Songs Lyrics and YT- Youtube Music Videos

Radiohead - Optimistic

Radiohead - Optimistic Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Kid A
Released: 2000

Optimistic Lyrics

Flies are buzzing round my head
Vultures circling the dead
Picking up every last crumb
The big fish eat the little ones
The big fish eat the little ones
Not my problem, give me some

[Chorus]
You can try the best you can
If you try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
If you try the best you can
If you try the best you can
The best you can is good enough

This one's Optimistic
This one went to market
This one just came out of the swamp
This one dropped a payload
Fodder for the animals
Living on animal farm

[Chorus]

I'd really like to help you, man
I'd really like to help you, man
Nervous messed up marionettes
Floating around on a prison ship

If you try the best you can
You can try the best you can
The best you can is good enough
You can try the best you can
You try the best you can

Dinosaurs roaming the Earth
Dinosaurs roaming the Earth
Dinosaurs roaming the Earth

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Optimistic

During live performances, Thom Yorke has sung this version of the chorus:
"You can try the best you can, you can try the best you can. The best you can ain't good enough."
>>

Suggestion credit:
Steven - Stockton, CA

Yorke revealed in 2003 that the song's chorus ("You can try the best you can. You can try the best you can. The best you can is good enough.") came from words of encouragement he received from his partner, Rachel Owen. He was worried that "nothing we'd done was releasable."

Radiohead - Talk Show Host

Radiohead - Talk Show Host Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Street Spirit single
Released: 1995

Talk Show Host Lyrics

I want to
I want to be someone else or I'll explode
Floatin' upon this surface for the birds
The birds
The birds

You want me?
Fuckin' well, come and find me
I'll be waitin'
With a gun and a pack of sandwiches
And nothin'
Nothin'
Nothin'

You want me?
Well, come and break the door down
You want me?
Fuckin' come and break the door down
I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready
I'm ready,
I'm ready

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD / GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES / GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY / O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN / SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Talk Show Host

This has never been released on any official Radiohead album. It was released as a B-side to the single "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," the last track of their 1995 album The Bends. It also appears on the Australian compilation CD: Triple J's "J Files Presents The Greatest B-Sides of All Time".

This figured prominently in a key scene of Baz Luhrman's 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet. Another Radiohead song, "Exit Music (for a Film)" plays over the closing credits of the same movie.

Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees

Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Bends
Released: 1995

Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics

Her green plastic watering can for
her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth

What she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber bands
to get rid of itself

It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyreneman
Who just crumbles and burns

He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins

And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him

She Looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love

But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run

And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out

If i could be who you wanted
If i could be who you wanted all the time, all the time

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Fake Plastic Trees

According to Thom Yorke, this is a song about an area in east London called Canary Wharf, which was built on unused wasteland by the docks of the Thames. The area was supposed to be a major business district, but it was hurt by a market downturn in the '90s. Canary Wharf was landscaped with a lot of artificial plants, which is where the title came from.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Yorke said that this was the song where he found his lyrical voice. He cut the vocal, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, in one take, then the band filled in its parts around him. Yorke said the song began as "A very nice melody which I had no idea what to do with, then you wake up and find your head singing some words to it."

This was featured in the 1995 film Clueless.

The band were finding it difficult to nail this song and decided to take a break and catch a Jeff Buckley gig at Highbury. When they returned to the studio mesmerized by Buckley's set, Yorke sang the song twice before breaking down into tears.

According to Q magazine April 2008, Jonny Greenwood played on this an old Hammond organ, whose tone controls required resetting after every bar.

Radiohead - The Tourist

Radiohead - The Tourist Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

The Tourist Lyrics

It barks at no one else but me,
Like it's seen a ghost.
I guess it's seen the sparks a-flowin,
No one else would know.

Hey man, slow down, slow down,
Idiot, slow down, slow down.

Sometimes I get overcharged,
That's when you see sparks.
They ask me where the hell I'm going?
At a 1000 feet per second,

Hey man, slow down, slow down,
Idiot, slow down, slow down.

Hey man, slow down, slow down,
Idiot, slow down, slow down.

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Tourist

This is the last song on OK Computer, and it deals with a reckless driver. The first song on the album is "Airbag," so this serves as a warning of impending disaster.

According to Q magazine (April 2008) this was written by Jonny Greenwood in response to seeing a group of tourists dash through a town in France. It was intended to be a song about the "speed you live your life with." Yorke later added lyrics that he'd written on holiday in Prague.

