Idioteque
Encyclopedia
"Idioteque" is the eighth track from the British
rock band Radiohead
's 2000
album Kid A
. It was seen as a departure for the rock band, as the song is driven by electronic beats. The song has been played at nearly every concert since 2000. The song is listed at #8 on Pitchfork Media
's top 500 songs of the 2000s.
, "Idioteque wasn't my idea at all; it was Jonny's
. Jonny handed me this DAT
that he'd... he'd gone into our studio for the afternoon... and, um, the DAT was like 50 minutes long, and I sat there and listened to this 50 minutes. And some of it was just "what?", but then there was this section of about 40 seconds long in the middle of it that was absolute genius, and I just cut that up and that was it...".
. The first is several seconds of Mild und Leise, a piece by Paul Lansky
, forming the four chord progression repeated throughout the song. Mild und Leise is 18 minutes long and through composed. The portion sampled by Radiohead is only heard once in the original piece, very briefly. Also sampled is "Short Piece" by Arthur Kreiger, now a professor of music at Connecticut College
. Both tracks were compiled on the 1976 LP First Recordings — Electronic Music Winners, which Radiohead instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood
stumbled upon while the band was working on Kid A.
Paul Lansky approved Greenwood's sampling and has since written an essay on "Idioteque", found in the book The Music and Art of Radiohead. Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood often compose music on their laptops, even while on the road touring, making it possible to create an electronic song in several minutes. Lansky also noted that, while Radiohead's song may hinge on a sample from his work, the mild und leise chord progression they used was itself "sampled" by Lansky from a leitmotif
of the Richard Wagner
opera Tristan und Isolde
. On the original album release, the song was credited as having been written by Radiohead with an additional credit for the samples used. On the group's later album I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, the songwriting credit is given to "Radiohead & Paul Lansky".
, Paul Lansky
includes the following musical example, showing that the chord progression consists of four different spacings of an E flat major seventh chord, with B flat and E flat in the right hand and G and D in the left, then D and G in the right and E flat and B flat in the left. The next chords are inversions of the first two, with E flat and B flat in the right, then G and D. Finally, this chord progression also includes two high B flat harmonics on the 2nd and 4th chords.
playing the song inside a studio. However, this version differs from the album version. The video for "Idioteque" would mark the last time the entire band would be featured in a music video until the 2007 video for Jigsaw Falling Into Place
. Though there was a music video, no official single was released.
Animated "blips" or videos created to promote Kid A often showed polar bears or a Grim Reaper figure floating on icebergs. There is also a promotional video called Blinking Bear Version.
, an issue on which Yorke is outspoken and has admitted inspired subsequent songs, such as 2003's "Sail to the Moon" and those on his 2006 solo album The Eraser
.
Several of the "Idioteque" lyrics (as well as those of certain other songs from the period) are audibly different in live performance. The "Idioteque" lyrics, like others on Kid A, were created from cutting up phrases and drawing them from a hat.
The song opens with the lines: "who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker, women and children first..." Yorke has not explained the reference, but has said other songs, such as 2003's "I Will" and "Sit Down. Stand Up." were about civilians killed in military conflict and genocide ("I Will" had originally been written before Kid A. Its lyrics also reference a "bunker," likely based on an incident in which Iraqi civilians, most of them women and children, were killed by air raids on the underground Al Amiriyah shelter in the 1991 Gulf War
).
Near the end of the song, a line that sounds like "the first of the children" is repeatedly sung, possibly a reference to the album's title Kid A (this line is actually a sample of Yorke's vocal from earlier in the song, played halfway through the line "women and children first, and the children", making the line "the first, and the children"). However, when Yorke sings the song live, it varies between "the(re's) fathers and the children," "this one is to the children," "this one is for the children," or "if I asked you to kill me."
The lyrics are paralleled in the visual artwork for the album Kid A
by Stanley Donwood
and Thom Yorke, under the pen name
"Tchock". Donwood's paintings depict a wasteland covered by sheets of ice and snow, with fires in distant forests and genetically modified bears and other mysterious shapes taking control of human civilization.
The cover of the band’s 2000 album Kid A, Donwood says, was inspired by a Guardian front page photograph he saw during the Kosovo war
. "It was of a square metre of snow and it was full of the detritus of war, all military stuff and fag stains. I was upset by it in a way war had never upset me before. It felt like it was happening in my street."
The graphic novel Brought to Light
by Alan Moore
and Bill Sienkiewicz
, has been acknowledged by Kid A cover designer Donwood as the source of the blood-filled swimming pool on the "Kid A" cover.
