Radiohead to release “Lift”, “I Promise” and “Man of War” on OKNOTOK

Radiohead have announced OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017, a reissue out on XL on 23 June, the day they headline the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. Beside the album's 12 songs and eight B-sides, all remastered from the original analogue tapes, it carries the band's studio recordings of “I Promise”, “Man of War” and “Lift”, released officially for the first time. musomuso has the press release in full.

This morning's tweet naming the record ended a run of clues. From about 21 April unsigned posters went up in London, Berlin, Amsterdam and other cities under the dates 1997-2017, in the same lettering as Stanley Donwood's artwork for the original album. On 1 May the band tweeted a clip of an old computer screen reading “Program: radiohead”, with a distorted child's voice reciting words from “Climbing Up the Walls”.

The 23 tracks come as a download, a double CD and a triple 180-gram LP. A boxed edition follows in July, a black box printed with a dark image of a burned copy of OK Computer. It holds the three LPs, a hardcover book of more than 30 artworks with the lyrics, a 104-page notebook reproducing Thom Yorke's notes from the time, a 48-page sketchbook of preparatory work, and a C90 cassette the band compiled from session archives and demo tapes.

“I Promise” was in the 1996 set, at 16 shows. “Man of War” goes back further. It was played at 15 shows in 1995, with one more in 2002. “Lift” was a fixture of the 1996 shows, played at 30 of them, and came back for four nights in 2002. Ed O'Brien told BBC 6 Music this week that the band subconsciously killed it before OK Computer came out, afraid it would turn the album into a huge mainstream rock record. If it had been on that album, it would've taken us to a different place, and probably we'd have sold a lot more records.³

Tracklist