Jonny Greenwood (from Humo magazine July 22, 1997): "That is MY song. I was surprised that the other four let me do it. 'The Tourist' doesn't sound like Radiohead at all. It's a song where there doesn't have to happen anything every three seconds. It has become a song with space."

Jonny Greenwood played the main melody on a Mellotron, a vintage keyboard that plays sounds recorded onto tape loops.

Radiohead - Airbag

Radiohead - Airbag Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

Airbag Lyrics

In the next world war
In a jack knifed juggernaut
I am born again

In the neon sign
Scrolling up and down
I am born again

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

In a deep, deep sleep
Of the innocent
I am born again

In a fast German car
I'm amazed that I survived
An Airbag saved my life

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Airbag

This song is about a car crash Thom Yorke was in with his girlfriend in 1987. She suffered whiplash, but he was fine. Says Yorke: "Has an airbag saved my life? Nah... but I tell you something, every time you have a near accident, instead of just sighing and carrying on, you should pull over, get out of the car and run down the street screaming 'I'm BACK! I'm ALIVE! My life has started again today!' In fact, you should do that every time you get out of a car. We're just riding on those things - we're not really in control of them."

Yorke: "So much of the public's perception revolves around illusion. That's what Airbag is about, the illusion of safety. In reality, airbags don't really work, and they go off at random."

Radiohead first began performing this song acoustic, and the working title was "An Airbag Saved My Life," which was a reference to Indeep's 1983 Dance hit "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life."

Guitarist Jonny Greenwood: "Airbag is a classic example of Colin and Phil saying, 'Let's make it sound like DJ Shadow.' But unfortunately - or fortunately - it doesn't, because we missed again. It's that thing of lumbering around in the dark, but still being excited by what we do. We're discovering these things for the first time rather than getting the pros in to show us how to do it."

This is the first song on the album OK Computer. The last song on the album, "The Tourist," is about reckless driving, which leads up to a car crash. Therefore, the album ends where it starts and makes a bizarre circle of death.

The original title of the song was "An airbag saved my life." During an XFM Acoustic Session in October, 1995, Thom Yorke said this was the title of an article in an AAA magazine that came through the post.

This was built around a looped 3-second sample of drummer Phil Selway, who cited instrumental hip hop producer DJ Shadow as an inspiration. Selway explained to Humo magazine July 22, 1997: "How that man pastes rhythms to each other. The end result sounds a lot different than we intended by the way."

Radiohead - Fitter Happier

Radiohead - Fitter Happier Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

Fitter Happier Lyrics

Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries ,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends
(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at
(moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash
(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,
tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick,
that's driven into
frozen winter xxxx
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics.
Sample looping in background:

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS / GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY / RICKWOOD, DAN
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Fitter Happier

This less-than-two-minute insert is a long commentary on life and how artificial it has become. It is spoken in a metallic voice and it is not listed as a song on the album, although it is right next to "Karma Police" in small letters on the back. The voice was generated by the Macintosh computer SimpleText application.

In an interview with Guitar World magazine, Yorke described the song as a checklist of slogans for the '90s, which he called "the most upsetting thing I've ever written."

This song, known for its computerized voice, is musically a hybrid of a score composed by Jonny Greenwood, and a piano part written by Thom Yorke (and recorded while drunk).

Thom Yorke (from Humo magazine July 22, 1997): "I had writer's block for 3 months. In that period I could only make lists of words. It took me a long time to figure out that the only way I could translate my thoughts was with these lists." Yorke added in the same interview that he wasn't standing behind the lyrics any more as "sometimes your ideas get entangled with other ideas and then you have to apologize for the original idea because it doesn't make sense any more. That's what happened with 'Fitter Happier.' Now, I listen to the piano part."

This was featured in printed form in adverts promoting the album, prompting Ed O'Brien to comment, "I think that some people really believe that message and think that we are some kind of health-freaks."

During Radiohead's 1997 tour this song was used to introduce the band on stage. Previously they had used pieces from French minimalist composer Olivier Messiaen.

The sample loop in the background of the song says: "This is the Panic Office, section nine-seventeen may have been hit. Activate the following procedure."

