Thom Yorke (notes from a BBC interview)
/In this post, there is a list of the advanced words and phrases from the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs interview with Thom Yorke. He is the singer and songwriter of the band Radiohead, a very successful and well-known British pop group. Aggie and I have created a podcast to explain some of the vocab in the interview. You can listen to it below:
list of words that we explain in our podcast:
elation
eureka
spellbound
trashed
booing
gobsmacked
forlorn
fit in
pivotal
blew my mind
overcompensating
hypocrite
stuns
NOTES OF THE INTERVIEW
LL INTRO
00:58 He has expanded ideas about what pop music can be and what it can do
Built his own guitar as a child
1:07 Wrote his first song about an atomic bomb
Radiohead have endured 34 years, and sold over 30 million albums
1:21 Continued to push boundaries
Just wrote his first classical piece!
“When an artist starts repeating themselves because they think that’s what the audience wants, it’s all over”
1:45 You’ve got to be prepared to torch it at any moment
CREATING MUSIC
1:57 We’re hearing a tiny proportion of your total creative output? [LL]
2:01 I wish there were vaults full of other stuff
2:08 You need to feel an unsuredness is that a word?? About where you’re going
Good music comes because you’re there ready to receive it
2:35 The search for a hit (in the recording studio) → not a hit track but almost the hit of a drug [LL]
2:45 You get this elation
→ it can feed your soul for even years
3:05 You’ve described it as sensethesia
It’s a colour or a shape or a movement, I can see it in my head. That’s normal right?
3:32 Of course the eureka moments didn’t really happen when I was 12
FIRST TRACK
3:45 2 virtuoso piano players
For the first time wrote piano music even though he can’t read music
If you listen to any piece of music enough times you’re going to see through it/hate it
4:28 Small doses of something very very sweet (when I really need it)
4:38 tentative, cautious
4:45 It flowers like the dawn almost
6:11 You were spellbound [LL]
I only chose that to make it look like I’m smart !
6:16 whack one classical piece in there
6:21 No false modesty on this programme [LL]
LEAD VOCALIST
When first started had a lot of problems w voice
6:53 Drinking myself senseless
Had to give up smoking. Found myself in a Harley St Doctors, he was really cool. Explained the exact physics of the voice
7:15 I got really trashed
Woke up to the sound of Bjork 7:20 warming up
7:23 That was pretty wild
It’s 10:30 in the morning and you’re warming up! Started to take it seriously
One really awful feeling
7:49 That’s when a singer loses their voice on tour
Don’t want to let anyone down
8:02 They can see me freaking out
Convinced myself that I could do it in Brisbane
Voice went completely, couldn’t even talk, 20,000 people there, walked off
8:26 There was booing
I forgive myself now
8:59 One of those reiki things (on that night in Brisbane)
9:09 Complete outer body experience
SECOND TRACK
9:34 I’m vying for a job on radio 6
It’s gonna rain on the island
10:01 Beautifully whimsical piece, very profound
10:08 Leaves me gobsmacked every time
CHILDHOOD
Born in 1968
11:15 Eventually settled in Oxford
11:22 I had a thick Scottish accent which I can still recall now
11:33 Suburban normal, lived in a cul de sac
Spent a lot of time on my bike
11:50 Doing stunts on the gravel pits
EARLY MUSIC
Recording stuff off the radio, top of the pops
12:18 Got really obsessed with music
12:27 Really fond of breaking electrical things
13:37 I liked the fizz of the cathode ray
Obsessed with lego
Started playing guitar at 7 or 8
Obsessed with Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody
Decided, yep this is what I’m doing
Rough cut out with a saw
Didn’t want to sing originally
13:32 A very very tolerant mum (A friend’s house and made terrible sounds)
EYE SURGERY
Left eye was shut, no muscles to open it
Took muscle from arse and they 14:04 graft it on to make it work
14:15 Just about old enough to deal with it
Couldn’t understand what was going on
3 or 4 operations after that
Asked for an Adidas red tracksuit as his treat after the last one
14:52 Kids can be quite cruel [LL]
Last operation went wrong: It’s kind of blind, looks good but can’t use it
Saw this old surgeon and he said you’re never going to fly in the RAF but at least it looks right
Decided I liked the fact that it wasn’t the same
15:39 I kind of thought it was like a badge of pride
THIRD TRACK
16:06 It was like a bomb going off in my head
Could see that it was completely new, not like anything else
Ask for the whole record !
BANDMATES AT SCHOOL
17:55 forlorn and a little isolated [LL, music teacher remembered him as this]
18:11 music school and art school was my sanctuary
Sanctuary from what? A posh private boys school full of arseholes !
