The “lost” Radiohead demo is a Canadian baker's song from 2001

The “lost” Radiohead demo passed round online since 22 December is “Sit Still”, written by the Canadian songwriter Christopher Stopa and recorded in 2001 with Morris Air, a band he is no longer in. CNN traced the song to him; he now runs a bakery.

The track went up on YouTube under two titles, “Putting Ketchup in the Fridge” and “How Do You Sit Still”. A fan site put it about, saying the voice sounded like Thom Yorke's and the sound could be early 1990s, and the big music sites had it the same day. It arrived a month after two On a Friday demos from 1986 went online, in the week the band put out “The Daily Mail” and “Staircase” from The King of Limbs sessions.

Nobody could agree on its age. Some placed it near Pablo Honey, others between The Bends and OK Computer. Spin compared it to the B-side “How Can You Be Sure?” and passed on a rumour that it had come from a former EMI executive, but warned that a lot of bands had tried to sound like Radiohead in their Bends years.

Stopa found out by going looking for the lost Radiohead song himself. By then one YouTube posting had reportedly passed 96,000 plays under Radiohead's name. At first he thought he had hit play on his own demos in iTunes. What started coming out my speakers sounded extremely familiar and then after a couple of seconds I thought, 'Wait a minute, this is my song'¹