Song · Hail to the Thief era (2003–04)
Where I End and You Begin
Another love song, Jonny Greenwood said, and Thom Yorke had to admit he had a point.
Hail to the Thiefalbum- 2003released
- 4:29length
2002–03
a new order rhythm
On the interview CD Parlophone sent out in April 2003, the band described it as a rock song with walls of ondes Martenot on top of a rhythm section that owed something to New Order. Phil Selway's drums and Colin Greenwood's bass lock into a pattern that never really develops, only carries on, and Jonny Greenwood lays the ondes over it until it stops sounding like a melody and starts sounding like weather.
the words
the gap
When Thom Yorke and Jonny went through the album for NME in May 2003, Jonny teased that this was another love song, and after a moment Yorke supposed that it was. It is about the space between two people, sung by someone stuck high above it who can watch and cannot take part, and then the tone turns and it ends on a threat, repeated. The full title adds “(The Sky Is Falling In.)”.
24 jul 2002
the encore in lisbon
It was the newest thing in the set even by the standards of the try-out run in Portugal and Spain. Radiohead first played it on the third and last night at the Coliseu dos Recreios in Lisbon, 24 July 2002, in the first encore, between “Talk Show Host” and “Pyramid Song”. It was the 12th new song the band had played at the Coliseu that week.
sep 2003
the big noise
A demo came out on 6 September 2003 on The Big Noise, a CD given away with the Guardian for Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign, alongside Coldplay, R.E.M., the Chemical Brothers and Damon Albarn. Two days later the paper printed an article by Yorke on trade and the world's poorest countries. A Leama and Moor remix turned up on white label in February 2005.
2003–18
the long gap
Most of its life was 2003, when it was played on 63 nights. In April 2008 it was one of three Hail to the Thief songs in the In Rainbows – From the Basement session, and after the Tokyo International Forum that October it was gone for 3,102 days, until the Sprint Center in Kansas City on 5 April 2017. The latest night is Little Caesars Arena in Detroit on 22 July 2018; the 2025 tour left it out.
In Hamlet Hail to the Thief, the Royal Shakespeare Company production Yorke made in 2025, it drives a frantic dance just before “To be or not to be”. A live take is track five of Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003–2009), out that August.
2003
to her memory
Jonny had wanted an ondes Martenot since he was 15 and first heard Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony. The album's sleeve credits him with it, alongside his Analogue Systems modular and a laptop, and his personal thanks on the same sleeve end with Jeanne Loriod, the instrument's leading player, who had recorded the Turangalîla six times: “(to her memory) - & all her pupils”. She had died in August 2001, after a stroke while swimming near Antibes, less than a year before this song was first played.
on stage
A live take.· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
the record(1)
on stage(9)
Live history
| Times played | 111 shows |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Wednesday 24 July 2002 · Lisbon |
| Last played | Sunday 22 July 2018 · Detroit |
| Longest absence | 8 years · back on Wednesday 5 April 2017 · Kansas City |
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. All setlist stats →
sources12
- “Hot Lisbon action”, NME.com, 25 July 2002, for the debut and running order.
- The site's news story “Radiohead try out 12 new songs over three nights in Lisbon”, 24 July 2002, drawing on NME.com, for the twelfth new song.
- Wikipedia, “Hail to the Thief”, for the ondes Martenot and New Order (citing the Parlophone interview CD, 22 April 2003) and The Big Noise.
- Wikipedia, “Jonny Greenwood”, for the Messiaen story.
- Radiohead, Hail to the Thief sleeve notes, Parlophone, 2003 (credits and thanks, read from the Discogs database), for Greenwood's instruments and the Loriod line.
- Wikipedia, “Jeanne Loriod”, and her Discogs profile, for her death and the Turangalîla recordings.
- Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, track-by-track guide to Hail to the Thief, NME, 10 May 2003, for the love song.
- The Guardian, The Big Noise CD, 6 September 2003, and Thom Yorke, “Losing the faith”, The Guardian, 8 September 2003, as logged by the site's 2003 desk; the 2005 desk for the Leama and Moor remix.
- Wikipedia, “In Rainbows – From the Basement”, for the 2008 session.
- Wikipedia, “Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003–2009)”, for the live album.
- Fernando Rennis, profile of Hamlet Hail to the Thief, Rolling Stone Italia, 5 May 2025, for the dance before the soliloquy.
- Performance dates from this site's own setlist archive.