New Music: Radiohead – “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)”

Thom and Jonny
Photo via Dead Air Space


With 2009 closing fast and Futurist rants about nanotechnology ushering us headlong into the future, I’ve been listening to a lot of Kid A lately and discovering after years of mild interest that it happens to be Radiohead’s most focused, best produced piece of art. “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)” has a less intense history and a much less paranoid agenda. The new song — Radiohead’s first official release since the second disc of In Rainbows — is, as the title explains, in memory of Harry Patch, the last British survivor of World War I. He passed away recently, coinciding coincidentally with the recording of this song, a tender ballad with strings blissfully arranged by Jonny Greenwood. Thom explains the inspiration for the charity track on Dead Air Space, where, no, you can’t pay whatever you want for it but you can have it for one thin pound. Bring on LPVIII.

Radiohead – “Harry Patch (In Memory Of”):
mp3

Previously: New Music: Thom Yorke – “The Present Tense” | All Radiohead Posts