What Is That You Say?

the demo tape

It sits on the April 1991 demo tape with “Give It Up” and an early version of “Stop Whispering”, which was recorded twice more and ended up on Pablo Honey. This one was never released, though it was among the recordings by On a Friday, the band's name before Radiohead, that leaked online in August 2002.

In November 1991 Curfew, the free Oxford music monthly, reviewed a two-song On a Friday tape with this and “Stop Whispering” on it, and its reviewer named them his favourite local band of the moment. He was taken with the way Thom Yorke jumped between low notes and high ones without losing control, and with a band that gave their backing singer proper work to do. This song, he wrote, was commercial indie guitar music as it ought to be.