Thom Yorke plays The Smile's “Free in the Knowledge” on his own

Letters Live has put out its film of Thom Yorke singing “Free in the Knowledge”, a song by The Smile, alone at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 30 October. It was his first time on a stage in front of an audience since the pandemic began, as he told the hall himself.

Letters Live puts on evenings of famous letters read aloud, and Yorke read one too, “It's a Virus”, Tom Waits's 2002 letter to The Nation backing John Densmore of the Doors against musicians licensing their songs and voices to advertising.

He played the song on synthesiser and acoustic guitar. The film opens on a slow synth introduction. He said he wrote it during the pandemic with The Smile, his band with Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner, the drummer of Sons of Kemet. Earlier this month the three rehearsed it with other new songs on Instagram Live. It was not in their set for Glastonbury's Live at Worthy Farm stream in May, and no recording of it is out.

He dedicated it to his fellow UK musicians. I'm a British musician and I was told during the pandemic, along with all British musicians, that we should consider retraining.⁵ Reports of the show tied that advice to October 2020, when the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said struggling musicians should retrain and find other work. Then, after Britain left the EU, they were told they no longer needed to tour Europe anyway, and the hall laughed. So perhaps I'm one of a dying breed, who knows?⁵