Radiohead - The Gloaming

Radiohead - The Gloaming Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hail To The Thief
Released: 2003

The Gloaming Lyrics

Genie let out the bottle
It is now the witching hour
Genie let out the bottle
It is now the witching hour

Murderers you're murderers
We are not the same as you

Genie let out the bottle
Funny ha ha funny how

When the walls bend
When the walls bend
With your breathing
With your breathing

When the walls bend
When the walls bend
With your breathing
With your breathing
With your breathing

They will suck you down
To the other side
They will suck you down
To the other side
They will suck you down
To the other side
They will suck you down
To the other side

To the shadows blue and red
To the shadows blue and red
Your alarm bells
Your alarm bells

To the shadows blue and red
To the shadows blue and red
Your alarm bells
Your alarm bells

Should be ringing
This is The Gloaming

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD / SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES / O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN / GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY / GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

The Gloaming

This song is built entirely around tape loops. There are no real instruments played on this song. The loops sound like broken records with Thom Yorke singing over them.

The alternate title for this track is "Softly Open Our Mouths In The Cold." (thanks, rudi - melbourne, Australia, for above 2)

In an interview with Mojo magazine February 2008, bassist Colin Greenwood admitted that he felt in retrospect that Hail To The Thief should have been pruned of a few tracks including this one: "I didn't want 3 or 4 songs on there, because I thought some of the ideas we were trying out weren't completely finished." He then went on to give "The Gloaming" as an example. "We played it live and it was cool. My brother [Jonny] sampled each of the instruments on stage, cut them up then sent them back into the mix. It was so exciting, like a live DJ show, and Thom performed off of all of that. But it wasn't the same in the studio. For me, Hail To The Thief was more of a holding process, really."

Thom Yorke told the New Musical Express: "I don't know if you have this kind of experience in your job, but in mine, you meet people who have stopped being humans. You see, in an office, there is always an ambitious asshole who just doesn't care if he causes any disservice to anybody and who really thinks he's right to do so. Or if you meet a powerful politician, it's like an empty handshaking. The empty-eyed tornado. The Gloaming, according to me, explores this sick darkness which seems impossible to block." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Radiohead - I Will

Radiohead - I Will Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hail To The Thief
Released: 2003

I Will Lyrics

I Will
Lay me down
In a bunker
Underground

I won't let this happen
To my children
Meet the real-world coming
Out of your shell

With white elephants
Sitting ducks
I will
Rise up

Little baby's eyes
Eyes, eyes, eyes
Little baby's eyes
Eyes, eyes, eyes

Little baby's eyes
Eyes
Eyes

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD / GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES / O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN / SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES / GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

I Will

This song has the melody of "Like Spinning Plates" in reverse. However, the melody to this song was written first. You can see Thom Yorke singing a rough version on the Meeting People Is Easy DVD. (thanks, rudi - melbourne, Australia)

Radiohead - 2+2=5

Radiohead - 2+2=5 Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Hail To The Thief
Released: 2003

2+2=5 Lyrics

Are you such a dreamer
To put the world to rights
I'll stay home forever
Where two and two always makes a five

I'll lay down the tracks
Sandbag and hide
January has April showers
And two and two always makes a five

It's the devil's way now
There is no way out
You can scream and you can shout
It is too late now

Because you're not there
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention

Yeah I feel it, I needed attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention

Yeah I need it, I needed attention
I needed attention
I needed attention
I needed attention

Yeah I love it, the attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Payin' attention
Soon oh

I try to sing along
But the music's all wrong
'Cause I'm not
'Cause I'm not

I'll swallow up flies?
Back and hide
But I'm not

Oh hail to the thief
Oh hail to the thief
But I'm not
But I'm not
But I'm not
But I'm not

Don't question my authority or put me in the box
'Cause I'm not
'Cause I'm not

Oh go up to the king, and the sky is falling in
But it's not
But it's not
Maybe not
Maybe not

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

2+2=5

This is about things not necessarily being as they seem: January having April showers, two and two making a five, the term "hail to the thief" instead of "hail to the chief."

The first sound of the song is Jonny Greenwood plugging in his guitar. It was the very first sound that was recorded when Radiohead went into the studio to record Hail To The Thief.

The name of the album comes from this song. It is a reference to George Bush "stealing" the 2000 US Election.

The intro to this song is in 7/4 time.

There was two versions of this single: one came with "Remyxamatosis" (a remix of Myxamatosis, unsurprisingly) and a demo of "There, There." The second came with "Skttrbrain (Four Tet Remix)" (a remix of Scatterbrain), and "I Will (Los Angeles Version)." Radiohead took to releasing singles on 2 CDs - an EP (Extended Play) disc and a full-length album.

