More about: Radiohead

Ever dreamed of being stuck in a lift with Thom Yorke?

Get a sense of just how creepy (or brilliant, depending on your point of view) that would be with this newly-released video from the 20th anniversary reissue of seminal 1997 album Ok Computer, ‘OKNOTOK’.

The song ‘Lift’, which, alongside other unreleased tracks put out earlier this year including ‘Man of War’ and the truly stellar ‘I Promise’ neatly recalls the growling guitars and indie rhythms of what many consider to be the Oxford five-piece’s musical heyday.

In the video, lead singer Thom is his element playing a shaggy-haired weirdo clad in a three-quarter length anorak holding two plastic carrier bags. Set entirely in a lift, various fellow travellers get on and off including a gaggle of schoolgirls, an old lady with a trolley, a cluster of intensely-networking bald business types, a maintenance guy replacing a light bulb and a cleaner who very pointedly (*gasp* dare we suggest symbolically) paint mops Yorke, 48, into a corner.

Also look out for cameos from a dog, a toddler, and a man drinking out of a goldfish bowl. The ending is proper creepy too.

The band lately described (in Rolling Stone magazine) performing ‘Lift’ during their 1996 tour opening slot for Canadian chanteuse Alanis Morisette. The crowd ‘….really responded well to that one night. It had a really killer groove. It kind of got them rocking in the aisles’ recalled guitarist Ed O’Brien in a recent Rolling Stone interview.

Radiohead have in many ways enjoyed a great year, with a successful tour and universally lauded Glastonbury headline set. However, it has also been bittersweet; last week it emerged that the trial investigating a stage collapse which killed long-time drum technician Scott Johnson at a 2012 Toronto gig has been put on hold. Yorke responded on Twitter saying ‘Words utterly fail me’, while then-support act Caribou described the move even more colourfully as ‘complete bullshit’.

More about: Radiohead