Photo by David Wolff-Patrick/WireImage
When looking forward to a new Radiohead album, it’s not a bad idea to look backward. "Nude," a song the rock deconstructionists first teased in their 1998 tour documentary Meeting People Is Easy, didn't show up on a record until 2007's In Rainbows. "I Will," another song teased in the OK Computer-era film, eventually resurfaced twice: first with reversed instrumentation as "Like Spinning Plates," from 2001's Amnesiac, and then moving the usual direction again under its own name on 2003's Hail to the Thief. Maybe that's part of Radiohead's appeal among critics: They're meticulous revisers.
Few details have emerged about the follow-up to 2011's The King of Limbs, but a press release for this year's Primavera Sound Festival promised "the presentation of the new album by the British band Radiohead." The group's members formed a new company in October called Dawn Chorus LLP, similar to steps they took ahead of the last two Radiohead albums. Around the same time, guitarist Jonny Greenwood poured cold water on reports the album was complete, but said that "lots has been recorded." Since then, it has turned out that the Primavera gig is only one of an array of live dates, Radiohead's first since 2012. Adding another wrinkle to the anticipation, Jack White confirmed back in 2012 that Radiohead had recorded something at his Third Man Records in Nashville. Radiohead's management passed along Pitchfork's latest request for any insights about the new album to the band's U.S. publicists, who declined to comment.
With all that in mind, here's a rundown of selected Radiohead songs that have yet to appear on record, potentially making them available for the as-yet-untitled ninth album. Given that Radiohead released their discarded James Bond theme for free last Christmas, it seems a bit unlikely it'll make the cut on the new album; the same goes for unreleased fan favorite "True Love Waits," which appeared on 2001 live EP I Might Be Wrong, and non-album singles from the King of Limbs era (like "The Daily Mail" and "Staircase"). And it's not as if Yorke and Radiohead's setlists over the years are lacking for unreleased material.
Take note, though, that when it comes to Radiohead songs, past performance may not predict future results. "Reckoner," the falsetto- and strings-centered In Rainbow reverie that ranks among the band's best work, was originally debuted live in 2001 as a jagged, guitar-driven number that separately evolved into Yorke's 2009 solo track "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses." You can't take unfinished songs with you.
"Silent Spring"
"If I was going to write a protest song about climate change in 2015, it would be shit," Yorke said in an interview published by French magazine Télérama last November. On December 4, performing at a climate change concert in Paris, he gave a solo acoustic debut of what has all appearances of a quite powerful protest song. Reputedly titled "Silent Spring," the same as Rachel Carson's landmark 1962 environmental tome, this song finds Yorke warning, "We'll take back what is ours/ One day at a time." In what has been taken as a possible hint that this is a Radiohead song rather than a Yorke solo tune, at one point during the performance he said, "This is Jonny's bit."
"Desert Island Disk"
At the same Pathway to Paris climate concert late last year, Yorke also offered up another solo acoustic debut. Being called "Desert Island Disk," this one deals in a romance-tinged figurative language, stretching from the image of "the wind rushing round my open heart" to the closing assertion that "different types of love are possible." That's backed here by serpentine guitar figures. No "Jonny's bit"-style tells here, but the timing would have made sense to play something intended for the next record.
"The Present Tense"
A third unreleased song Yorke performed at December's climate change concert dates back to 2008 at least, as fansite Citizen Insane documents. In the latest incarnation of "The Present Tense," Yorke gracefully picks out flickering arpeggios while singing counter-intuitively of "dancing" and "freaking out." In between haunting bits of wordless falsetto, he murmurs, "I won't stop now, I won't slack off/ Or all this love will be in vain." Yorke has also performed the song during his shows with Atoms for Peace, and YouTube has an excellent live recording from a 2009 solo set.
"Identikit"
Radiohead debuted "Identikit" in Miami in 2012 and deemed it important enough to perform later that year on Austin City Limits (above). Overlapping vocals and fidgety percussion give way to guitar-swept sections that could have the makings of a new fan favorite. Lyrically, Yorke is once again melancholy about romantic affairs (as he has been in recent unreleased tracks), confiding that "I don't want to know" about "you messing me around" after going so far as to insist, "Broken hearts make it rain." Give this man a hug!
