Song · Hail to the Thief era (2003–04)
A Punchup at a Wedding
Thom Yorke wrote it at a critic who dismissed Radiohead's 2001 homecoming show in Oxford.
Hail to the Thiefalbum- 2003released
- 4:57length
7 jul 2001
south park, oxford
On 7 July 2001 Radiohead played South Park in Oxford, their first hometown show since 1996, with Humphrey Lyttelton, Beck, Sigur Rós and Supergrass on the bill. About 42,000 people came, and the critic Alex Ross wrote that it may have been the biggest public gathering Oxford had ever seen. The £145,000 it raised went to local charities, among them the Samaritans and the Orchestra of St John's, which had played on Kid A and Amnesiac.
one of the biggest days in my life
thom yorke · parlophone interview disc, 22 april 2003
A review wrote the day off. On the same disc Thom Yorke said, without naming the writer, that he could not get over someone who, simply because they had a keyboard in front of them, could dismiss an event that had meant so much to so many people.
2002
nobody knows what's going on
It is a funk-influenced song. It was aimed at that review, and it also carried the helplessness Yorke felt watching world events in those years.
The words are an accusation built almost entirely out of worn-out idioms and insults, aimed at someone who turned up to start a fight and spoil the big day. Chuck Klosterman, in Spin, read it as a story about the stock reactions to a social blunder, and Kate Livett, in the Australian Humanities Review, listed its idioms among the stock phrases the album turns against themselves. The full title adds “(No no no no no no no no.)”, and the site's own transcription of the lyric opens on the word “no”, over and over.
it's just like a punch up at a wedding. Nobody knows what's going on.
thom yorke · m-web, south african music site, 2003
2002–03
spain to dublin
It was one of the new songs on the run through Portugal and Spain in the summer of 2002, from Lisbon on 22 July to Salamanca on 7 August. When it came back at the Olympia in Dublin on 17 May 2003, Yorke asked the crowd before it whether the Irish drink much beer at weddings, and got a loud yes. Radiohead played it 39 times that year and stopped at The Point in Dublin on 4 December 2003, never once opening or closing a show. Yorke played it alone as well, on 1 September 2003, in an acoustic session for a Seattle radio station.
after
cut, twice
In 2008 Yorke posted his own alternative running order for the album on Radiohead's website, and this was one of the four songs missing. The live album of 2025 left it off too, with “Backdrifts”, to fit on vinyl.
On the band's tour bus from London to Paris in July 2003, Yorke had told the journalist Andrew Mueller that its second title would have made a good name for the album. Mueller printed it with seven “No”s, one fewer than the full title has.
on stage
Live at Le Reservoir.· Thom Yorkewatch on youtube →
on stage(3)
Live history
| Times played | 51 shows · 1 of them Thom Yorke solo show |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Monday 22 July 2002 · Lisbon |
| Last played | Thursday 4 December 2003 · Dublin |
Thom Yorke, solo 1 September 2003 Seattle
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. Thom Yorke’s solo nights are counted and marked as his; the openers, closers, longest absence and chart are Radiohead’s own. All setlist stats →
sources9
- Wikipedia, “Amnesiac (album)”, for the South Park concert, the attendance, Alex Ross and the charities.
- Wikipedia, “Hail to the Thief”, for the review, the funk, the helplessness and Yorke's words (citing the Parlophone interview CD, 22 April 2003), and the 2008 tracklist (citing NME, 7 June 2013).
- M-Web, “Radiohead interview: more blank than frank”, republished by News24 (undated, 2003 promotion), for Yorke on the title.
- Chuck Klosterman, “No More Knives”, Spin, July 2003.
- Kate Livett, “Thieves and Fascists: the Politics of Abjection in Radiohead's Hail to the Thief (The Gloaming)”, Australian Humanities Review, February 2007.
- Rob Sheffield, review of Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003–2009), Rolling Stone, 19 August 2025, for the live album's omission.
- A fan report from the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, 17 May 2003, as carried by the site's news story on the night, for the question about weddings.
- Andrew Mueller, “Radiohead by Andrew Mueller. On The Road With The Mercury Prize Nominees”, The Quietus, 23 July 2008, for Yorke on the second title.
- The site's live archive for the South Park date and every performance, and its page for Yorke's session at Studio X, Seattle, 1 September 2003 (107.7 The End's EndSession; setlist from setlist.fm).