Each track on Hail To The Thief has an alternate name. The alternate name of this is "The Lukewarm." (thanks, rudi - melbourne, Australia, for all above)

Almost exactly at 2:25 (2 + 2 = 5), the beat of the song changes into the one the song finishes on. (thanks, Josh - Fountain, NC)

In an interview with New York magazine, guitarist Ed O'Brien talked about the unusual time signature used in this song: "One of the things that marks our band - that Thom and Jonny used to drive home all the time - is sounding different. You can do it through stuff like using unusual intervals on harmonies [in songs like "2 + 2 = 5"]. The trouble with a lot of Rock music is that people are still doing their Beatles and their Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young harmonies. You can't just keep making replications of those things."

According to Q magazine April 2008, this song signposted the album's lyrical themes, a vision of an Orwellian, post 9-11 world where nothing adds up. The vision was inspired by Thom Yorke's compulsive tracking of BBC Radio 4 news bulletins. It was there the singer first heard the phrase "Hail To The Thief," which was originally used to describe 19th century US president, John Quincy Adams.

At the beginning of the song you can faintly hear Jonny Greenwood say "We're on" to which his brother Colin Replies, "That's a nice way to start, Jonny." (thanks, alexander - whitby, United Kingdom)

The title of the song 2+2=5 is a reference to George Orwell's novel, "1984." In the book, Big Brother was teaching individuals to reject what they once knew to be true. Where 2+2=4, he was teaching them that 2+2=5. This theme correlates to the theme of the song. (thanks, Chris - Phoenix, AZ)

Radiohead - Morning Bell

Radiohead - Morning Bell Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Kid A/Amnesiac
Released: 2000

Morning Bell Lyrics

Morning Bell
Morning bell
(not another ???)
Release me
Release me
You can keep the furniture
Bump on the head
Haul 'em down the chimney
Release me
Release me
Please
Release me
Release me
Where'd you park the car
Where'd you park the car
Clothes are all always on the furniture
Now I might as well
I might as well
Sleezy jack
The fire drill
Round and round and round and round and round and round and round
And round
Cut the kids in half
Cut the kids in half
Cut the kids in half

(murmuring)

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Morning Bell Song Chart

Two different versions were recorded. One version appears on Kid A, the other ("Morning Bell/Amnesiac") appears on Amnesiac. Both albums were recorded simultaneously, but Kid A was released first.

Lead singer Thom Yorke recorded this into a mini-disc player, but lost the song and forgot about it when the mini-disc got zapped in a lightning storm. Five months later Yorke woke up after a long flight and remembered the song.

At a show in Israel on July 9, 2000, Yorke said: "This is a song about forgetting who you are, em, or anything about yourself, and then waking you up, one day, and looking yourself in the mirror, and remembering... and freaking out." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Radiohead - Planet Telex

Radiohead - Planet Telex Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: The Bends
Released: 1995

Planet Telex Lyrics

You can force it but it will not come
You can taste it but it will not form
You can crush it but it's always here
You can crush it but it's always near
Chasing you home

Saying, everything is broken
Everyone is broken

You can force it but it will stay stung
You can crush it as dry as a bone
You can walk it home straight from school
You can kiss you can break all the rules

But still, everything is broken
Everyone is broken
Everyone is, everyone is broken
Everyone is, everything is broken

Why can't you forget
Why can't you forget
Why can't you forget

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Planet Telex Song Chart

Lead singer Thom Yorke was drunk and improvising when he recorded the vocals. The band came to the studio after drinking a lot of wine, and Yorke lied on the floor and sang. He did only one take.

The original title was "Planet Xerox," but Xerox is a copyrighted name and would have caused problems if they used it.

The album title refers to a condition divers get when they come to the surface too fast. It is a commentary on Radiohead's sudden fame.

The drums in this song were cut up from different parts of other songs from the sessions for the album. (thanks, Charlie - Stittstown, Canada)

Yorke: "The product of a single sex education, romantic novels and art college." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates

Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Amnesiac
Released: 2001

Like Spinning Plates Lyrics

While you make pretty speeches,
I'm being cut to shreds
You feed me to the lions,
a delicate balance

And this just feels Like Spinning Plates
I'm living in cloud cuckoo land
And this just feels like spinning plates
My body is floating down the muddy river

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Like Spinning Plates Song Chart

This has the melody of another, unreleased Radiohead song called "I Will" run in reverse.

