Christopher O'Riley plays “Good Morning, Mr. Magpie” in Evanston

Christopher O'Riley played “Good Morning, Mr. Magpie” at his Radiohead piano recital in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, on 11 October. Radiohead have never recorded the song or played it in concert; the one time it has been heard from the band was Thom Yorke singing it on their Christmas webcast last December.

O'Riley, a classical pianist who presents NPR's From the Top, told The Daily Northwestern beforehand that it was his first concert in Evanston, where he spent most of his childhood.

Texture is the main thing I consider when picking any piece of music to learn or play.

Christopher O'Riley²

Harmony comes next. In the guitar songs he goes after the rough edge of the sound; the voice is harder, because one melody line is not enough, and he adds material underneath to stand in for the words. He is no great improviser, so every note is written out.

For the recital he chose songs where the voice matters less, and left “Pyramid Song” out. Before the last song of the main set he held up the long fold of staff paper it had taken him to write out “Paranoid Android” and had the hall guess what it was, and at the end of it he played both of the song's overlapping vocal lines. For the encore the audience picked “Exit Music (For a Film)” from four or five more he had ready, and “Polyethylene Pt. 2” and “True Love Waits” followed.

Chris Bailey, reviewing the night for PopMatters, rates “Black Star” and “Paranoid Android” the high points and “Exit Music” the one piece that falls flat without its vocal. He calls the evening something of a novelty without Yorke's voice, though he takes O'Riley for a fan first, one who stood up for Pablo Honey from the stage.

Between songs O'Riley told of meeting Michael Stipe and Yorke, and of a Wall Street Journal interviewer who assumed an album called True Love Waits must be raising money for the abstinence movement. The time spent transcribing and recording the songs on the album was my particular contribution to the abstinence movement.¹

The set in Evanston