The classic Radiohead song that terrified Thom Yorke: “Nothing was in our control”
Radiohead has never really been known for making fun music. You can listen to it and enjoy yourself and occasionally get emotional when hearing the sentimental part of their catalogue, but the narrative that seems to follow them around is that they were always somewhat of a depressing band, even in their most uptempo moments. When they wanted to, though, they could get downright bone-chilling, and Thom Yorke admitted being terrified when working on the song ‘Paranoid Android’.
Granted, the idea of making a six-minute epic out of nothing is enough to fill any songwriter with dread. Since the group were trying to outrun those who still insisted they were nothing more than just another post-grunge band, projects like The Bends fell in line with what the oncoming Britpop movement was doing, as well as a few extra surprises on tracks like ‘Black Star’.
As the band took to the road for the album, Yorke started to come up with the idea of people becoming slowly desensitised to their own reality. When they stopped in the middle of a tour to get a few drinks, Yorke ended up witnessing one of the more barbaric scenes he had ever seen, including a massive fight breaking out between a bunch of patrons.
With that tension still in his head after he went back to his room, Yorke started putting together the story of someone who’s lost all touch with their humanity. Although there have been thousands of comparisons to ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ by The Beatles, there’s actually a closer connection between the Radiohead classic and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
While that sentence has many qualifiers, look at the way each piece is laid out. Both start with a mellow opening, build to a rousing middle section before, and don’t follow any traditional song structure. All that’s left is for Yorke to say ‘Scharamoosh’ once, and the comparison would be complete.
Despite getting the thoughts out of his system, Yorke was still tortured by what he had created, saying, “Nothing was in our control. All the stuff in ‘Paranoid Android’ terrified me. The voices and the peoples’ faces changing shape. And ambition. That’s in my head, this feeling that it’s all going to come absolutely crashing down.”
While Radiohead’s rock era inevitably came crashing down, it was almost by design. OK Computer was an amazing album, but if they did the entire thing again, it was bound to eat them alive. So, if they loved the clean sound of their masterpiece, why not drop them into the digitised world of Kid A?
Although ‘Paranoid Android’ is the more operatic song in their catalogue, tracks like ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ have a far more chilling atmosphere than anything people had heard from the group, complete with lyrics that conjure up thoughts of a robot gaining sentience. ‘Paranoid Android’ saw the band conquer the world, but the fear behind it never goes away. There are always going to be dark takes on humanity, and whenever they rear their head, Jonny Greenwood’s caustic guitars won’t be too far behind.
