Nigel Godrich tells how Radiohead finally caught “Nude”

Nigel Godrich tells the story of “Nude” in “The Music Producers”, Graeme Thomson's feature for The Word. After The Bends, the band and Godrich booked a weekend in a studio as a try-out, and it became the start of OK Computer. They recorded two songs there, “Man O' War” (the one later called “Big Boots”) and “Nude”, which Thom Yorke had just written. That first “Nude” had other words and a straighter feel, and the idea was an Al Green record with a Hammond organ running through it. They thought it had worked, then went off it.

After that the song would not come. They tried it a couple more times for OK Computer, about three times for Kid A and about three more for Hail to the Thief.

Radiohead have a little catalogue of songs that just never get done. It's almost because it's their best material and no version is ever quite good enough.

Nigel Godrich¹

He once drew up a list of Yorke's unrecorded songs and warned the band what would happen to them. And if you don't fucking record them, I'm going to fucking do it! I'll do a covers album!¹

During a break from Godrich the band tried recording on their own and then with someone else, and neither worked, he says. Then Colin Greenwood played him a rough recording of a live rehearsal with a new bassline that gave the song a rhythmic flow. The chorus had gone, and there was a new vocal break and a new ending. They recorded it three times, and the last take, made at what Godrich calls the band's house and overdubbed in Covent Garden, is the one on In Rainbows.

It was essentially the same song; nothing had really changed. What has changed are the people playing it.

Nigel Godrich¹