"Skirting on the Surface"
Radiohead performed this bleak slow-groover live for the first time in Dallas in 2012 (above), but it has the type of long roots that, based on the band's prior history, suggests it may be heard from again. Yorke debuted "Skirting on the Surface" in a 2009 solo piano rendition with the band that would become Atoms for Peace. According to Citizen Insane, variations on the title phrase have recurred in the band's online posts going back to the OK Computer days.
"Cut a Hole"
Debuted in Miami the same night in 2012 as "Identikit," this fantasy of a long-distance connection builds up gradually, and despite the flowers Yorke sings about having bought, it's not without a whiff of menace. "Wish that I could come out of your phone/ Superhero powers," he begins. By the time the cymbals crash, he's reaching for that falsetto, promising, "Wish that I could flick on all those lights/ Lift this all away/ See that stretchy smile go/ Right across your face."
"Full Stop"
A rhythm-section workout from their 2012 tour, "Full Stop" (also sometimes stylized "Ful Stop") layers crystalline keys over Yorke lyrics like, "You really messed up this time" and "The truth will mess you up." Lyrics and guitar tabs for this song went up for auction on eBay months before fans could hear the first comprehensible audience recordings, from Chicago (above).
"Open the Floodgates"
"Don't bore us/ Get to the chorus," Yorke begins in this song's proper live solo debut, played languidly on piano as part of the same proto-Atoms for Peace set that introduced "Skirting on the Surface." According to Citizen Insane, a soundcheck of the song was recorded as far back as 2006, and Colin Greenwood has referred to the title as "Porous."
"Big Boots"
Also known as "Man-O-War" and performed live in the '90s (and again in 2002), this The Bends-era anthem would hardly be the first song from Meeting People Is Easy to find a place later in Radiohead's discography (see again: "Nude" and "I Will").
"Follow Me Around"
Also from Meeting People Is Easy, this one got its live premiere in 2000 but returned in a 2009 Yorke solo gig and with Atoms for Peace in 2010.
"I Froze Up"
Debuted by Yorke in a 2002 webcast, "I Froze Up" got a reprise, again as a solo keyboard ballad in 2010 (above) and became part of Atoms for Peace's tour. In it, Yorke sets out a string of unlikely metaphors worthy of English teachers, starting with, "You’re the cream in my airport coffees."
"Lift"
Like "Big Boots," this song was on Radiohead setlists in the mid-'90s and returned in 2002, in this case with a mellow pace and slightly different words. Then again, Radiohead's Ed O'Brien once called the original "a bogshite B-side."
"Burn the Witch"
Radiohead have twice teased fans live, in 2006 and 2008, with piano chords apparently drawn from this song, and in 2007 Yorke posted possible lyrics on the group's Dead Air Space blog. Citizen Insane tracks related verbal snippets to the Hail to the Thief artwork.
"Come to Your Senses"
Little solid information exists about this one, down to its title, but the snippet above was reputedly recorded during a 2006 soundcheck in Berkeley, California. Another version may or may not have gone for nine minutes and include a Jonny Greenwood banjo solo.
"Villain"
Yorke soundtracked a fashion show with this wordless piece last year. A song with this caliber of twinkling piano chords, which segue into Yorke's remix of DOOM's "Gazzillion Ear” here, seems at least as likely as a revival of that decade-old banjo solo, right?
"Wake Me (Before They Come)"
Also scanty as far as details go, this elegiac, guitar-driven song was reportedly performed during a 2008 soundcheck in Los Angeles.
"Riding a Bullet"
Not just lacking in information but also discernible audio, Radiohead played a song that fans have nicknamed "Riding a Bullet" in at least two 2009 soundchecks, according to Citizen Insane.
"I Lie Awake"
All that's streaming is a roughly 30-second, almost-unlistenable snippet, but according to Citizen Insane, Colin Greenwood identified this song as "I Lie Awake" after its 2008 soundcheck debut in Dublin.
"Dawn Chorus"
The name of Radiohead's recently formed company is also a song title Yorke reportedly referred to in 2009. No audio appears to exist.