Thom Yorke sang this backwards because he thought it sounded too uncomfortable the regular way. His tracks were then reversed and added on, resulting in the lyrics sung backward, then forward.

The album was recorded at the same time as Kid A, but released shortly after.

"Cloudcuckooland" is a reference to the ancient Greek comedy/satire The Birds by Aristophanes. It is a city built by birds to escape the frantic aspects of normal human civilization (in the case of the play, Athens).

Radiohead - Pyramid Song

Radiohead - Pyramid Song Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Amnesiac
Released: 2001

Pyramid Song Lyrics

I jumped in the river, what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
And all the figures I used to see

All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

I jumped into the river
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
And all the figures I used to see

All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear, nothing to doubt

There was nothing to fear, nothing to doubt
There was nothing to fear, nothing to doubt

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Pyramid Song Song Chart

Lead singer Thom Yorke wrote this. He based it on a song by the Jazz player Charles Mingus called "Freedom."

This originally contained handclaps, but the group didn't like how they came out and erased them.

Radiohead performed this at some of their shows before releasing it on the album. It was known as "Egyptian Song."

Their albums Kid A and Amnesiac were recorded at the same time, but Amnesiac was released a few weeks later.

In 2003, this was used in a public service announcement for forest fire prevention in the US. Radiohead never allows their music to be used for commercial purposes, but Thom Yorke thought this was a good cause so he let them use it for $1.

This was written by Thom Yorke after a visit to an exhibition of Egyptian art, during a two-week sojourn in Copenhagen in 1999. He told MTV: "That song literally took five minutes to write, but yet it came from all these mad places. [It's] something I never thought I could actually get across in a song and lyrically. [But I] managed it and that was really, really tough. [Physicist] Stephen Hawking talks about the theory that time is another force. It's [a] fourth dimension and [he talks about] the idea that time is completely cyclical, it's always doing this [spins finger]. It's a factor, like gravity. It's something that I found in Buddhism as well. That's what Pyramid Song' is about, the fact that everything is going in circles."

According to Colin Greenwood, it was the image of "people being ferried across the river of death" that most affected York. This is reflected in the song's many references to Dante's imaginary journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, Divine Comedy. These include the black-eyed angels, a moon full of stars and jumping into the river.

Yorke hammered out this track's chord progression on a baby grand piano that he had bought, in rejection of Radiohead's guitar-led past.

The siren - like sonic undertow was produced by Jonny Greenwood's ondes Martenot, an unusual Theremin-like device invented in 1928.

Radiohead - Creep

Radiohead - Creep Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Pablo Honey
Released: 1993

Creep Lyrics

When you were here before
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry

You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so fuckin' special

But I'm a Creep, I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.

I don't care if it hurts
I wanna have control
I wanna a perfect body
I wanna a perfect soul

I want you to notice
When I'm not around
You're so fuckin' special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.

She's running out again,
She's running out
She's run run run run

Run

Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
You're so fuckin' special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.
I don't belong here.

Writer/s: O'BRIEN, EDWARD / SELWAY, PHILIP / YORKE, THOMAS / HAZLEWOOD, MIKE / HAMMOND, ALBERT / GREENWOOD, COLIN / GREENWOOD, JONATHAN
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Creep Song Chart

When asked about the song in 1993, lead singer Thom Yorke said, "I have a real problem being a man in the '90s… Any man with any sensitivity or conscience toward the opposite sex would have a problem. To actually assert yourself in a masculine way without looking like you're in a hard-rock band is a very difficult thing to do… It comes back to the music we write, which is not effeminate, but it's not brutal in its arrogance. It is one of the things I'm always trying: To assert a sexual persona and on the other hand trying desperately to negate it."

On the other hand, guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood said the song was in fact a happy song about "recognizing what you are." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Yorke says this is about being in love with someone, but not feeling good enough. He describes the feeling as, "There's the beautiful people and then there's the rest of us."

Yorke wrote this in 1987 while he was a student at Exeter University in England. He first recorded it acoustic.

This was written before the band formed. Yorke gave his demo version to Colin Greenwood, who joined him and helped put the band together.

This wasn't released in the US until Radiohead's debut album in 1993. The band finished college and signed their record deal in 1991.

