Credit: Far Out / Radiohead Public Library

Thom Yorke reveals his five favourite singers and the two songs that make him cry

Mon 11 September 2023 18:30, UK

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has spoken about his music collection, naming his favourite singers of all time, and the two songs that are “guaranteed” to make him cry every time he hears them.

Yorke’s new comments are from an excerpt taken from the upcoming book by Jason Thomas Gordon’s titled The Singer’s Book. In addition to containing a conversation with the Radiohead singer, it also features contributions from Bruce Springsteen, Roger Daltrey, Michael Stipe, Ozzy Osbourne, Chrissie Hynde, Robert Smith, Geddy Lee and many more acclaimed names.

In their wide-ranging chat, Yorke was probed about his “five favourite singers of all time”, to which he responded: “I’m obsessed with Ella Fitzgerald at the moment. There’s a performance you can find of Ella Fitzgerald playing with Duke Ellington. They’re on this famous TV show in the Sixties, a black-and-white show. She does two jazz standards, and her technical singing is fucking insane. In. Sane.”

He continued: “She’s belting the crap out of it. She’s so loud, and she doesn’t miss one note. She does one super, super fast, jazz scat thing, which is just … I mean, it’s physically impossible. I’ve not seen anyone do anything like that. And then, obviously, there’s Nina Simone. And then there’s Scott Walker, and then there’s Michael Stipe. That’s four, right?”

When asked to name a fifth, Yorke couldn’t pick between Billie Holiday and Tom Waits, he then proceeded to pick one song by Waits and another by Bob Dylan that consistently reduce him to tears every time.

Yorke said: “Goddamn, that’s really hard. I wanna say Billie Holiday. Oh! Tom Waits! ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues.’ That and ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ by Bob Dylan are the two songs that are guaranteed to reduce me to tears every time I hear them. Guaranteed. I can’t get through either song without falling to pieces.”

In other Thom Yorke news, earlier this year, it was revealed that his side-project The Smile were in the process of making their second album. In an email sent to their fans, they posted an update on their recording process, ending the post with “we’re deep in recording, week 7, reel 15”.

While no official announcement has been made regarding their upcoming LP, they did release the single ‘Bending Hectic’ in June.