TOP TEN: RADIOHEAD

With Radiohead playing at Lancashire County Cricket Ground on Sunday, The Writer and The Editor (who are both going) offer up their own Top Ten Radiohead Songs lists. And one of them couldn't even stick to just ten...

THE WRITER

1. No Surprises (OK Computer)
The glockenspiel, the video, the use on The Royale Family…there are so many reasons to love No Surprises (it also begins arguably the finest ending to any album ever, segueing perfectly into Lucky and then The Tourist). But the reason why No Surprises is at the top of this list, why it’s the greatest Radiohead song ever, is that it’s the finest example of what they do so brilliantly: filter their political interests through personal stories. In its mentions of “bringing down the government” and “handshakes of carbon monoxide”, this is every bit as angry a song as Electioneering. But unlike that track, No Surprises introduces us to an everyday protagonist. He’s sick of his job, yearning for a more simple life (“such a pretty house, such a pretty garden”) and concerned for his girlfriend (“you look so tired, unhappy”). The imagery Yorke creates in telling this character‘s story (hearts filled like landfills, handshakes of carbon monoxide, final fits and bellyaches) is some of his most evocative ever, and the simple chorus of “no alarms and no surprises, please” is heartbreakingly simple. By the end, he’s not describing some random guy any more, he’s describing you and I in our darkest hour. Yet, the song’s ultimate triumph is that it leaves you not with a feeling of despair, but one of hope and happiness. We all have “bruises that won’t heel”, and there’s something about hearing that in a song that’s deeply cathartic.

2. Motion Picture Soundtrack (Kid A)
I know what you’re thinking. ‘Well, this list is just a barrel of laughs’, right? But much like No Surprises, Motion Picture Soundtrack is a dark song (probably about suicide) with a hopeful edge. Musically a simple blend of acoustic guitar and organ, it introduces us to someone who has lost or split up with his girlfriend. The line “red wine and sleeping pills help me get back to your arms” seems to suggest our hero is going to commit suicide after his partner‘s death, but the reference to ‘sent letters getting burned’ points more towards a painful break up the protagonist has not yet got over. Whatever the reason for his unhappiness, he seems absolutely sure he will “get back where he belongs” and even if the final line does point almost unavoidably toward death, the little flurry of harp which joins it adds a positive flavour which allows the listener to leave the otherwise dark and apocalyptic world of Kid A with a sense of optimism.

3. Pyramid Song (Amnesiac)
So, that’s three songs possibly about death in the top three. I’d like to make it perfectly clear at this point that I am not some kind of death-obsessed nut case. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. What I like about these songs is that, despite their dark, brooding music, the lyrics are hopeful and positive. Pyramid Song is the most complex example. The opening line (“I jumped in the river…”) certainly points to a dark subject matter, but the rest of the track is beautifully upbeat. Our hero is shown “a moon full of stars” and “astral cars”, before going to “heaven in a little row boat”. Death, right? Nope. While on this journey, our protagonist is introduced to “all the figures I used to see”, “all my lovers” and “all my past and future”…And if he has a future, he’s not dead. Indeed, for me, this song isn’t about death at all, it’s a musical companion to It’s A Wonderful Life. Seriously! Like George Bailey in that film, our hero is given some divine intervention, shown his past, future, everyone he’s known and everyone he will ever know and told, ultimately, that there’s “nothing to fear and nothing to doubt”. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was told that and then given the choice between life and death, I know what I’d choose.

4. Paranoid Android (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttNE-QZWR0c)
Ok, why is this some random demo version rather than the official recording on OK Computer? Well, one reason could be that I‘ve listened to Paranoid Android so many times that I‘ve become bored of it. It’s shocking, but a possibility. More than that though, ever since I found this early demo recording of the track on YouTube, I’ve just about preferred it to the OKC offering because it lends the song a completely different tone. For the most part, both versions are identical. A line here, a word there are different, but essentially they’re the same. Until, that is, the final section comes along. In the ‘rain down…’ chorus Thom sings ‘Hallelujah’ and adds an ‘Amen’ to the end, almost like a prayer, and the outro is longer and has Jonny Greenwood’s organ higher in the sound mix. A subtle difference perhaps, but it adds a more melancholic, less angry feel to the piece which turns Paranoid Android into a sad, plaintive cry for help. The official version remains fantastic, of course, but this one just has that little bit extra humanity that makes Radiohead a cut above the rest.

