Radiohead album by album

Sail to the Moon is crazy prog. Lotta time changes in that one. Jonny -again- suffered a lot to try to make sense of it. Seems like the rest of the band didn't wanna touch it until they could get their heads around it.

 

Funny how "Sail To The Moon" sounds relatively straightforward to me time-wise, I guess until I listen really closely.

By contrast, "Pyramid Song" sounds far trickier on the surface to me, even though it's supposedly straight 4/4.

 

"Sail to the Moon" is nice. I think I got sick of hearing it though and took a long break. The clipping distortion in the mix (haven't compared it to the unmastered version to see if that's better) is a problem for me though

 

Sail to the Moon, I do love it. It’s extremely beautiful and always triggers vivid imagery in my brain whenever it’s on. The song is unimaginably languid, very narcotic feeling, yet also so complex. There are a lot of gorgeous little moments in the music. This was one of the show highlights at my 2003 gig.

I agree it somehow gets lost in the shuffle of all their greatest songs, which is weird.

 

The clipping distortion I'm talking about in SttM is specifically in the left channel when Ed's arpeggiated guitar enters on the line "know right from wrong"... it's even present in the original vinyl pressing. Does anyone know if that's there in the unmastered one? I know there is some DIFFERENT distortion in that version, but it's been ages since I've heard it

 

"Sail To The Moon" was one of the first tracks I really liked and latched onto when the live versions were being leaked online in 2002.

Great version here from Salamanca, Spain, though this video is one long chunk (song starts near the end at 2:13:59)

 

Track 4: 'Backdrifts'

From the 'Exit Music' book:

In a previous era, 'Backdrifts' might have been called electropop, in the manner of Depeche Mode or the Human League. There's something charmingly antiquated about its tick-tocking drum machine and hazy synth chords, even as the song strives for modernity. Some critics have detected political undertones in the lyrics, but lines like "You fell into our arms/We tried but there was nothing we could do" are vague enough to be read in a wide variety of ways. What matters more is the restless vocal melody, highlighted by a particularly catchy chorus, and the ethereal piano solo, which sounds like it's emanating from a deep cavern.

 

I like "Backdrifts" a lot, I seem to recall this not being a part of the early album leak, but I may be remembering that wrong. Either way, I like the relatively mellow sonics of this track, and it's another example of the band finding the human heart beating in the machine.

 

Backdrifts was one of the one that started way back on the OKC tour, similarly to Sit Down. Stand Up. Then was worked upon further in the Kid A sessions but Thom had trouble writing lyrics to it.

I've never really rated it highly, really. The chorus is kinda annoying. That's all I can say about it really. For live performances, Jonny added a backwards guitar solo.

 

I really loved hearing that solo at the shows

 

Yeah Backdrifts could have been one of the better songs on Depeche Mode’s Violator, though rhythmically it’s far busier and more syncopated than most bands like that. On HTTT though it’s kind of a sleeper hit, stuck between two obvious highlights like STTM and Go to Sleep. I should single this track out more often. The piano is fantastic.

Lyrically Backdrifts feels akin to the clear-eyed reckoning of There There, butting heads with the same dangerous power dynamic as Sit Down Stand Up. But here the overlords are almost sympathized with, more complex figures. “We tried but there was nothing we could do.”

Perfect sequence of tracks for this part of the album. Almost easy to forget how melodically strong the first half of HTTT is, given how many weird directions the back half takes.

 

Late to the party, but I did not know that "Sail to the Moon" was written for Thom's son, Noah.

"The third track is a lullaby-like piano ballad with shifting time signatures, was written in five minutesfor Yorke’s infant son Noah.

Alluding to the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark, the song contains the lyrics

maybe you’ll be president, but know right from wrong / or in the flood you’ll build an ark / and sail us to the moon."

Tate observed that the song

thus, in biographical context, becomes addressed to a next generation in the same…" Radiohead – Sail to the Moon Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

 

And you can really appreciate the complexity of STTM here:

 

I always thought of "Backdrifts" as a kind of quirky love song. Never actually looked up or bothered to read the lyrics, though.

 

It does feel like "Backdrifts" has a foot in the electronic and a foot in the organic, whereas the previous three songs felt like they were straddling different sides of that divide. Thom's vocal delivery is much more aggressive and declaratory here, compared to the weird detachment of "Sit Down". I think that style really works in its favour and balances out the coldness of the drum pattern and weird chimey guitar noises. It's also pretty funky, thanks to the brilliant programming, and some subtly syncopated piano chords that enter about halfway through. I remember onstage Thom retreating from the sampler/microphone up front to sit down and hit those chords, then SPRINTING back to the mic to sing that reprise of the first verse

EDIT: Here's a good live version:

 

On 28 June 2003 Radiohead returned to Glastonbury for another historic concert
Unlike what happened in 1997, this time they fully enjoyed the gig and delivered a truly memorable performance

It was a celebration. A triumph. The band and the 100,000 audience loved being there. And there even singalongs for the 'Hail To The Thief' songs, released just a couple of weeks before (not counting those ones who previously "had" - yours included - the album leaked!)

Why Radiohead’s 2003 Glastonbury set was better than 1997’s | NME

1. There There
2. 2 + 2 = 5
3. Lucky
4. The National Anthem
5. Talk Show Host
6. Where I End and You Begin
7. Climbing Up the Walls
8. The Gloaming
9. No Surprises
10. Fake Plastic Trees
11. Sit Down. Stand Up.
12. Go to Sleep
13. Sail to the Moon
14. Paranoid Android
15. Idioteque
16. Everything in Its Right Place
17. Just
18. Karma Police
19. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

 

Are we doing the album track by track? There are some very interesting things when we get to "Punch Up At A Wedding".

