Radiohead on BBC Radio 1

All five of Radiohead sit down with Steve Lamacq on Radio 1 and take him through OK Computer a few weeks before it comes out. They made it on terms they asked for and got: a studio of their own that packed into boxes and could be wheeled anywhere, like the Rolling Stones' mobile, Nigel Godrich in place of John Leckie, and no time limit. It took a year from the first red light to the last, no more than three months of it in the studio. The one structure left, they say, was “the panic inherent in complete freedom”.

“Climbing Up the Walls” was the first thing they did in the house they recorded in, starting at about one in the morning. Thom Yorke says it is not about him. It came from a run of killings of children the summer before. “Karma Police” started as a joke on a drive through the night, with Jonny Greenwood feeding lines into the ear of a half-asleep Ed O'Brien, who woke half an hour later with “the police are gonna get me, man” going round his head.

“No Surprises” was the first thing recorded for the album, in their rehearsal room beside a power station while Euro 96 was on. Back together in October, they used up four or five reels of tape on new versions, then played the first take again and it sounded great.

A Mellotron, the one thing worth keeping from a trawl through prog rock records, arrived on the day they recorded “Exit Music” and went straight onto it. Yorke likens his words for the album to Polaroids shot from a fast train, “really rapid trashy snapshots”. He has been writing lists since The Bends, and on “Fitter Happier” the computer voice reads one with no feeling at all, mispronouncing as it goes, which made the words mean more to him.

At their first American show, in Boston, they played “Creep” fourth and a quarter of the room walked out. Asked why, the leavers said they had seen Nirvana the week before and left after “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, because that was the one on MTV.