5. Fog (Knives Out B-side)
Here‘s another song that comes in two different incarnations. One, the second to be released, is on the Hail to the Thief-era ‘Com Lag EP’. It’s a simple, piano-led version of the song and apparently Yorke considers it the superior one. On this rare occasion, Thom, I beg to differ. For me, the best version of this magnificent track can be found on the B-side to the single version of Knives Out (itself a classic). Unlike most Radiohead songs, I have no clue what Thom is singing about. As far as I can tell, it’s something about small children, alligators and things going bad. What that has to do with fog I don’t know, but the track is on here mainly because of the music. It begins with some ambient noise, almost like wind blowing by outside. Then Colin Greenwood’s bass kicks in joined by some gentle tapping. Yorke’s vocals begin, before the guitars are put into the mix as well. The drumming becomes more insistent, the gentle lullaby sounds in the background grow louder and then, finally, it explodes into life. The Yorke solo version is wonderful too, but this is a cracking mix of OKC Radiohead and Kid A/Amnesiac Radiohead, and it’s a shame it never found its way onto an album.

6. True Love Waits (I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings EP)
Ah, now here’s a lyric I can understand. Probably one of the few straight-up Radiohead love songs, True Love Waits looked set to be one of their great lost classics as the band went years without ever being able to agree upon a releasable version. It became a firm fan favourite though and was often played live, leading to its release on the I Might Be Wrong live EP. Written from the point of view of a lovelorn protagonist begging his partner to stay with him, it’s a simple acoustic number that boasts some of Yorke’s finest lyrics. “I’ll dress like your niece to wash your swollen feet” is a curious but sweet expression of devotion, while “your tiny hands, your crazy kitten smile” is just plain lovely. But it’s the penultimate verse that is my favourite. “True love waits, in haunted attics, and true love lives, on lollipops and crisps.” It was apparently inspired by the story of a young boy, abandoned at home by his holidaying parents for a week, who got by on crisps and lollipops alone, and is another great example of the positive element to Radiohead’s songwriting that many overlook.

7. A Reminder (Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP)
You want an example of Radiohead’s genius, this is it. Yorke apparently wrote this song while bored one day. Yep, he wrote one of the band’s best songs out of boredom! A Reminder is based on an idea Yorke had about writing a song that someone could play back to a friend in their old age to remind them of their youth. It begins with disillusionment: the hazy sound of indistinguishable voices at a train station and some loose guitar strumming. But once Yorke’s vocal kicks it, it gains in pace as he sings: “If I get old, I will not give in. But if I do, remind me of this”. The second verse continues with the same affirming tone: “Remind me that once I was free, once I was cool, once I was me”. The music continues to build until it hits a crescendo in the fourth verse. Then, to finish us off, Yorke sings the song’s sweetest line: “If I get old, remind me of this, that night we kissed, and I really meant it. Whatever happens, if we’re still speaking. Pick up the phone, play me this song”. Whoever said Radiohead were depressing?

8. Reckoner (In Rainbows)
Bang up to date now with what I reckon (see what I did there?) is the best song off In Rainbows. Bizarrely though, I wasn’t very keen when I first heard it, thinking it was musically rather ho-hum. I know, sacrilege, right? What made it click for me was when I received my shiny-wonderful disc-box and read the lyrics, and suddenly what was a rather middle-of-the-road Radiohead number suddenly transformed into the heartbeat of the whole album. In Rainbows is Radiohead’s most humane and heartfelt work since OKC, and while a Reckoner sounds quite scary, the song is “dedicated to all human beings…because we separate like ripples on a blank shore”. With ethereal vocals sighing the name of the album in the background and the music hitting the high notes, I don’t think I’ve heard alienation and loneliness expressed in such a beautiful way.

