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Statistics
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Artists:
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6,825
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Albums:
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34,364
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Lyrics:
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288,438
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Song Views:
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43,889,132
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Reviews:
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10,300
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Comments:
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155,535
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Total Users:
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20,075
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Online Users:
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148
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Usage Statistics
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(Nice Dream)
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Submitted By: Big D
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This song's lyrics are said to be inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle, particularly the line "the sea will electrocute us all". The song's narrator revels in a happy-life fantasy, but concludes it can be nothing more than a "nice dream". The demo version, available on the compilation Volume 13, is mainly an acoustic number featuring organ and strings, and contains different lyrics, including "I'm a sweet man, made of chocolate".
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15 Step
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Submitted By: Big D
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The version of the song on In Rainbows features sampled hand-claps provided by young children at the "Matrix Music School & Arts Centre" located in London. Towards the end of the song there is also a highly manipulated sample of the children yelling, "Yeah!"
The children were recorded in a small session with Colin Greenwood and Nigel Godrich. They showed up with a few microphones, practice amp, and a small laptop computer in which the children were recorded directly to computer.
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2 + 2 = 5
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Submitted By: Big D
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The song's title "2 + 2 = 5" recalls the symbol of unreality from George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the book, inhabitants of an authoritarian future state are made to engage in doublethink, replacing their own conscience and beliefs with those imposed from above. At the end of the novel, the protagonist's individuality is demolished, as he avows that two and two are, in fact, five. The song contains similar inaccuracies including January bringing April showers, also a possible reference to Yorke's fears of climate change.
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A Wolf At The Door
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Submitted By: Big D
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The line "flan in the face" is a reference to Clare Short, the U.K. overseas aid/development secretary who was once assaulted with a custard pie by anti-globalization activists and who later resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet over the Iraq War. The "wolf" title and reference to Three Little Pigs has been seen as one of many fairy tale metaphors on the album, inspired by his status as a new father. Apparently Yorke felt the lyrics were too bleak to use, until Jonny came up with the jaunty, angular backing music.
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Airbag
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Submitted By: Big D
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Originally entitled "Last Night an Airbag Saved My Life," a headline which Thom Yorke read in an AA manual that came in the mail.
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Amnesiac/Morning Bell
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Submitted By: Big D
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The sampled electronic sounds of "Idioteque" continue as they are absorbed into the beat of "Morning Bell."
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Black Star
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Submitted By: Big D
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The second of screaming feedback that can be heard in the second chorus of "Black Star" (at the 2:00 minute mark) was actually a mistake made during recording, but was kept due to Thom and Jonny's insistence.
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Bones
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Submitted By: Big D
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It is one of the heavier rock songs on the record, and features lead singer Thom Yorke express his fears of ill health and old age. It was recorded on the same day as the album's title track, which guitarist Jonny Greenwood described as: "easily the best day of recording".
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Bones
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Submitted By: Big D
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The song was premiered during the band's 1994 summer tour, and was described by reviewers as "quite sensational" and "stunning". However, it has since been dropped from Radiohead's setlist and is rarely played live.
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Climbing Up The Walls
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Submitted By: Big D
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The distant scream heard at the end of this song is caused by Thom Yorke flipping his acoustic guitar up to his face and screaming into it, creating the distorted and hollow effect for his vocals.
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Dollars And Cents
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Dollars & Cents" references the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization, a turning point for the anti-globalisation movement, with lines like "it's all over the streets tonight" (these lyrics are sung live by Yorke, not on the album version).
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Electioneering
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Submitted By: Big D
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Lead singer Thom Yorke was thinking of the Poll Tax Riots as he wrote "Electioneering", the scenes where people were breaking down the gates of Downing Street. As well as being political, the song is also about Radiohead, travelling around the globe and having to sell their records to people.
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Everything In Its Right Place
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Submitted By: Big D
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The opening track from Radiohead's fourth album, this song emphasizes the band's increasing use of electronic music and distortions of Thom Yorke's vocals.
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Exit Music (For A Film)
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Submitted By: Big D
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Written specifically for the ending credits of the 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet.
