The Radiohead song inspired by ‘The Stepford Wives’
The five musicians that comprise Radiohead, one of Britain’s most successful rock bands of the late 20th century, first met as students at Abingdon School, Oxfordshire. Reinforcing its associative image as geeky pariahs, the band converged through musical attraction and repulsion from all four walls of Abingdon School, its haughty teachers and posturing adolescents.
Although the members of Radiohead, initially known as On A Friday, fell out of favour with their educational setting, it offered a music room as a crucial formative haven. Additionally, such an austere and antiquated private school ambience is conducive to voracious literary consumption.
The comedian David Mitchell, who also attended the school shortly after the band’s departure, has described Abingdon as having a “Dickensian” atmosphere. While the school’s oppressive Victorian aura may not have fostered self-confidence in those without a rugby stature, it undoubtedly nurtured intellectual curiosity and imagination.
As Radiohead worked on their early material, post-punk era bands like Joy Division, Talking Heads and The Smiths and contemporaries like Dinosaur Jr and Pixies became essential building blocks for sonic inspiration. However, lyrically, frontman Thom Yorke sought inspiration from numerous sources, hoping to keep themes as fresh and vibrant as possible.
Notably, Yorke brought his love of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to the fore in his seminal 1997 concept album, OK Computer. Later, he leant on George Orwell’s political satire in ‘Optimistic’ and Dante’s depiction of Hell in 2001’s ‘Pyramid Song’.
This fascination with literature has never let up, and when compiling music for a new album following 2003’s Hail to the Thief, Yorke found himself inspired by Ira Levin’s classic 1975 novel The Stepford Wives during a bout of “hyperactive mania”. In a 2007 interview with the NME, Yorke discussed the origins of the uptempo In Rainbows cut ‘Bodysnatchers’.
“I have this thing… just before I get sick, I’ll have this 120-hour hyperactive mania, and that song was recorded during one of those,” he remembered. “I felt genuinely out of it when we did that. The vocal is one take, and we didn’t do anything to it afterwards. We tidied up my guitar because I was so out of it, my guitar playing was rubbish. My best vocals are always the ones that happen there and then.”
Discussing the song’s oblique lyrics in a later interview with The New York Times, Yorke said it was inspired by Victorian ghost stories, The Stepford Wives and a feeling of “your physical consciousness trapped without being able to connect fully with anything else.”
Radiohead recorded ‘Bodysnatchers’ at Tottenham House in Wiltshire, a Grade-I listed building dating back to the 1720s. Speaking to Columbia Daily Spectator, guitarist Ed O’Brien discussed the setting as enhancing the Victorian ghost vibe. “‘Bodysnatchers’ will always remind us of Tottenham House, a decrepit mansion where we recorded some of the album. This track reflects the weird energy of the house,” he said.
Levin’s The Stepford Wives is a satirical work of “feminist horror”, which follows the fictional story of a talented photographer and her husband Walter as they move to the seemingly idyllic suburb of Stepford, Connecticut, with their two children. However, Joanna soon discovers that something is amiss when she encounters the submissive, “perfect” wives of the town’s affluent husbands.
The “bodysnatchers” idea was partly inspired by Levin’s horrific scenes wherein the husbands murder their wives and replace their bodies with buxom robots. “I do not understand / What it is I’ve done wrong / Full of holes check for pulse / Blink your eyes / One for yes / Two for no / I have no idea what I am talking about / I’m trapped in this body and can’t get out,” Yorke sings at the beginning of the song.
Watch Radiohead perform ‘Bodysnatchers’ during their 2008 ‘From The Basement’ session below.
