Thom Yorke's “Lotus Flower” dance turns into a meme

Thom Yorke's dance in the “Lotus Flower” video has spent its first week being recut to other people's music, and the edit picked out most often sets it to Beyoncé's “Single Ladies”. The video, Yorke alone in black and white in a bowler hat, went up on YouTube last Friday, the day The King of Limbs came out as a download. Garth Jennings directed it.

The edits began almost at once, and the Houston Press counted dozens by Saturday. Its columnist reckons they are doing the band a favour by reminding people the album is out. NPR's All Songs Considered rounded them up on Tuesday, with “Single Ladies” and Hall and Oates's “You Make My Dreams Come True” as its favourites. The most topical, by NPR's reckoning, drops Yorke into Black Swan, auditioning in front of the unimpressed director of the ballet company.

By Wednesday Italy's Il Post was calling the clip a meme. The edits are being gathered on a site called Dancing Thom, and viewers have begun naming single moves, such as the “robotic machine-gun” at 1:18 and the “heart attack” at 1:32.

None of it was improvised: the British choreographer Wayne McGregor mapped the routine out in advance. The New Republic's essay on the dance today sets it beside David Byrne's “Life During Wartime” in Stop Making Sense, and counts at least four moves first done by Jerry Lewis in his solo in The Nutty Professor.

Edits named this week