Song · In Rainbows era (2007–09)
Harry Patch (In Memory Of)
Radiohead recorded it in an abbey weeks before the last British soldier of the trenches died.
2005
the interview
Harry Patch was the last surviving British soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War. He kept quiet about it for some 80 years, and in 2005 he was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Thom Yorke heard it.
The way he talked about war had a profound effect on me.
thom yorke · dead air space, 5 august 2009
2009
one voice, one string arrangement
Radiohead recorded it live in an abbey a few weeks before Patch died on 25 July 2009, aged 111. There is no rock band on it. Yorke sings over strings arranged by Jonny Greenwood, which open with repeated arpeggios and climb to a peak halfway through that Lucy Jones, writing in the Telegraph, heard as grim and quietly furious.
The words are written from inside the trenches, and several lines are Patch's own, lightly adapted: “Give your leaders each a gun and let them fight it out themselves”, and “The next will be chemical, but they will never learn”.
5 aug 2009
a pound, and no record company
It was played for the first time on Today at five to nine on the morning of 5 August 2009, the day before Patch's funeral at Wells Cathedral, and John Harris, writing in the Guardian, could not remember the programme ever playing a whole song by a rock group. It went on sale the same day through the band's own shop for £1, every penny to the Royal British Legion. To Harris this was how music ought to work, a song recorded weeks before, on the radio one morning and on sale by the afternoon, with no album or campaign behind it.
Judging by the traffic to the band's site, Chris Salmon reckoned in the Guardian on 14 August that a conventional release would have put it in the UK top ten. Patch's grandson Roger said the family backed it wholeheartedly, both its message about war and the money for the Legion. It reached the streaming services on Remembrance Day, 11 November 2016.
2025
an intro, never the song
It has never been played in full at a concert. In 2025 the band used it as the intro to “Everything in Its Right Place”, in Casalecchio di Reno on 17 November and in Copenhagen on 4 and 15 December.
the video
The recording.· Weird Instrumentalswatch on youtube →
the record(2)
on stage(1)
sources10
- Thom Yorke, “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)”, Dead Air Space, 5 August 2009.
- John Harris, “Radiohead's farewell to old first world war soldier in song”, The Guardian, 6 August 2009, for Today and the release.
- Lucy Jones, “Radiohead's tribute to Harry Patch strikes the right note”, The Daily Telegraph, 6 August 2009.
- Terri Judd, “Radiohead release Harry tribute”, The Independent, 5 August 2009.
- This site's news story of 5 August 2009 on the release, drawn from The Guardian, Uncut, The Quietus and others, for the time of the broadcast, Patch's 80 years of silence and the funeral.
- Mark Richardson, “Resonant Frequency #70”, Pitchfork, 21 May 2010.
- Andrea Rice, “Radiohead's anti-war eulogy”, American Songwriter, 11 August 2009.
- Chris Salmon, “Click to download: Radiohead tribute hits purple Patch”, The Guardian, 14 August 2009.
- Jamie Fullerton, “Harry Patch's family welcome Radiohead tribute song”, NME, 6 August 2009, for the family's approval.
- Wyndham Wallace, “Radiohead Versus The Release Schedule”, The Quietus, 11 August 2009.