9. Fake Plastic Trees (The Bends)
With its slow start, buildy-uppy (yes, it’s a word) middle and raucous end, Fake Plastic Trees arguably set-up the anthemic structure Radiohead would perfect on OK Computer and then shy away from on Kid A. It deserves its place on this list for that reason alone. But, as you might be able to tell from my choices, I’m a big fan of Yorke’s lyrics, and Fake Plastic Trees’ words make the song more complex than just a simple festival anthem. With its references to “green plastic watering cans”, “fake Chinese rubber plants”, and “cracked polystyrene men”, it seems like quite a cold, bitter song about the consumer culture of modern Britain and the obsession we have with superficial beauty. But there’s also a lot of empathy in there, with Yorke sympathising with the worn out plastic surgeon who always loses to gravity, the aforementioned polystyrene man “who just crumbles and burns” and the character at the end, who I’ve always read as being the plastic surgeon’s customer desperately doing herself over to keep hold of the man she loves, who melancholically repeats: “if I could be who you wanted…all the time”. They may be shy and withdrawn in public, but songs like this really do prove that Radiohead are a band of the people.

10. Big Boots (Man-O-War) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=EYAHxZfKiuA)
A sort of brother song to In Rainbows’ Nude, this unreleased track about adultery has now sadly been ditched by the band as unrecordable. Perhaps it’s a bit of a cheat to include it here then, but click the above link and tell me it’s not one of the band’s finest tracks. Musically they wanted to create something with a bit of a James Bond twist to it, and Big Boots would certainly sound great accompanying a Maurice Binder credit sequence. But it’s in the lyrics that the song is most interesting. Written, it seems, from the point of view of a very angry housewife who is about to take revenge on her adulterous husband, the song insists that “drunken confessions and hijacked affairs will only make you more alone” before threatening to “bake you a cake, made of all their eyes.” “What a nasty surprise,” she adds. No kidding. Fascinatingly, she also says: “You’re my man-o-war,” hinting she still loves him as part of some kind of mutually self-destructive relationship. With Bond going through a bit of a dark phase at the moment, and his relationship with women under particularly close scrutiny, this is exactly the kind of song the producers should be going for. Broccolis: find Thom Yorke’s number and demand he and the band finish it!

Honourable mentions (AKA: The Cop-Out Section): Just - The Bends (Sod off Mark Ronson!), Idioteque - Kid A (It’s a dance song. About the apocalypse!) , Like Spinning Plates - I Might Be Wrong EP (Piano led and better than Amnesiac’s version), Street Spirit - The Bends (Obviously), Melatonin - Airbag/How Am I Driving EP (Another reason to get this awesome collection), How To Disappear Completely - Kid A (One of Yorke’s most evocative lyrics), The Tourist - OKC (Best. Album. Closer. Ever), Anyone Can Play Guitar - Pablo Honey (No they can’t - I’ve tried), Myxamatosis - HTTT (does anybody know what this song is about?), How I Made My Millions - No Surprises single (released demo with Yorke’s wife cooking in the background. Reality TV for Radiohead fans), Thinking About You - Pablo Honey (“I still love you, still see you in bed, but I'm playing with myself.” Ahem), Analyse - The Eraser (Yes, it counts).

THE EDITOR

1. Fake Plastic Trees
For me, this is still the undisputed high point of Radiohead's career. Apparently recorded after they saw Jeff Buckley perform, it demonstrates perfectly the influence that he had on them on The Bends, the album that turned them from a decent indie rock band into something more special. Deceptively simple musically, but incredibly effective and with anti-consumerist lyrics that tread the line between 'good pretentious' and 'bad pretentious' perfectly, this is the song I would always choose to explain to someone why I like Radiohead.