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Fake Plastic Trees
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Fake Plastic Trees" producer Paul Kolderie missed a cue during the final verse (the distorted guitars were meant to come in at the beginning of the bar), but the result was so pleasing that the mistake was left on the final mix. The song also was partly inspired by the commercial development of Canary Wharf.
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Fake Plastic Trees
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Submitted By: Big D
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The lead vocal take of "Fake Plastic Trees" was recorded immediately after the band had seen Jeff Buckley playing upstairs at The Garage in London. Thom went straight to the studio after the concert, recorded the take, then broke down in tears.
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Faust Arp
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Submitted By: Big D
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Faust is a German legend in which a scholar makes a pact with the Devil, while Arp is short for arpeggio.
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Faust Arp
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Submitted By: Big D
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The song is finger-picked on an acoustic guitar and bears some similarity to the pattern of finger-picking on "Julia" by The Beatles.
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Fitter Happier
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Submitted By: Big D
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"fitter happier" is the only song on OK Computer not sung by Thom Yorke. Instead the lyrics are read by Fred Cooper, who also provided his voice to the voice synthesizer on the Apple Macintosh platform.
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Go To Sleep
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Submitted By: Big D
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The guitar-work at the end of this track was achieved by Jonny Greenwood playing a sequence of random notes on his guitar that were being processed through a digital patch for software called Max/MSP, which is musical software frequently used by electronica or experimental artists. Some believe that even though this is a random process, what you hear on record sounds slightly more structured and therefore may have been edited in the production process. However, Greenwood has played this song live using the same patch on many occasions, most notably on Later...With Jools Holland where the patch seemed to generate a more frantic and random rendition of the unique solo.
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High And Dry
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Submitted By: Big D
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"High and Dry" was originally played by Thom's band at Exeter University, the Headless Chickens. However, the Radiohead version came to being after drummer Phil Selway was testing his new bass drum. The song was demo-recorded before Pablo Honey came out, and the band had no plans to release it on their next album until receiving record label pressure. In 2006, Thom Yorke said it was the only time he had had his "arm twisted", to "put it anywhere". In 1998, Jonny Greenwood said, "Seems like there's always a song or two on every album, which is kind of a dead end, and isn't going anywhere... I always felt that 'High and Dry' on The Bends was a good pop song, and is alright, but it felt like it was the end of something, like we'd finished that kind of thing."
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House Of Cards
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Submitted By: Big D
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The "Throw your keys in the bowl" line is a reference to "Key Parties" where swinging couples would exchange sexual partners by having the women pick the car-keys of the men from a bowl that is passed around the room.
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How To Disappear Completely
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Submitted By: Big D
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The early version of the song was starker than both the final studio and live versions. In the studio, Radiohead member Jonny Greenwood developed the song in a different direction from the band's earlier work - arranging a string section (played by the Orchestra of St. John's), and himself playing the Ondes martenot, an early electronic instrument popularized by the works of Olivier Messiaen. The recording was pieced together over months during the experimental and sometimes contentious recording sessions for Kid A, in which co-producer (with the band) Nigel Godrich also played an important role. According to Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, "When Jonny did the strings on 'How to Disappear Completely,' that was absolutely his thing. Nigel [Godrich] helped him, and that was it. The rest of us were not involved in that at all".
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Hunting Bears
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Hunting Bears" is a brief instrumental (and one of only two such tracks to appear on the band's full length albums, along with Kid A's "Treefingers"). The song has been seen as reminiscent of "ambient" material such as the mid-'70s work of Brian Eno (it closely parallels the melodic structure of Eno's 'Zawinul/Lava' from his 1975 album Another Green World). The title may reference the "modified bears" found throughout the Kid A-era artwork and blips (the band's "logo" had however changed by the time of Amnesiac to a crying minotaur). The phrase "we're going hunting for bears / la la la we're not scared" also appeared in a story written by artistic collaborator Stanley Donwood and found on the band's website prior to the album, referencing an incident of racial hate crimes. The band played the song live several times on solo guitar, as an outro for "The National Anthem". The earliest track list of Amnesiac sent to the press did not contain this song, but had "Cuttooth", which was ultimately left off the album to become a B-side on the "Knives Out" single.
