Thom Yorke admits envying Jonny Greenwood's film scores

Thom Yorke has owned up to envying Jonny Greenwood's film work. He told BBC Radio 1 so on Sunday 4 November, when he played the Radio 1 Piano Sessions on Radio 1's Chillest Show with Phil Taggart. His score for Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria, out since 26 October, is the first he has written for a whole film. If I was honest with myself, I was a little bit jealous but felt that I couldn't [do it] so I never tried.³

Jonny's just so far ahead – he understands how orchestration works, he can read music, he's studied it all.

Thom Yorke³

For Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, Jonny read the scores of composers from the film's period. Yorke said that would never happen with him, because he can't read music, and called himself purely amateur.

He went into Suspiria expecting it to be easy. Well, it's a horror film, I can just make loads of weird noises. It'll be fun.³ It turned out more melodic and more adventurous than that, and he had to write choral pieces using nothing but his own voice.

At the piano he played Radiohead first, a brisk “Everything In Its Right Place” on a Rhodes electric piano. Then he played “Suspirium” with only piano and voice, without the sampler he had used at Maida Vale for 6 Music the weekend before. After the Kid A song he checked with the room. Will that do? Is that all right?⁶