Song · In Rainbows era (2007–09)
These Are My Twisted Words
A song that turned up on a BitTorrent tracker wrapped in ASCII art and a poem, five days before the band released it themselves.
12 aug 2009
the leak
It appeared unannounced on the private tracker What.CD on 12 August 2009. The torrent carried a text file with ASCII artwork, a cryptic poem and a date, 17 August, and, two years after the band's surprise pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows, the Guardian wondered whether the band had put it there themselves.
On 17 August it went up free on the band's own site and through a torrent hosted by Mininova, with artwork by Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood and a suggestion to print the pieces on tracing paper. Jonny Greenwood's blog post announcing it said it was one of the first songs the band had finished, and did not mention the leak at all.
The text file also held the words “Wall of Ice”, which set off five days of talk about an EP that never existed. Years later The Smile, Yorke and Greenwood's other band, put out an album called Wall of Eyes.
the sound
motorik
It runs on a motorik beat from Phil Selway, the steady, driving pulse of 1970s German krautrock, with layered guitars over the top and the vocal arriving late. Rolling Stone heard krautrock in it, and a family resemblance to “Weird Fishes / Arpeggi”.
2009–2017
st pölten to seattle
Radiohead first played it at the Frequency festival in St. Pölten in Austria on 21 August 2009, four days after the release, at the top of the first encore. At Bramham Park, for the Leeds festival on 29 August, Yorke introduced it as a new song and then had to wait while a technician sorted out a cable at his feet, joking that they could all get drunk later.
Most of its 17 nights came on the 2012 King of Limbs tour, and after that it was put away until Seattle on 8 April 2017. In Houston on 3 March 2012 Yorke introduced it with a promise, “You may be lost now, but all will become clear soon”, and then thought better of it, “but perhaps not”.
on stage
Thom Yorke without the band, at Zermatt Unplugged, 2022.· karindgrwatch on youtube →
the record(1)
on stage(5)
Live history
| Times played | 18 shows · 1 of them Thom Yorke solo show |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Friday 21 August 2009 · St. Pölten |
| Last played | by Thom Yorke, solo, Saturday 9 April 2022 · Zermatt |
| Last by Radiohead | Saturday 8 April 2017 · Seattle |
| Longest absence | 4 years · back on Saturday 8 April 2017 · Seattle |
Thom Yorke, solo 9 April 2022 Zermatt
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. Thom Yorke’s solo nights are counted and marked as his; the openers, closers, longest absence and chart are Radiohead’s own. All setlist stats →
sources8
- “Was the new Radiohead song leaked by the band?”, The Guardian, 14 August 2009.
- Sean Michaels, “Radiohead officially release ‘These Are My Twisted Words’”, The Guardian, 18 August 2009.
- Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone, 13 August 2009, and “20 insanely great Radiohead songs only hardcore fans know”, 7 March 2016.
- James Montgomery, “Radiohead put Wall of Ice EP rumors to rest, for now”, MTV, 17 August 2009.
- Ryan Dombal, “Radiohead: ‘These Are My Twisted Words’”, Pitchfork, 24 August 2009.
- The site's news stories on the Frequency festival (28 August 2009) and on Reading and Leeds (31 August 2009), the second after Clash and NME, for St. Pölten and Bramham Park.
- Jim Bricker, “King of Limbs: Radiohead at Toyota Center”, Houston Press, 5 March 2012, for Yorke in Houston.
- Performance dates from this site's own setlist archive.