If You Say the Word

the c minor song

Its working title was the C minor song, then “Say the Word”, and Ed O'Brien's online diary followed it through the summer of 1999. On 5 August the band reworked it in the style of a Stax record. On 31 August the doubts were Jonny Greenwood's.

Jonny thinks that maybe it's getting a little too tasteful and nice and he's right. It sounds too slick.

ed o'brien · online diary, 31 august 1999

Nine days later O'Brien liked what the others had done and could not find his own way in.

Great drum, bass and vocals. Personally getting a bit anxious over it, as I can't find anything that works with it, or rather I have an idea but can't get the sound right. Makes me a bit neurotic.

ed o'brien · online diary, 9 september 1999

The 2003 version of this site gave it a page as “Say The Word (aka C-Minor Song)”, with those two diary entries and the note “No lyrics available”.

recorded, then left

It was made during the joint Kid A and Amnesiac sessions, with fingerpicked guitar, a low, foreboding groove, chiming percussion and ondes Martenot. It sounds exactly of its moment, which makes its absence from both albums harder to explain than most of the band's discards. Marc Hogan at Pitchfork heard words that were loving and threatening at once, and was surprised that something this good had stayed in the vault so long.

the first single from the reissue

It was released on 7 September 2021, and a video followed on 23 September, directed by Kasper Häggström, in which a crew moves through open country capturing businessmen like game animals and delivering them to work in London. Spin reached for Black Mirror. It won Best Alternative Video at the 2022 UK Music Video Awards.