Many official Radiohead shirts sold during their 2001 tour featured a melting iceberg with the lyrics "This is really happening", taken from the lyrics of "Idioteque" written underneath.
covered it live on his 2006 tour supporting Imogen Heap
, using multiple loop pedals to build a layered effect. A studio version is also on his 2008 album "You Are Never Close To Home, You Are Never Far From Home". In July 2010 Amanda Palmer
released it as the first single from her Radiohead covers album
; her cover was National Public Radio's Song of the Day for January 11, 2011. In 2010 Yoav
also used a loop pedal to build a layered acoustic version. It has also been covered by The Crown Vandals, We Versus the Shark
, Vienna Teng
, and Calico Horse.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
rock band Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
's 2000
2000 in music
See also:* 2000 in music Record labels established in 2000-Events:*January – Gary Glitter is released from jail, two months before his sentence for sexual offences ends.*January 1**John Tavener is knighted in the New Year's Honours List....
album Kid A
Kid A
Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide, Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A...
. It was seen as a departure for the rock band, as the song is driven by electronic beats. The song has been played at nearly every concert since 2000. The song is listed at #8 on Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
's top 500 songs of the 2000s.
Background and recording
According to Radiohead frontman Thom YorkeThom Yorke
Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...
, "Idioteque wasn't my idea at all; it was Jonny's
Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
. Jonny handed me this DAT
Digital Audio Tape
Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a compact audio cassette, using 4 mm magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. As...
that he'd... he'd gone into our studio for the afternoon... and, um, the DAT was like 50 minutes long, and I sat there and listened to this 50 minutes. And some of it was just "what?", but then there was this section of about 40 seconds long in the middle of it that was absolute genius, and I just cut that up and that was it...".
Sampling
"Idioteque" contains two credited samples of experimental 1970s computer musicComputer music
Computer music is a term that was originally used within academia to describe a field of study relating to the applications of computing technology in music composition; particularly that stemming from the Western art music tradition...
. The first is several seconds of Mild und Leise, a piece by Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky is an American electronic-music or computer-music composer who has been producing works from the 1970s up to the present day .-Biography:...
, forming the four chord progression repeated throughout the song. Mild und Leise is 18 minutes long and through composed. The portion sampled by Radiohead is only heard once in the original piece, very briefly. Also sampled is "Short Piece" by Arthur Kreiger, now a professor of music at Connecticut College
Connecticut College
Connecticut College is a private liberal arts college located in New London, Connecticut.The college was founded in 1911, as Connecticut College for Women, in response to Wesleyan University closing its doors to women...
. Both tracks were compiled on the 1976 LP First Recordings — Electronic Music Winners, which Radiohead instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
stumbled upon while the band was working on Kid A.
Paul Lansky approved Greenwood's sampling and has since written an essay on "Idioteque", found in the book The Music and Art of Radiohead. Radiohead members Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood often compose music on their laptops, even while on the road touring, making it possible to create an electronic song in several minutes. Lansky also noted that, while Radiohead's song may hinge on a sample from his work, the mild und leise chord progression they used was itself "sampled" by Lansky from a leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
of the Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
opera Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
. On the original album release, the song was credited as having been written by Radiohead with an additional credit for the samples used. On the group's later album I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, the songwriting credit is given to "Radiohead & Paul Lansky".
Structure
In his essay "My Radiohead Adventure" in The Music and Art of RadioheadThe Music and Art of Radiohead
The Music and Art of Radiohead is a collection of academic essays on the band Radiohead. It was published in May 2005 by Ashgate Publishing .-Table of contents:*Preface by Kevin J. H...
, Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky
Paul Lansky is an American electronic-music or computer-music composer who has been producing works from the 1970s up to the present day .-Biography:...
includes the following musical example, showing that the chord progression consists of four different spacings of an E flat major seventh chord, with B flat and E flat in the right hand and G and D in the left, then D and G in the right and E flat and B flat in the left. The next chords are inversions of the first two, with E flat and B flat in the right, then G and D. Finally, this chord progression also includes two high B flat harmonics on the 2nd and 4th chords.
Music video
The official video features RadioheadRadiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
playing the song inside a studio. However, this version differs from the album version. The video for "Idioteque" would mark the last time the entire band would be featured in a music video until the 2007 video for Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Jigsaw Falling into Place
"Jigsaw Falling into Place" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead and is the penultimate track on their 2007 album In Rainbows. The song was released as the first single from In Rainbows on 14 January 2008, following the album's "standard" physical release on December 31, 2007.-Overview:The...
. Though there was a music video, no official single was released.
Animated "blips" or videos created to promote Kid A often showed polar bears or a Grim Reaper figure floating on icebergs. There is also a promotional video called Blinking Bear Version.
Lyrics and imagery
Yorke does not directly explain his lyrics, but "Idioteque" has been described by others as an "apocalyptic" song, with possible references to natural disaster, war and technological breakdown. Many fans interpret "Idioteque" as having something to do with climate changeClimate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, an issue on which Yorke is outspoken and has admitted inspired subsequent songs, such as 2003's "Sail to the Moon" and those on his 2006 solo album The Eraser
The Eraser
The Eraser is the debut solo album by Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke, released on 10 July 2006. The album debuted at #3 on the UK Albums Chart and at #2 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, selling over 90,000 copies in its first week. Critical reception to the album was generally positive...
.
Several of the "Idioteque" lyrics (as well as those of certain other songs from the period) are audibly different in live performance. The "Idioteque" lyrics, like others on Kid A, were created from cutting up phrases and drawing them from a hat.