Yorke based this on a song called "The Air That I Breathe," which was written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood in 1972. After "Creep" was released, Radiohead agreed to share the songwriting royalties, so this is credited to Yorke, Hammond and Hazlewood.

This did well in the US, but not in their native England. When they released their third album, O.K. Computer, Radiohead was huge in England but not in the US.

On the album version, Thom Yorke sings, "You're so f--king special." For radio, he recut it as, "You're so very special." Yorke regrets changing the line for the radio version, saying it disturbed the "sentiment of the song." According to him, the song lost its anger as a result.

According to Q magazine April 2008, the recording of this song came about as a result of producers Sean Slade and Paul Q Kolderie struggling with "Inside My Head" and "Lurgee." They remembered a track that that the band had played in rehearsal, introduced by Yorke as "our Scott Walker song." This portrait of an outsider was then recorded in one take.

The video, directed by Brett Turnbull, was recorded at a club in Oxford called The Zodiac.

One of the extras in the crowd scenes is a teenage Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet. The producer and DJ has remixed Thom Yorke and Radiohead tracks and also supported Radiohead on tour.

This is nicknamed "Crap" by the band due its slacker-anthem ubiquity.

When this was first released in England in 1992, the song flopped. It did well when it was re-released a year later, after Radiohead grew a fan base.

The three blasts of guitar noise that precede the chorus was the result of Jonny Greenwood trying to sabotage a tune he considered too "wimpy."

Yorke claims he received fan mail from "murderers" saying how much they could relate to this song.

Prince performed this at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2008. He also played Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" and The Beatles' "Come Together." (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

The song returned to the UK singles chart in August 2010 after X-Factor auditionee Hollie Burns performed it on the show.

According to the book Radiohead: Hysterical and Useless, this song was inspired by Thom's obsession with a stranger. He was infatuated with a woman who was out of his league, who he'd never met but frequently saw in bars, and he found himself following her around. When he finally got himself drunk enough to build up the courage to confess his obsession, she freaked out. (thanks, Melissa - Istanbul, Turkey)

The first country this charted in was Israel.

Lea Michele and Dean Geyer performed this on Glee in the 2013 episode "Guilty Pleasures."

This was featured on the TV series Community in the 2014 episode "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics."

Radiohead - Climbing Up The Walls

Radiohead - Climbing Up The Walls Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: OK Computer
Released: 1997

Climbing Up The Walls Lyrics

I am the key to the lock in your house
That keeps your toys in the basement
And if you get too far inside
You'll only see my reflection

It's always best when the light is off
I am the pick in the ice
Do not cry out or hit the alarm
You know we're friends till we die

And either way you turn
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there
Climbing up the walls

It's always best when the light is off
It's always better on the outside
Fifteen blows to the back of your head
Fifteen blows to your mind

So lock the kids up safe tonight
Shut the eyes in the cupboard
I've got the smell of a local man
Who's got the loneliest feeling

That either way he turns
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there

Climbing up the walls
Climbing up the walls
Climbing up the walls

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Climbing Up The Walls Song Chart

This is the first track in the band's repertoire to be described as "scary." It relies heavily on strings, but not in the conventional way. The string section features 16 different violins playing quarter tones apart from each other.

Lead singer Thom Yorke: "This is about the unspeakable. Literally skull-crushing. I used to work in a mental hospital around the time that Care In The Community started, and we all just knew what was going to happen. And it's one of the scariest things to happen in this country, because a lot of them weren't just harmless... It was hailing violently when we recorded this. It seemed to add to the mood."

More from Yorke: "Some people can't sleep with the curtains open in case they see the eyes they imagine in their heads every night burning through the glass. Lots of people have panic buttons fitted in their bedrooms so they can reach over and set the alarm off without disturbing the intruder. This song is about the cupboard monster." (thanks, michelle - shingle springs, CA, for all above)

Radiohead recorded the album in the mansion of actress Jane Seymour, who was busy filming her show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Ed O'Brien felt that the gothical mood of this track was the result of recording in its library. The Cure also recorded their 1996 Wild Mood Swings album in Seymour's mansion.

The phrase "Climbing up the walls" means being in a state of agitation through stress or worry.

Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood sometimes uses a radio when they perform this, tuning it to different stations during the song. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France, for above 2)

The string coda at the end was largely inspired by an interest the band had in modern Polish composer Krzystof Penderecki, whose works also feature on the soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.