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| Name = Lift
| Name = Lift
| alt =
| alt =
|type=Song| Artist = [[Radiohead]]
|type=Single| Artist = [[Radiohead]]
| Album = [[OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017]]
| Album = [[OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017]]
| Released = 23 June 2017
| Released = 23 June 2017
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"'''Lift'''" is a song by the English rock band [[Radiohead]], recorded during the sessions for their third album, ''[[OK Computer]]'' (1997). It was unreleased until 2017, when it was included on the ''OK Computer'' reissue, ''[[OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017]]'', in June 2017. Radiohead released a music video for the song in September.
"'''Lift'''" is a song by the English rock band [[Radiohead]], recorded during the sessions for their third album, ''[[OK Computer]]'' (1997). It was unreleased until 2017, when it was included on the ''OK Computer'' reissue, ''[[OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017]]'', in June 2017. Radiohead released the song as a download alongside a music video for the song in September.


== History ==
== History ==

Revision as of 17:52, 6 December 2017

"Lift"
Single

"Lift" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, recorded during the sessions for their third album, OK Computer (1997). It was unreleased until 2017, when it was included on the OK Computer reissue, OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017, in June 2017. Radiohead released the song as a download alongside a music video for the song in September.

History

Radiohead first performed "Lift" on March 14, 1996 at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. They went on to perform it over 30 times that year while touring with Alanis Morissette on her Jagged Little Pill tour.[1] According to guitarist Ed O'Brien, the audience responded warmly to the song: "Suddenly you'd see them get up and start grooving. It had this infectiousness."[2] A bootleg recording was widely circulated,[3] and "Lift" became a fan favourite; according to Pitchfork it came to "hold an important place in Radiohead lore".[1]

Radiohead recorded a version of "Lift" during the sessions for their third album, OK Computer (1997), but did not release it. O'Brien dismissed the song as a "bogshite B-side" which the band were "very happy to leave off the album ... There wasn't any stage where it was a key track for any of us."[1] In 2017, he said that Radiohead had felt pressured by the song's commercial potential:

If that song had been on that album, it would've taken us to a different place, and probably we'd have sold a lot more records—if we'd done it right. And everyone was saying this. And I think we subconsciously killed it. If OK Computer had been like a Jagged Little Pill, it would've killed us. But “Lift” had this magic about it. But when we got to the studio and did it, it felt like having a gun to your head. There was so much pressure.[1]

Around the release of Radiohead's fourth album, Kid A (2000), singer Thom Yorke said: "We haven't lost the song. We played it too much in a certain way that didn't work in my opinion. It didn't feel right. So we need to approach it in a different way, but at the time of OK Computer it was impossible to get into rearranging it because everyone had fixed ideas on what to play and we'd all just got into a habit we couldn't break."[1]

Radiohead performed a slower, more restrained arrangement of "Lift" during their 2002 tour,[4] described by Pitchfork as "a somber, almost queasy affair". This version was later dismissed by O'Brien and guitarist Jonny Greenwood as inferior.[5] In 2003, O'Brien said: "The spirit of the song was there in '96 ... And we're not in that place at the moment."[5] In 2015, Greenwood suggested that Radiohead had worked on "Lift" again, describing it as a "management favourite". He likened the song to "Nude" on In Rainbows, released on Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows (2007), but written years earlier.[6]

"Lift" was finally released on the twentieth-anniversary OK Computer reissue, OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017, in June 2017,[1] alongside two other previously unreleased tracks: "I Promise" and "Man of War".[3]

Music video

On 12 September 2017, Radiohead released a music video for the song, directed by Oscar Hudson, featuring Yorke taking an unusual journey in a lift.[7] The video features cameo appearances from Yorke's girlfriend and his daughter, and references older Radiohead videos, with appearances from characters from the "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" videos.[8]

Composition

Spin described "Lift" as a Britpop-like ballad. Pitchfork described it as "strummy and steadily building, with yearning vocals".[1] Rolling Stone described it as "one of the last vestiges of [Radiohead's] anthemic, Britpop hooks before the band embarked on a darker path with OK Computer."[4] The lyrics describe a man who has been rescued from a malfunctioning lift.[3] Pitchfork interpreted the lyric "Today is the first day of the rest of your days" as "a death sentence ... the hapless soul inside it is doomed to expire soundlessly in the intestines of some soulless corporate edifice", likening the song to the OK Computer single "No Surprises".[9]

Reception

Reviewing OKNOTOK, Pitchfork described "Lift" as "a lovely, weightless strummer of a song".[9] Jamie Atkins, writing for Record Collector, wrote that it was "an undeniably brilliant alt rock song, with surprising echoes of the grandstanding, otherworldly melancholy of prime Smashing Pumpkins."[10] Spin critic Andy Cush felt it was "strangely neutered, with drums that patter instead of exploding with energy", and felt that the widely-circulated bootleg of a 1996 performance "remained the canonical" version.[3] Another Spin scritic, Winston Cook-Wilson, agreed that the song "seems a bit more staggering in the live videos than it does here", but wrote that it was "a testament to the band's remarkable pop sense at the time – an inclination they, for their own neurotic reasons, quickly moved to complicate or subvert."[11]

Personnel

Radiohead

Additional personnel

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Why Radiohead Finally Releasing "Lift" Matters | Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. Retrieved 2017-06-25.
  2. ^ Ravens, Chal (3 May 2017). "Radiohead reveal why unreleased track 'Lift' was left off OK Computer". FACT Magazine: Music News, New Music. Retrieved 25 June 2017. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  3. ^ a b c d "Review: Radiohead - "Lift"". Spin. 2017-06-23. Retrieved 2017-06-25.
  4. ^ a b "20 Insanely Great Radiohead Songs Only Hardcore Fans Know". Rolling Stone. 17 March 2016. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
  5. ^ a b "Radiohead Hail to the Thief – Interview CD" (Interview). 2003. Promotional interview CD sent to British music press.
  6. ^ ""Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)" (1997) - 20 Insanely Great Radiohead Songs Only Hardcore Fans Know". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2016-04-04.
  7. ^ "Video: Radiohead – "Lift"". Spin. 2017-09-12. Retrieved 2017-09-12.
  8. ^ "Inside Radiohead's "Lift" Video: Director Oscar Hudson on Planting Easter Eggs for Diehard Fans | Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. Retrieved 2017-09-13.
  9. ^ a b "Radiohead: OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 Album Review". pitchfork.com. Retrieved 25 June 2017. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  10. ^ Atkins, Jamie (22 June 2017). "OK Computer – OKNOTOK 1997-2017 - Record Collector Magazine". recordcollectormag.com. Retrieved 23 June 2017. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  11. ^ Cook-Wilson, Winston (26 July 2017). "Review: Radiohead's OKNOTOK Gives OK Computer a Moving, Unvarnished Prequel". Spin. Retrieved 1 July 2017. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
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