The song opens with the lines: "who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker, women and children first..." Yorke has not explained the reference, but has said other songs, such as 2003's "I Will" and "Sit Down. Stand Up." were about civilians killed in military conflict and genocide ("I Will" had originally been written before Kid A. Its lyrics also reference a "bunker," likely based on an incident in which Iraqi civilians, most of them women and children, were killed by air raids on the underground Al Amiriyah shelter in the 1991 Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
).
Near the end of the song, a line that sounds like "the first of the children" is repeatedly sung, possibly a reference to the album's title Kid A (this line is actually a sample of Yorke's vocal from earlier in the song, played halfway through the line "women and children first, and the children", making the line "the first, and the children"). However, when Yorke sings the song live, it varies between "the(re's) fathers and the children," "this one is to the children," "this one is for the children," or "if I asked you to kill me."
The lyrics are paralleled in the visual artwork for the album Kid A
Kid A
Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide, Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A...
by Stanley Donwood
Stanley Donwood
Stanley Donwood is the pen name of English artist Dan Rickwood. Donwood is known for his close association with the British rock group Radiohead, having created all their album and poster art...
and Thom Yorke, under the pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
"Tchock". Donwood's paintings depict a wasteland covered by sheets of ice and snow, with fires in distant forests and genetically modified bears and other mysterious shapes taking control of human civilization.
The cover of the band’s 2000 album Kid A, Donwood says, was inspired by a Guardian front page photograph he saw during the Kosovo war
Kosovo War
The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...
. "It was of a square metre of snow and it was full of the detritus of war, all military stuff and fag stains. I was upset by it in a way war had never upset me before. It felt like it was happening in my street."
The graphic novel Brought to Light
Brought to Light
Brought to Light: Thirty Years of Drug Smuggling, Arms Deals, and Covert Action is an anthology of two political graphic novels, published originally by Eclipse Comics in 1988. Both are based on material from lawsuits filed by the Christic Institute against the US Government...
by Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...
and Bill Sienkiewicz
Bill Sienkiewicz
Boleslav Felix Robert "Bill" Sienkiewicz [pronounced sin-KEV-itch] is an Eisner Award-winning American artist and writer best known for his comic book work, primarily for Marvel Comics' The New Mutants and Elektra: Assassin...
, has been acknowledged by Kid A cover designer Donwood as the source of the blood-filled swimming pool on the "Kid A" cover.
Many official Radiohead shirts sold during their 2001 tour featured a melting iceberg with the lyrics "This is really happening", taken from the lyrics of "Idioteque" written underneath.
Cover versions
The song has inspired a wide array of covers. Levi WeaverLevi Weaver
Levi Weaver is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Colorado and raised in Texas, Weaver moved to Birmingham, England in 2005 after his former band broke up. He released his first EP, the self-recorded "Civil War Between My Heart and Mind," in April 2006...
covered it live on his 2006 tour supporting Imogen Heap
Imogen Heap
Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap is a Grammy Award-winning English singer, composer and songwriter from Havering, Essex. She is known for her work as part of the musical duo Frou Frou and her solo albums, which she writes, produces, and mixes...
, using multiple loop pedals to build a layered effect. A studio version is also on his 2008 album "You Are Never Close To Home, You Are Never Far From Home". In July 2010 Amanda Palmer
Amanda Palmer
Amanda MacKinnon Gaiman Palmer , sometimes known as Amanda Fucking Palmer, is an American performer who first rose to prominence as the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the duo The Dresden Dolls...
released it as the first single from her Radiohead covers album
Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on Her Magical Ukulele
Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on Her Magical Ukulele is an EP by musician Amanda Palmer. It is composed entirely of twee pop cover versions of songs by the band Radiohead, performed by Palmer on the ukulele. It was released on July 20, 2010.- Reception :Paste Magazine listed...
; her cover was National Public Radio's Song of the Day for January 11, 2011. In 2010 Yoav
Yoav (musician)
Yoav is a singer-songwriter of Israeli-Romanian descent, raised in South Africa whose debut album Charmed And Strange was released in early 2008. Yoav's music is purely based on his own vocals and acoustic guitar, which he uses to create electronica-style beats with his hands...
also used a loop pedal to build a layered acoustic version. It has also been covered by The Crown Vandals, We Versus the Shark
We Versus the Shark
-Biography:The band formed in March 2003, and is composed of several multi-instrumentalists who trade instruments and all sing during live shows. Their debut full-length, Ruin Everything!, was released in January 2005 on the label Hello Sir. An EP followed in 2007. The band have recently released a...
, Vienna Teng
Vienna Teng
Cynthia Yih Shih , better known by her stage name Vienna Teng, is a Taiwanese American pianist and singer-songwriter based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Teng has released four studio albums: Waking Hour , Warm Strangers , Dreaming Through the Noise , and Inland Territory...
, and Calico Horse.
External links
- Radiohead Official Site
- Homepage of Paul Lansky: explanation by the composer of the song's relationship with his piece mild und leise, including a sample of it.