Lift (Radiohead song)
| "Lift" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Radiohead | |
| from the album OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 | |
| Released | 23 June 2017 |
| Recorded | 1996 |
| Genre | Alternative rock |
| Length | 4:07 |
| Label | XL |
| Songwriter(s) | Radiohead |
| Producer(s) |
|
"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.
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. 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." The song became a fan favourite and, according to Pitchfork, came to "hold an important place in Radiohead lore".
Radiohead recorded "Lift" during the sessions for their third album, OK Computer (1997), but did not release it. Guitarist Ed 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." 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.
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."
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