Song · Kid A / Amnesiac era (2000–01)
Kinetic
Phil Selway set up his electric kit to trigger samples for it, and Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien took his drum sound apart.
feb 2000
phil's electric kit
It turns up in Ed O'Brien's studio diary on 3 February 2000, when bits and pieces were being added to it. Phil Selway had set his electric kit up to trigger samples, and O'Brien thought it worked well enough to be the basis of an interesting backing track. Five days later Nigel Godrich and Thom Yorke were upstairs doing ‘something’ to it, O'Brien's quotation marks. On 28 February Selway played drums on it again.
Jonny and i are let loose on fucking up Phil's drum sound. Hours of fun as coz [Colin] might say.
ed o'brien · online diary, 28 february 2000
When Yorke said in April that recording for Radiohead's fourth album was finished, it was one of more than 20 songs in contention for it.
may 2001
the b-side
It came out on 21 May 2001 on the second CD of “Pyramid Song”, beside “Fast-Track”. It is mid-tempo and melodic, with synthesisers shimmering over a steady pulse. Yorke had named the four B-sides of the single himself, on the band's message board in April.
When The King of Limbs came out in February 2011, Kevin Hegge, giving his first impressions for NOW in Toronto, heard the new album as closest to the B-sides of the Kid A and Amnesiac singles, and named this one and “Fast-Track”.
the video
The B-side, as released.· ExoArchivewatch on youtube →
the record(2)
sources4
- The site's own catalogue note, based on Genius and fan archives.
- Ed O'Brien's online diary, 3, 8 and 28 February 2000, as preserved on this site's own 2003 lyrics pages, for the electric kit and the drum sound.
- Kevin Hegge, “First impressions of Radiohead's new album”, NOW, Toronto, 18 February 2011.
- This site's news stories “Thom Yorke says recording on Radiohead's fourth album is finished” (April 2000) and “‘Pyramid Song’ enters the UK chart at number five” (May 2001), for the shortlist and the release.