Song · The King of Limbs era (2011)
Lotus Flower
Handclaps in five against a four, and a black-and-white video of Thom Yorke dancing that turned into everybody's joke.
The King of Limbsalbum- 2011released
- 5:01length
oct 2009 – jan 2010
tried out alone first
Yorke played a solo version at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on 2 October 2009, while touring with Atoms for Peace. On 24 January 2010 the band stopped work on The King of Limbs to play a benefit at the Music Box in Hollywood for Oxfam's response to the Haiti earthquake, and he played it there alone on acoustic guitar. That show went online free that December as Radiohead for Haiti.
2010
the shape of it
It has a more conventional structure than most of the album, which is probably why it ended up out front: Pitchfork guessed it was chosen “presumably for having a chorus and not being a ballad”. Falsetto over a driving synthesiser bassline and syncopated beats, which NME heard as Kid A's electronics with In Rainbows' warmth, and Rolling Stone as an icy James Brown.
The song is in common time and the handclaps are not: they run in five, so the clap pattern and the beat keep sliding past each other.
18 feb 2011
thomdance
The album arrived a day early, and with it a video on YouTube: Garth Jennings directing, Wayne McGregor choreographing, black and white, Yorke in a hat, dancing.
It was viewed more than twenty million times by 2013 and spawned the “Dancing Thom Yorke” meme, people swapping in other soundtracks, the hashtag trending. Yorke's view of that:
It's a massive kick. That's what everybody wants. If it's something you've worked at and it goes over the edge like that then that's great.
thom yorke · dazed, 12 february 2013
The band released no commercial singles from The King of Limbs, and it charted anyway, in Britain, on the US Alternative Songs chart and on the Billboard Japan Hot 100. It was nominated for three Grammys: Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song and Best Music Video. Remixes by Jacques Greene, SBTRKT and others were collected on TKOL RMX 1234567.
2010–18
in the set
First played in Los Angeles on 24 January 2010, fifty-eight times in 2012, and of the archive's 115 nights it has opened twenty-two.
the video
The promo, directed by Garth Jennings: Thom Yorke dancing, in one room.· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
takes(3)
explained
Two musicians talk through the harmony of the song.· WARRENMUSICwatch on youtube →
Live history
| Times played | 115 shows |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Sunday 24 January 2010 · Los Angeles |
| Last played | Wednesday 1 August 2018 · Philadelphia |
| Opened the night | 22 times |
| Longest absence | 3 years · back on Friday 20 May 2016 · Amsterdam |
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. All setlist stats →
Remixes & alternate versions (2)
- Lotus Flower (Jacques Greene remix)
- Lotus Flower (SBTRKT remix)
sources7
- Scott Lapatine, “Thom Yorke at the Echoplex”, Stereogum, 3 October 2009.
- Steve Appleford, “Radiohead rock for Haiti at small Los Angeles benefit show”, Rolling Stone, 25 January 2010.
- Luke Lewis, “Radiohead, ‘Lotus Flower’”, NME, 18 February 2011.
- Jon Dolan, “The King of Limbs”, Rolling Stone, 24 February 2011.
- Mark Pytlik, “Radiohead: The King of Limbs”, Pitchfork, 24 February 2011.
- Brad Osborn, “Kid Algebra: Radiohead's Euclidean and Maximally Even Rhythms”, 2014.
- Tim Noakes, “Splitting atoms with Thom Yorke”, Dazed, 12 February 2013.