Song · OK Computer era (1996–98)
Melatonin
A two-minute keyboard lullaby with a threat in it.
1997
the b-side
It came out on the second CD of the “Paranoid Android” single in May 1997, then on Airbag / How Am I Driving? and, 20 years on, OKNOTOK. Keyboards come first, then a drum line, and Thom Yorke sings it in the shape of a lullaby.
The 2003 version of this site read the words as parents watching over their son, and said the song had never caught on with fans. What the parents wish for him includes death to anyone who stands in his way. Melatonin is the hormone the body makes to tell it when to sleep.
2016
a bedtime mix
Yorke went back to it for the Bedtime Mix he made for Phil Taggart's Sunday-evening show on BBC Radio 1, first broadcast on 24 July 2016. It went third of seven pieces, after Luke Abbott and before a live “Bloom” he had sung alone in Paris the winter before, and in the small hours he sent the mix off on Twitter with “Night night. Lights out.”
the video
The B-side, as released.· DasSubswatch on youtube →
the record(2)
Tabs (2)
sources5
- Tim Footman, Radiohead: Welcome to the Machine, pp. 171–172, as cited by Wikipedia, “Paranoid Android”, for the keyboard lullaby with a threat in it.
- Wikipedia, “Paranoid Android”, for the single's B-sides.
- The 2003 treefingers.com lyric page (
_legacy/lyrics/songs/melatonin.txt), for the keyboards and drums, the parents and the hormone. - David Renshaw, The Fader, 25 July 2016, for the Bedtime Mix's running order and the live “Bloom” from the Pathway to Paris benefit.
- DIY, 25 July 2016, for the broadcast and Yorke's sign-off on Twitter.