Five days of “Cuttooth” leave Ed O'Brien calling it overcooked

Ed O'Brien thinks “Cuttooth” has been overdone. Radiohead have been working on the song since Monday, and at five in the morning on 25 February, with more sounds on it and some of the overdubs not yet savagely edited, it sounded overcooked to him, he writes in his studio diary.

On Monday, the first day back after a week off, the band set up and recorded “Cuttooth”, which O'Brien calls the long one. Five or six takes went down, a couple of them pretty good. The song goes back to the band's rehearsals of August 1999, when O'Brien described it as long and hypnotic, with something of Neu! about it, and later that month as having little structure beyond a bass riff.

Played back on Wednesday, it sounded great. Graham, the band's new engineer, spliced the master, cutting the tape at a chosen point and joining on a length from another take. Colin Greenwood fixed up his driving bass part and Thom Yorke added synth to what O'Brien notes is quite a fast song for this band. Jonny Greenwood put feedback and backwards guitar on it. it sometimes seems as though not much guitar has been played so far, which is probably bollocks.² There has been a fair amount, O'Brien decides; in looking for different sounds, the band just have not reached for the six-string first.

It is a song that could take endless embellishment, he writes, and every addition risks losing what was great about it. i guess the trick is to be absolutely ruthless on what is added²

“Cuttooth” in the diary, February 2000