2. Idioteque
The most successful of their experimental tracks from the Kid A/Amnesiac era, Idioteque manages to defy the convention of what a Radiohead song was supposed to be, whilst also being one of the catchiest and most memorable songs they've ever released. The lyrics were supposedly cut up and put together at random, and it certainly sounds like it, and that only adds to the mood of apocalyptic dread. Always a great live track, if only to see Thom Yorke's dancing, honed by hours of practice in the bunker...

3. Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Partly thanks to its astonishing video, this was the track that really introduced me to Radiohead, and was one of the first songs I ever tried to learn on the guitar. Like Fake Plastic Trees, Street Spirit is a really simple but effective song with one of the most instantly recognisable guitar riffs around. You can see why people might criticise it for being 'depressing' because of the way the 'fade out' refrain drags, but if that puts you off, you're missing out on a classic.

4. Lucky
This is where I get to mention Six Feet Under, as I tend to do in most of my blogs. Lucky was used in an incredibly emotive and cathartic scene involving the Fisher family stood around a bonfire of old possessions that they hadn't been able to sell in a yard sale, seeing their pasts literally go up in smoke. Even though it wasn't the song that was originally supposed to be used, this OK Computer track was perfect for the scene, but a song this powerful and classy would be great in any scene.

5. Paranoid Android
Radiohead at their prog-rock best, Paranoid Android is completely insane and one of the most uncompromising top five chart hits (their biggest UK hit) ever. One of their longest songs, with some of their heaviest guitar riffs, most beautiful melodies and most unintelligible lyrics, Paranoid Android is one of the bravest and best singles released in the 90s. A natural set-closer, I readily admit that I'll be disappointed if they don't play it on Sunday, even though I did hear it the last time I saw them.

6. No Surprises
Sure, the beauty of this song might be slightly tainted by the association of it with Dave and Denise Best on The Royle Family simpering over their little baby, but it's still another awesome OK Computer single. Like Street Spirit, it's a surprisingly simple repetitive melody that is devastatingly effective, showing that, for all of their reputation for making 'clever-clever' music, Radiohead can be at their best when keeping it simple.

7. Pyramid Song
Even though it got into the top five, Pyramid Song hardly had anything like the kind of impact on the general public as the singles from Ok Computer or The Bends had, but it's right up there (obviously) with their best tracks. Recorded during the Kid A sessions, but left off that album, it is beautiful, haunting, epic and unforgettable. To be honest, I can't write anything about it to match the stuff The Writer said, so I won't even try...

8. The National Anthem
One of the all-time great bass-lines (played by Thom Yorke apparently) gives The National Anthem a real hook and makes it one of the most instant tracks from Kid A even though it's also one of the most 'out there'. The fact that it combines the experimental electronic approach of so much of that album with obvious free-form Miles Davis/Charles Mingus jazz influences and still manages to be catchy and a live favourite just shows how great it is.

9. Nude
The fact that this is the only track from In Rainbows to make it into my list, even though In Rainbows is one of my favourite Radiohead albums, perhaps goes to show that it is a record that works best as a cohesive collection of tracks, rather than individual songs, so not many of them really stand out for me. Nude is the exception though, a gorgeous, gorgeous tune that apparently dates back to 1997, but sounds perfect in the finished form on In Rainbows. If they can make it sound that good live, it could be a highlight on Sunday.

10. Knives Out
The recurrent theme here of 'simple' songs ends with arguably the most straightforward track they've recorded since OK Computer. Famously, they agonised over it during the recording process because they were worried that it wasn't complex enough at a time in their career when they were trying to push the envelope: "We just lost our nerve," said Yorke." It was so straight-ahead. We thought, 'We've gotta put that in the bin, it's too straight.' We couldn't possibly do anything that straight until we'd gone and been completely arse about face with everything else, in order to feel good about doing something straight like that. It took 373 days to be arse-about-face enough to realise it was alright the way it was." It certainly is.