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Lift (Radiohead song)
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox song
| name = Lift
| cover =
| alt =
| type = Promotional single
| artist = Radiohead
| album = OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017
| released = 23 June 2017
| format =
| recorded = February 1996
| studio =Chipping Norton Studios
| venue =
| genre = Britpop
| length = 4:07
| label = XL
| writer =
*Colin Greenwood
*Jonny Greenwood
*Ed O'Brien
*Philip Selway
*Thom Yorke
| producer =
| misc =
}}
"'Lift'" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead released in 2017. It was first performed in 1996; bootleg recordings were widely circulated, and it became a fan favourite. Radiohead recorded versions of "Lift" during the sessions for their third album, 'OK Computer' (1997), but abandoned it. Guitarist Ed O'Brien said the band had felt pressured by its commercial potential, and drummer Philip Selway said it did not represent what Radiohead wanted to say at the time.
Critics described "Lift" as anthemic and "Britpop-like". In 2017, Radiohead released a version recorded during the 'OK Computer' sessions on the reissue 'OKNOTOK 1997 2017', followed by a music video. It received positive reviews, though some critics found it inferior to the bootlegged performances. Further versions recorded during the 'OK Computer' period were released on the 2019 compilation 'MiniDiscs [Hacked]' and received more positive reviews.
History
Radiohead first performed "Lift" on March 14, 1996, at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. They performed it over 30 times that year while supporting Alanis Morissette on her 'Jagged Little Pill' tour. Journalists noted "Lift" as a highlight and possible future single. 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." A bootleg recording was widely circulated, and "Lift" became a fan favourite., Oxfordshire, where Radiohead recorded "Lift" in 1996
Radiohead recorded "Lift" during the sessions for their third album, 'OK Computer' (1997), but it went unreleased. According to drummer Philip Selway, the band felt it was "fey" and not "what we wanted to say about ourselves as a band at the time". In 1999, O'Brien dismissed it as "bogshite", and said the band were "very happy to leave [it] off the album ... There wasn't any stage where it was a key track for any of us." Asked why the song could have worked in live performance but not in the studio, O'Brien said Radiohead had not worked hard on it, and that if a song did not come together quickly they would move on. Singer Thom Yorke said the band had settled on playing it in "a certain way that didn't work", and that it became impossible to rearrange.
In 2017, O'Brien 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 recordsif 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.
From their 2000 album 'Kid A', Radiohead shifted away from conventional rock music. O'Brien described "Lift" as an "epic" song similar to the 1996 Manic Street Preachers single "A Design for Life", and said that Radiohead no longer produced that kind of music. In 2002, Radiohead performed "Lift" in a slower, more restrained arrangement, which 'Pitchfork' described as "a somber, almost queasy affair". O'Brien and guitarist Jonny Greenwood later dismissed this version as inferior. Promotional interview CD sent to British music press. In 2003, O'Brien said: "The spirit of the song was there in '96 ... And we're not in that place at the moment."
In 2015, Greenwood suggested that Radiohead had worked on "Lift" again, describing it as a "management favourite". He likened the situation to "Nude", a song released on Radiohead's seventh album 'In Rainbows' (2007) but written years earlier. "Lift" remained a fan favourite. 'Pitchfork' wrote that it came to "hold an important place in Radiohead lore", and according to 'Rolling Stone' it was, for decades, the "great white whale" for Radiohead fans.
Release
In June 2017, Radiohead released "Lift" on the 'OK Computer' reissue 'OKNOTOK 1997 2017', alongside two other previously unreleased tracks: "I Promise" and "Man of War". The version of "Lift" was recorded at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in February 1996, while the band were recording demos for 'OK Computer'. In 2019, hours of recordings made during the 'OK Computer' sessions, including more versions of "Lift", were leaked online; in response, Radiohead released the recordings as the compilation 'MiniDiscs [Hacked]'.Composition
'Spin' described "Lift" as a Britpop-like ballad, and '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'". According to 'Pitchfork,' the song is "strummy and steadily building, with yearning vocals".
The lyrics describe a man who has been rescued from a malfunctioning lift. 'Pitchfork' likened its themes to the 'OK Computer' single "No Surprises", and 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".
Music video
On 12 September 2017, Radiohead released a music video for "Lift" directed by Oscar Hudson, featuring Yorke taking an unusual journey in a lift. The video features cameos from Yorke's daughter and his girlfriend Dajana Roncione, and references older Radiohead videos, with appearances from characters from the "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" videos. 'Pitchfork' named it the 14th-best music video of 2017.
Reception
Jamie Atkins, reviewing 'OKNOTOK' for 'Record Collector', wrote that "Lift" was "an undeniably brilliant alt rock song, with surprising echoes of the grandstanding, otherworldly melancholy of prime Smashing Pumpkins". 'Guardian' critic Alexis Petridis said it had "an immense, air-punch-inducing chorus", and that it would have been a "huge" hit had Radiohead released it. 'Pitchfork' critic Jayson Greene described it as "a lovely, weightless strummer of a song".
Several critics felt the version released on 'OKNOTOK' was lacking. 'Rolling Stone' wrote that it was "restrained, decelerated and boasting an uncharacteristically blas Yorke vocal take" and did not match the "magnitude" of the live bootlegs. 'Spin' critic Andy Cush felt it was "strangely neutered, with drums that patter instead of exploding with energy", and that the widely circulated 1996 bootleg remained "canonical". Fellow 'Spin' writer Winston Cook-Wilson agreed that the bootlegs were "a bit more staggering", but wrote that this 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".
Following the 2019 release of 'MiniDiscs [Hacked]', 'Pitchfork' critics Greene and Jeremy D Larson wrote that it had a superior version of "Lift": "It's not mixed very carefully, but it sounds scrappy and untamed, like the band is pushing it into the red unselfconsciously. It lives up to the myth." 'Rolling Stone' considered this version the "crown jewel" of the release and "well worth" the price of purchase. The 'Guardian' wrote that this "satisfying" version would likely have pleased EMI had Radiohead released it as the first 'OK Computer' single, but that it was "ultimately a conservative song and feels like a path the band were right to fork from".
Personnel
'Radiohead'
*Colin Greenwood
*Jonny Greenwood
*Ed O'Brien
*Philip Selway
*Thom Yorke
'Additional musicians'
*Chris Blair mastering
*Nigel Godrich production, engineering
*Jim Warren production, engineering
References
Category:2017 songs
Category:Radiohead songs
Category:Song recordings produced by Nigel Godrich
Category:Songs written by Thom Yorke
Category:Songs written by Jonny Greenwood
Category:Songs written by Colin Greenwood
Category:Songs written by Ed O'Brien
Category:Songs written by Philip Selway
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