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I Might Be Wrong
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Submitted By: Big D
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The riff is similar to that of the song Loser by the artist Beck who is a friend of Yorke's.
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I Will
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Submitted By: Big D
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Also known as "No Man's Land."
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Idioteque
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Submitted By: Big D
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Singer Thom Yorke usually dances during the song, and the crowd joins in singing the second verse ("Ice age coming, ice age coming").
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In Limbo
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Submitted By: Big D
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The title may be a reference to the spiritual concept of Limbo, specifically in the writings of Dante.
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In Limbo
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Submitted By: Big D
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The lyrics "Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea / I've got a message I can't read" reference the British shipping forecast.
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Jigsaw Falling Into Place
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Submitted By: Big D
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When it is performed live, the song features distorted guitar and resembles the music of Sonic Youth, who has been an influence on the band.
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Just
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Submitted By: Big D
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The single's famous video was directed by Jamie Thraves, who was hand-picked by the band after they saw several of his experimental short films. It was filmed near Liverpool Street Station in London.
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Karma Police
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Submitted By: Big D
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The sound at the end of the song was created by Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien by "feeding sound through a digital delay machine".
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Kid A
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Submitted By: Big D
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Thom Yorke's vocals have been heavily modified, producing a distorted effect similar to a vocoder and rendering his lyrics nearly unintelligible. Yorke sings over a backdrop of sterile, downbeat electronica, including a lullaby-like xylophone (possibly synthesized), synthesized strings and electronic drum pad or machine. Digital software such as Pro Tools and Cubase were often used in composing music by the band at this time and since.
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Knives Out
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Submitted By: Big D
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The tune's chord progression is also very similar to the one heard in the first part of Radiohead's 1997 single "Paranoid Android."
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Let Down
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Submitted By: Big D
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The track was ultimately not released as a single because the band was unsatisfied with the video they had produced, and ended up losing money.
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Life In A Glass House
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Submitted By: Big D
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It is performed by lead singer Thom Yorke with veteran British trad jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band.
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Like Spinning Plates
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Submitted By: Big D
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The song was apparently created by reversing the backing track from 'I Will,' which was composed during the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions but did not appear as a release until their 2003 album Hail to the Thief. Thom Yorke then wrote a new, electronic song around the reversed melody, then reversed it again so the vocals were backwards.
Yorke learned the backwards vocals, sang and recorded them over the backing track, and reversed the track once more. Finally, Yorke sang the song forward again for the final take, mimicking the distorted sound of his manipulated vocals in the verses.
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Lucky
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Lucky" was one of the first songs the band recorded with Nigel Godrich, who would become their full time producer on OK Computer and the subsequent three albums.
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Lucky
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Submitted By: Big D
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It was originally recorded for The Help Album, a 1995 compilation to benefit the War Child charity and appeared on Now That's What I Call Music! 32 as "Lucky (Warchild)".
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Morning Bell
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Submitted By: Big D
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According to Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, the song went through many stages, and the Amnesiac version was actually the first to be written, before being "lost" and then suddenly remembered again, leading to the other version. Both versions were committed to tape during the same period of recording sessions in 1999–2000 (along with the rest of the material on both albums). However, the Kid A version was released first and is better known. It also forms the basis for the song's live performances.
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Motion Picture Soundtrack
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Submitted By: Big D
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On Kid A the song itself fades out at around 3:18 into the track (#10), and is followed by a minute of silence, then a 50-second instrumental and nearly 2 more minutes of silence, which brings the total length of the album to exactly 50 minutes. The instrumental "hidden track" in the interlude after the song ends is sometimes mistaken to be a separate song named "Genchildren", because this was the name of the group that originally leaked Kid A to the internet. In fact, the brief untitled fragment most likely samples the harp sounds of "Motion Picture Soundtrack" itself, forming a delayed coda. On the vinyl version, this "hidden" track comes at the very end of the seven-minute track time, starting at 6:05.
