Song · The King of Limbs era (2011)
Separator
The last song on The King of Limbs warns, near its end, that it isn't the end, and the rumour mill took it at its word.
The King of Limbsalbum- 2011released
- 5:20length
25 feb 2010
mouse dog bird
Thom Yorke first played it on his own at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge, at the benefit for the Green Party candidate Tony Juniper, under the title “Mouse Dog Bird”. It came in the encores, and Varsity's reviewers noted a room delighted with another new song. Ryan Leas at Stereogum said later that solo versions like this one had made him expect a very different album, stark and spectral folk.
2010–11
the closer
What closed The King of Limbs a year later was something else. Phil Selway's beat is crisp and light, Colin Greenwood's bass pokes at it softly, and Jonny Greenwood plays a watery guitar figure that Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone heard as upside down, with keyboards underneath. To Leas this is where the album's mood turns, a bright left turn of a kind the band had rarely recorded.
The lyric describes coming round from a long, vivid dream and setting down a weight, and near the end a quiet plea to be woken rises out of the mix. Dolan thought it might be about dying, and still rated it as lovely as anything they had made.
2011–2025
breakbeats and country guitar
It was sixth in the surprise Glastonbury set on 24 June 2011, its first night in the archive, and fifty more came in 2012. On stage it kept changing. Kitty Empire, reviewing the O2 Arena in London for the Observer that October, heard it played with breakbeats and country guitar.
It stayed in the set on every tour up to 2018 without once opening or closing a show. Its longest silence ran from Philadelphia on 31 July 2018 to Madrid on 5 November 2025, seven years, and it was played on ten nights of the 2025 tour.
2011
not over
Near the end of the song, a line warns the listener not to assume this is over. It comes on a track called “Separator”, closing a record of eight songs and 37 minutes, and rumours of a second album coming soon went round. Radiohead did put out more that year, “Supercollider” and “The Butcher” for Record Store Day on 16 April and later “The Daily Mail” and “Staircase”, and Four Tet's remix of this song was on the third TKOL RMX 12-inch on 29 July. There was no second part. A year on, Yorke told David Fricke he could see why the record had put people off.
I didn't realise it was on its own planet.
thom yorke · rolling stone, 26 april 2012
the session
From the Basement.· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
the record(1)
on stage(9)
Live history
| Times played | 88 shows |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Friday 24 June 2011 · Pilton |
| Last played | Tuesday 16 December 2025 · Copenhagen |
| Longest absence | 7 years · back on Wednesday 5 November 2025 · Madrid |
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. All setlist stats →
Remixes & alternate versions (2)
- Separator (Four Tet remix)
- Separator (Anstam remix)
sources13
- Zing Tsjeng and Laurie Tuffrey, “Gigs: Thom Yorke at the Cambridge Corn Exchange”, Varsity, 28 February 2010.
- “Thom Yorke announces Green Party benefit gig”, NME, 10 February 2010, for the date and the candidate.
- Jon Dolan, “The King of Limbs”, Rolling Stone, 24 February 2011, for the playing and the reading of the words.
- Ryan Leas, “In defense of The King of Limbs”, Stereogum, 10 March 2015.
- Chris DeVille, “Radiohead's The King Of Limbs came out 10 years ago today”, Stereogum, 18 February 2021, for the sister-album theories.
- David Fricke, “Radiohead Reconnect”, Rolling Stone, 26 April 2012.
- NME, 11 May 2012, and DIY, 12 May 2012, both quoting the Rolling Stone interview, for the words of the quote.
- Jamie Fullerton, “Radiohead play ‘surprise’ Glastonbury show with sixth member”, NME, 24 June 2011.
- Kitty Empire, “Radiohead – review”, The Observer, 14 October 2012, for the breakbeats and the country guitar.
- Wikipedia, “The King of Limbs”, for the rumours of a second album and the Record Store Day single.
- Wikipedia, “The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement”, for “The Daily Mail” and “Staircase”.
- Wikipedia, “TKOL RMX 1234567”, for the remix single.
- Performance dates from this site's own setlist archive.