Ed O'Brien on MTV

The title track of The Bends is older than the album. Thom Yorke tells MTV he had a full version of “The Bends” on a four-track in his cottage during the Pablo Honey sessions, and neither he nor Ed O'Brien can quite explain why it was not used then. He was taking the piss when he wrote it, he says, and the joke wore thin once everything it described started happening to them.

Both are frank about the surprise. They expected to sell perhaps 10,000 or 20,000 copies and tour Britain in a van, and for the first months in America they treated the whole thing as a prank they would shortly go home from.

Yorke defends the video for “Just”, calling it the only treatment that understood the song is ambient even when it gets loud, which is why it had to be shocking to carry the same feeling.

He is warmest about John Leckie, who took the mystery out of recording for them. Until then a studio had felt like a science lab, and Leckie made it something they could use, abuse and enjoy the way they enjoy playing.