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Motion Picture Soundtrack
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Submitted By: Big D
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The album version of "Motion Picture Soundtrack" differs from the original versions in lacking both a final verse ("beautiful angel pulled apart at birth/limbless and helpless/I can't even recognize you") and acoustic guitar accompaniment. Instead it features Yorke playing the harmonium, and sampled harp glissandi by Jonny Greenwood.[3] The band commented that they had given up on the song in its old form, until finding the new "Walt Disney" style arrangement. Some have compared its orchestration to the Beatles' "Good Night," the final song on the white album.
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My Iron Lung
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Submitted By: Big D
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"My Iron Lung" was the band's response to the popularity of its song "Creep". The song has also been noted for similarities to Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box".
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No Surprises
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Submitted By: Big D
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In the video, Thom Yorke holds his breath underwater in a plastic bubble for 57 seconds. However, in the documentary "Meeting People Is Easy", Yorke had his head underwater for a short amount of time during the recording.
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Nude
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Submitted By: Big D
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Also known as "Big Ideas" or "Big Ideas (Don't get any)."
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Optimistic
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Submitted By: Big D
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It is jokingly called by the band 'Poptimistic' because of its structure and instrumentation compared to the other songs on Kid A.
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Optimistic
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Submitted By: Big D
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The lyrics of the song reference George Orwell's Animal Farm.
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Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" was originally known as "Po Pad" several months before the album came out, when Ed O'Brien described it to the media as "upbeat". The song may sample a gamelan recording at the start. The band used auto-tuning, a process usually employed in dance-pop songs such as those by Cher and Britney Spears, to give an unnatural tone to Thom Yorke's voice. The song received some rare live interpretations in 2001 with the electronic sound replaced by a fuzz-guitar riff, such as in the band's session for Canal+. Yorke sometimes dedicated the song live to those caught in traffic gridlock on the way to their concerts. Reviewers of Amnesiac who had been expecting the band's "return to rock" thought the opening lyrics relevant: "after years of waiting / nothing came / and you realize you're looking / looking in the wrong place / I'm a reasonable man, get off my case".
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Paranoid Android
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Submitted By: Big D
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Rolling Stone notes that the song "was recorded in actress Jane Seymour's fifteenth-century mansion, a house that lead singer Thom Yorke was convinced was haunted".
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Planet Telex
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Planet Telex" was recorded when Thom Yorke was drunk after they had all gone out to a restaurant because the catering staff at RAK studios were having a day off. Thom was said to be slumping on the floor and a microphone was placed near his mouth. This also was the only song written in the recording studio. The song's title was originally going to be "Planet Xerox", but this was changed to avoid legal issues.
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Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" is the only song on Amnesiac that has never been performed live (apart from the Amnesiac version of "Morning Bell"). It was created by severely manipulating a discarded, unreleased studio recording of "True Love Waits", an anthemic ballad - legendary among fans - that has only been aired by the band in live acoustic versions since the mid-'90s. The resulting song was seen by some to bear a resemblance to experimental drill n bass and IDM artists such as Squarepusher and Aphex Twin - both favourites of Yorke - with radical vocal effects again created using pitch-shifting. The lyrics appear to continue from a line in Kid A's "In Limbo", about "trap doors that open".
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Pyramid Song
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Pyramid Song" was issued in most parts of the world, except the United States (where "I Might Be Wrong" was the first, radio-only single).
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Pyramid Song
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Submitted By: Lancer.sdP
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"Pyramid Song" was strongly influenced by jazz musician Charles Mingus' piece "Freedom".
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Reckoner
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Submitted By: Big D
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The album's title "In Rainbows" is derived from lyrics in the song's bridge.
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Reckoner
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Submitted By: Big D
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Radiohead premiered a song named 'Reckoner (Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses)' live on June 23, 2001, but this song-- featuring a prominent distorted guitar riff-- bears no resemblance, apart from a shared title and a single lyric ('reckoner'), to the finished track. It is assumed that the original song was abandoned and the title salvaged for use in a different track.
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Sail To The Moon
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Submitted By: Big D
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The song is said to be partly about global warming, and reportedly references Thom Yorke's first son Noah, born in 2001.
