Song · OK Computer era (1996–98)
Palo Alto
The song that lent its working title to OK Computer, then went out as a B-side named after a Californian city.
1995–98
silicon valley
It went through two working titles, “Silicon Valley” and then “OK Computer”. When the album took that phrase, the song became “Palo Alto”, after the city at the centre of the valley.
It is set in a future city of clean offices, and a boss and his wife to meet, where everybody is doing very well and nobody has time for anybody. Of all the songs left off OK Computer, it is the one that states the album's case most plainly.
Fifty-two seconds of it turn up between takes on the tape of a Dutch radio session at Bulletsound Studios in February 1995, more than two years before the album. It came out as a B-side to “No Surprises” in January 1998, then on Airbag / How Am I Driving?, and later on OKNOTOK.
the video
From the film Meeting People Is Easy.· NeonOsirisYodelwatch on youtube →
the record(2)
on stage(1)
Tabs (2)
sources3
- Wikipedia, “Palo Alto”, for the working titles and the releases.
- The site's own catalogue note, based on Spin and fan archives.
- The tape of the 2 Meter session, 27 February 1995, on the Internet Archive (Radiohead_1995-02-27), for the fragment between takes.