18:33 I don’t blend well
V lucky, head of music and art department saw something in me
Can’t read music but (Terry?) teacher didn’t care! Still can’t
If they had not done that I wouldn’t be here today doing this
19:43 You had music to shield you from what was going on
19:49 You hadn’t found a place that you fit in
Music was my escape, the only thing I could use to 20:02 to resolve the schisms of life
20:10 I could not do without it
The mathematics of music, 20:17 the frequencies what they do to human beings
20:30 I might sound completely gaga
20:41 It’s a sacred thing for me
PARENTS REACTION
21:03 Got my big amp
→ above the tv room
21:23 Would take me along to gigs
Very determined
21:34 I would just go AWOL
21:36 Report back sheepishly on a Sunday
FOURTH TRACK
21:54 One of those pivotal moments
Driving to Cornwall, John Peale is on and he, in his 22:17 dour manner announces this track
22:31 It’s like I’m having a seizure or something
22:39 I’m completely transfixed
22:50 Harkens back to this whole period I feel like I missed cos I decided to be in a rock band
Sometimes you listen to a track and you just think Thank God someone’s done this
23:50 Banging
GAP YEAR
23:57 You took a gap year after school [LL]
Wanted to figure out if I was completely insane or if I really wanted to be a musician
24:08 Did a bunch of dead end jobs
Sold suits, not very good
24:24 My first fatal flaw was being 24:26 brutally honest
Would tell these old guys in brown tweedy suits that it really didn’t look very good and then they would leave !
24:48 You really don’t have the right motivation
24:58 You made a demo → quite well received! [LL]
Music shop, magazine demo competition, didn’t think much of it, back in the shop a few weeks later, his photo on the front of the magazine - who is this guy he sounds just like Neil Young, “Who is Neil Young?” So bought his record
Offered a record deal!
26:12 Neither of us felt mentally ready for what was going on
Want to be good boys and go to university
Really wanted to go and study art
26:56 the art college thing blew my mind
Wouldn’t have been creatively prepared without fine art college
FIFTH TRACK
27:20 gravitated towards weirdness, ambience, electronic
Need human voices, those which helped me
The lyrics - I think wow! Somebody wrote that
28:09 End up being asked to play a benefit concert with him
Had to prepare myself by drinking heavily
He walked past and talked to me and I said “I really want to play after the goldrush tomorrow” and he said “Really? That’s great you can play it on the piano I recorded it on!”
Or trying to cos it’s too high for me
29:51 A unique voice
29:58 People have drawn parallels between his voice and yours
30:09 it’s so fragile
Powerful stuff is the vulnerability
30:51 That was the final nail for me
INSTANT HIT
31:20 stretch limos (arrived in America)
Laid out 100 records for them to sign, looking at this pen like I’ve never done this before! Put us in first class on the plane
31:44 It was really out of control
Asked to be on live TV, we’d never done that! We’d been driving around in a 31:49 van doing support gigs
It felt funny 31:57 bit of a panic
31:59 imbued this sense of we absolutely didn’t deserve this
32:06 10 years of overcompensating for that
Had to always give their very best
Doors opened way before we were ready
32:49 How did you cope with it?
I got angry!
33:04 More control freakery
Put my hands on the steering wheel
33:14 and I white knuckled
Didn’t care who I hurt and what I said until the end of OK Computer
Don’t mess with me cos this is what’s happening. He apologised later on.
We had the best time doing that record
33:55 Possibilities seemed completely endless
Wasn’t enjoying it until later on, didn’t want to make a mistake
SIXTH DISC
REM were very important to us
34:34 Singer of RAM was my hero
Was like the hand of god reaching down from the clouds and saying YOU ! And now I’m friends with him!
People started to look at me like I was jesus in the street
35:06 I’d call him and say I can’t handle it
35:14 Use what I taught you about making you invisible
Put the shutters down and walk away
35:35 taught us how to be gracious with people and have fun
35:47 They were the link for me between the art and music parts of me
CLIMATE CHANGE
Woke up every night as a newish father worrying about climate change
Couldn’t look at my little boy without trying to do something
Very stressful
Work with Green Peace for many years
38.22 so boom I’m a hypocrite (flying for work)
38.38 It can become detrimental for all the people that are doing the hard work
39.20 we’re out of time
7th DISC
39.50 the man was a total lunatic
40.17 There’s an elation in…
40.37 I’d be playing banging techno
40.40 I’d drop this track
BEING A DAD
41.00 Ex wife died at 48
A relaxed dad
Semi-chaotic household
42.50 we just hang out
43.04 It just stuns me (can’t believe they’re anything to do with me
All the Radiohead kids get on - took control of one bus in the last tour
44.38 I want to go to my metaphorical potting shed and carry on tinkering away.
46.00 on the edge of crazy, there’s something really unhinged about the way that she sings it.
46.23 You can up in the morning and rise with it
Book - Suzuki Zen meditation
Luxury - a tape recorder
48.11 I’d prefer to weave myself a yoga mat
Links
Here’s a link to the lego acropolis that Aggie mentioned!
https://www.athenswalkingtours.gr/blog/index.php/2014/12/12/lego-model-of-the-acropolis/