 

Just adding here, despite being "on board" with Radiohead pretty much from Creep onwards, I've been content mainly just to see what other folks say. Radiohead are a band that have been able to disappear from my playlists for fairly lengthy periods. The "down-ness" of the music can sometimes make it tough for me to WANT to go back to, but I always do eventually. I also have a harder time going back to anything before OKC.

My first time seeing them was in Hutchinson Field in Chicago, on the Kid A/Amnesiac tour, which will go down as one of my all-time favorite shows. It was perfection, especially when they were in THAT particular moment.

Hail to the Thief was then the first full album of theirs after I first saw them. Seeing that tour couldn't help but be a step down from the prior one, just as the album couldn't help but be a step down from Kid A. It's still one I'll revisit on occasion and sort of wonder what's missing. Some combination of too many tracks, and some sort of half-baked ideas, make it tough to really recommend to newcomers. There There is the best track by far, with a couple of other great tracks, but the total result is just kind of....exhausting.

I almost see a parallel with U2's Pop here: each are the follow-up to the big, noteworthy shift that put each band in the stratosphere, and those high points being marked with a 1-2 punch of albums that work almost as a whole mission statement.

Also, while Everything In Its Right Place continued to be a showstopper on this tour, the effect was marred a bit by the lights/graphics on stage spelling out the title with an unfortunate apostrophe in "It's". This mistake would continue in the In Rainbows version, too.

 

Yep, just discussing Backdrifts yesterday, so Go to Sleep is coming down the pike.

 

I lived in Michigan so I almost went to the Chicago show, but chose the Ohio show instead. My then roommate was at your show, she said it was incredible.

 

It was. Just a perfect combination of the right band, the right time/album, perfect location, and a beautiful, warm summer night. They were really in the zeitgeist, and it was palpable--you felt like you were watching history even then. I went in wondering if the band would be as surly or unhappy as had been rumored/seen during Meeting People Is Easy, but they and the audience just seemed to love that show. It's also where I realized being just a little taller than most was a real blessing when seeing a show in what was basically an open, flat field.

 

Apparently he cried out of relief. Just found this on Wikipedia:

“Radiohead recorded a version of "There There" at the studio [Ocean Way] but were not satisfied with the results. According to Jonny, "Sometimes it doesn't work at all, because you haven't got the real volume of a live concert ... that just doesn't really work coming out of speakers in your front room ... It just sounded a bit like we were trying to make a worthy 'live band playing together' recording."

Yorke feared the song may be lost, but Radiohead returned to the UK and recorded an alternative version in their Oxfordshire studio. Yorke said he cried with relief when he heard Godrich's mix, saying he had dreamed of how he wanted the song to sound: "And one day you walk into the studio and there it is. But you've not been standing there with a hammer and trying to beat it out of the desk or your guitar, it's not necessary. It's just there one day."”

 

On 18 August 2003 'Go To Sleep' was released. It was the second single from 'Hail To The Thief'

From the 'Exit Music' book:

The boldly strummed chords that open 'Go To Sleep' are, title aside, a wake-up call from the reverie of the preceding two songs. Again, guitars are to the fore, with Thom, Ed and Jonny providing crisp acoustic and electric layers around the clarion vocal. Might this be an homage to the early work of R.E.M.? Quite possibly, only R.E.M. never lingered around the time signatures of 5/4 and 6/4 the way Radiohead do here. As for the lyrics, they're tough to fathom, though the number of times Yorke repeats the words "Over my dead body" suggests that the "sleep" discussed here is of the everlasting sort.

"With most of the lyrics, like the ones on 'Go To Sleep'," its author says, "I was thinking, 'Well, this is obviously all nonsense, I'll have to rewrite it.' Then there we were in the studio on the day of recording and I hadn't rewritten it yet, so it was, 'Right, that'll have to be it.' And now I look at it, they're the lyrics I'm most proud of."

Thom certainly makes those lyrics sound worthy of pride, singing the line "We don't want the loonies taking over" with special relish. He's spurred on by a rock-solid ensemble performance. Jonny gets to let loose with some gloriously ugly bursts of bent notes, and Ed throws in some twisted feedback.

CD 1

1. "Go to Sleep"
2. "I Am Citizen Insane"
3. "Fog (Again)" (Live)

CD 2

1. "Go to Sleep"
2. "Gagging Order"
3. "I Am a Wicked Child"

CD1





CD2

 

Here's a great acoustic Thom & Jonny Greenwood performance

 

"Go To Sleep" was the true return to rock of sorts that many had been waiting on, even though it came in the form of a song that was driven primarily by acoustic guitars. I remember someone saying it sounds like Soundgarden . Nevertheless, the layers of riffs are really on point here, Thom's vocal is bracing, and when Jonny lets loose on the effects pedals, it's a brief but thrilling moment (I remember yet another live MTV performance set where it was fun to watch Jonny sonically self-destruct the track on the pedals at the end). Definitely one of the best songs on the record for me, possibly the best, and an obvious choice for a single.

Of the B-sides, "Gagging Order" is a nice little acoustic track, but the charmingly shambolic "I Am A Wicked Child" is a standout and there's really nothing else in the Radiohead oeuvre like it. "I Am Citizen Insane" is yet another electronic sketch. "Fog (Again)" is quite nice but feels like a leftover from the Amnesiac era.