the simplest in arrangement (guitars and Thom’s vocals) and perhaps the easiest to interpret but as ever, there will be a multitude of others. Here is a man who will “rise up” against the oppressive forces for the sake of his children and “I won’t let this happen, to my children” and to meet the world head on. Simple. Effective. Beautiful.

Track 11 is one of my favourite songs on the album as “A Drunken Punch up at a Wedding”, both lyrically and musically, always raises a smile in me! Musically it’s up tempo, bouncy and joyous (yes, this is Radiohead I’m talking about!) and the whole band are mixed instrumentally to the fore whilst lyrically it’s dripping with sarcasm, clichés and juxtaposed images of “pointless snide remarks, of hammer headed sharks”, pots calling kettles black and my favourite spitting lyric of “Hypocrite, opportunist. Don’t infect me with your poison”. This is apparently aimed at their critics and of dragging an ecstatic Thom down after he was exulted at a gig that was then poorly reviewed. Regardless, it’s a wonderful song and so full of verve and the song that follows could be interpreted in a similar vein as “Myxomatosis” (except it’s not quite as joyous) is also full of verve and full on with a scuzzy and reverb sound (and Colin’s brilliant bass to the fore) that moves at a hundred miles an hour but as Thom spits out during the song “no-one likes a smartarse” and song interpretations are purely personal and individual but like the previous song, this appears to be another venomous shot at their critics and their schizophrenic opinions of the band? Lyrically it appears obviously pointed at their critics but as an aside the more simpler lyric of “I don’t know why I feel so tongue tied” appears on an earlier unreleased and fan favourite song “Cuttooth” but here it’s delivered in a more staccato and pointed way.

“Scatterbrain” is the penultimate track and sees Thom on brilliant vocal form as he opines that “any fool can easy pick a hole. I only wish I could fall in” and although the rest of the lyrics evoke images of foul and stormy weather, this appears to be yet another pointed reference to their critics and/or a titular scatterbrain, moving from disaster to the next.

Radiohead have a happy knack of ending their albums with fantastic songs and “A Wolf at the Door” is no different. Although short at only 3 minutes and 25 seconds, this is a winding tale that is open to many differing interpretations but it’s also another departure of genres for Radiohead as they delve into something nearing rap for this breathless tirade that leans heavily on the fairy tale image of the titular wolf being at your door, but it’s 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 could also be interpreted as the perfect bookend to an album where in 2003 humanity as a whole was being held to ransom by oppressive predators intent on only pursuing their war like desires and pushing us all into further and perpetual states of fear, anxiety and uncertainty.

In this humble narrator’s opinion, from an Orwellian warning of an up is down and down is up truth twisting future to the oppression of outside forces and determination to hold the populace in a subservient compliance, “Hail to the Thief” has aged like a fine whine (sic) in the 18 years since it’s release and since its screaming angst and portent of a future that has loomed over humanity for so long that perhaps it’s now a fully fledged and absorbed part of culture and our daily existence. The album screamed warnings of a future that lay ahead (as did OK Computer) and it seems we were all too busy (or unwilling) to see it unfolding all around us. Alas.

This is my fourth blog on Radiohead to date. The other three are noted below and further blogs on “In Rainbows”, “The King of Limbs” and “A Moon Shaped Pool” are due to be compiled and released in the coming weeks.

If you’ve read this far, from one Paranoid Android to another, thank you and bless you.

Radiohead, Pablo Honey
and how I came to love this early unruly childmedium.com

Radiohead, OK Computer
And how saying no to The Bends saved my life.medium.com

Radiohead, Kid A and Kid B
and do we all have collective amnesia or is Kid B far better than is critically recognised?medium.com