Deep cuts? Any Radiohead fan worth their salt might say there’s no such thing as a deep cut. But let’s say there’s a group of listeners living somewhere between only knowing “Creep”, giving up when Thom Yorke bought a drum machine, and the diehards.
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While people speculate about possible setlists on Radiohead’s upcoming tour, here are four deep cuts, including later album tracks and B-sides, worth knowing.
“Morning Mr. Magpie”
I was listening to Matt Wilkinson’s Apple Music show on Radiohead when he mentioned a clip of Thom Yorke playing an early acoustic version of “Morning Mr. Magpie”. I located the grainy, black-and-white video on YouTube, and though I like the version on The King Of Limbs, I can’t get the unplugged take out of my head. Think pre-Trans Neil Young, before the skittering electronica. Still, the anxious studio version matches the bad omen in Yorke’s superstitious metaphor.
“Desert Island Disk”
I mentioned Neil Young above because Yorke’s songwriting also has folk roots. Check out “Desert Island Disk” from A Moon Shaped Pool. Radiohead songs often feature slow builds. But the wait is always worth it. Here, Yorke performs a searching guitar part, while his bandmates use synths and noise to create alien swells around him. Then the track abruptly grounds itself and Yorke sings, “Standing on the edge / You know what I mean.” Just typing the lyric gives me chills.
“Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)”
This two-part track appeared as a B-side to “Paranoid Android”. But I first heard it on the Airbag / How Am I Driving? EP. It begins with Yorke humming the tune over an acoustic guitar. Then he stops and counts the band in. It’s the sound of Radiohead caught between the indie rock of The Bends and the tech-paranoia of OK Computer. It has a J Mascis-sized riff, but also the hazy uncertainty that motivated the band’s 1997 masterpiece. The phasing chords at the end feel like Radiohead shedding its outer, alt-rock skin.
“Palo Alto”
Another one from Airbag / How Am I Driving?, I’m surprised Radiohead left “Palo Alto” off OK Computer. Here’s how it begins:
In a city of the future
It is difficult to concentrate.
Meet the boss, meet the wife,
Everybody’s happy,
Everyone is made for life.
It belongs on an album about technology, human fragmentation, and high-speed communication, or lack thereof. Meanwhile, the track ends with a self-oscillating tape echo. One you’ll also notice at the end of “Karma Police”. It’s the chaos resulting from an echo unit feeding back into itself. Kind of simulates some of the things Yorke warned of in 1997. If humans write a collective memoir of our time, someone should call it Self-Oscillation.
Photo by Jon Super/Redferns
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