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Sit Down, Stand Up
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Submitted By: Big D
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Thom Yorke has said the song came about after he watched a television report on genocide in the 1990s. The line "we can wipe you out anytime" was also used in previous Radiohead album artwork in reference to the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
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Street Spirit (Fade Out)
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Submitted By: Big D
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According to Thom Yorke, "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" was inspired by the book The Famished Road by Ben Okri.
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Subterranean Homesick Alien
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Submitted By: Big D
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Originally called "Uptight", which is how Jonny Greenwood referred to it in its early stages, the song pays homage to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues".
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Sulk
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Submitted By: Big D
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"Sulk" was written as a response to the Hungerford massacre.
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The Bends
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Submitted By: Big D
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Of the opening, Thom Yorke says, "The sound at the beginning comes from this caterwauling mayhem outside this hotel in the States. There was this guy training these eight-year-old kids, who were parading up and down with all these different instruments. The guy had this little microphone on his sweater and was going: 'Yeah, keep it up, keep it up.' So I ran out and taped it".
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The Bends
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Submitted By: Big D
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The original 4-track demo of the song features a recorder solo from Jonny Greenwood.
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The Gloaming
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Submitted By: Big D
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In an interview with Rolling Stone, Thom Yorke stated that an "enormously shredded-up element" of The Gloaming is used in the song "And It Rained All Night" from Yorke's solo album, The Eraser.
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The National Anthem
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Submitted By: Big D
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The jazz style arrangement was apparently influenced by Charles Mingus, one of Thom's favorite composers,[3] while the song also features an Ondes Martenot, played by Jonny Greenwood. That early electronic instrument was picked up by Jonny for several songs on Kid A and subsequent albums, inspired by the music of Olivier Messiaen which makes much use of it. Some also found "The National Anthem" reminiscent of the contemporary work of fellow UK bands Primal Scream and Spiritualized, with whom Radiohead had toured in 1998.
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The Tourist
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Submitted By: Big D
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It was written by Jonny Greenwood, who was inspired to write it while sitting in a park in Paris and noticing the busy tourists who did not seem to be enjoying the beautiful area around them.
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The Tourist
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Submitted By: Big D
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The final note of the song is believed to be the bell noise of a microwave oven.
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There There
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Submitted By: Big D
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The video for "There There" was filmed at one-quarter regular speed. As a result it looks jumpy, as if some of the frames are missing.
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Treefingers
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Submitted By: Big D
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A slightly "extended" version of "Treefingers" appeared on the soundtrack CD of Christopher Nolan's film Memento (2001), though it was not heard in the film.
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Treefingers
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Submitted By: Big D
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It is one of the few songs that the band has never performed live.
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Up On The Ladder
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Submitted By: Big D
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According to Ed O'Brien's on-line diary from the Kid A/Amnesiac recording sessions, "Up on the Ladder" is a song that has existed in some form since 1999. Q Magazine reported in early 2003 that "Up on the Ladder" had been recorded for Hail to the Thief, but it did not appear on that album.
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Videotape
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Submitted By: Big D
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The final incarnation of the song on In Rainbows has changed from the build-up of the initial 2006 version. The drumming has been replaced and all guitar has been removed.
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Weird Fishes / Arpeggi
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Submitted By: Big D
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The version that appears on the album is similar to the 2006 version with Phil Selway's driving drum beat, although it retains many of the atmospheric, bubbly qualities of the 2005 version.
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Where I End And You Begin
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Submitted By: Big D
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The song's obscure lyrics, written by Radiohead's Thom Yorke, have been subject to speculation. Some contend that it is about death, or God. Others say that is it about the end of a relationship. As with most of their work, Radiohead likes to leave the meaning ambiguous, with the belief that the same lyrics can relate to many different things.
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You And Whose Army?
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Submitted By: Big D
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The lyrics of "You and Whose Army?" are often seen as a political statement about British Prime Minister Tony Blair, due to comments Yorke has made in interviews. Blair was in power when the song was written, and was running for a second term just as the song came out. Even before the war in Iraq, Yorke often admitted his frustration and anger with Blair and 'New Labour'.
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