Thom's guitar enters I believe with Phil but it's initially pushed so far down in the mix it's hard to tell. That guitar part is how the song was originally written (this section of the song is decidedly in Amajor, playing off of B7 - F#m and Esus4 - Emajor) but it was intended to be left off the final mix and used solely as a guideline for the rest of the band to coalesce around - in the end the other members agreed the song sounded great with Thom playing along and his practice demo was used for the album. Conversely, Colin's teleporting bassline was laid down as a skeletal foundation with the idea in mind that he would figure out something to play in between later on - when he never did, the final product ended up making him sound more characterized, idiosyncratic, and downright jazzy than he ever did plodding along to the likes of "Bones", "My Iron Lung", et cetera. He did take bass lessons during The Bends touring, that might have something to do with his new creativity, but again wisdom seems to define this band just as aptly as creativity. He's playing to the laboriously programmed drum sample that required the space to be heard about the rhythm section - apparently this was a Selway/Godrich joint effort in the studio on a mac for two days and a drum kit for fifteen minutes. God I shudder just thinking about macs. But the hell they endured was worth it, their efforts supply a rhythmic confidence and exuberance that stays jarred but unscathed, which is really what an Airbag does, you feel incredibly lucky and shaken after using one.
And so muses Yorke's spacious vocal "In a jackknifed juggernaut I am born again, in an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe". By 1:15 all 5-6 members of the band are individually vindicated and creatively liberated. Course, Jonny wouldn't be content merely providing the intro so he soars over the song with a tremelo-picked, reverb-drenched eastern scale for a verse and a solo, and Thom comes back triumphantly to save the universe once again. Just when everything seems to come to a halt, guitars glitch out and drums sputter, the bass comes to life and demands the song keep moving. The mellotron informs some resolute sighing from Thom until the intro theme finally makes its way back into the mix and reintroduces the consistent shifts from Fmajor to Amajor, perpetuating an even cycle of introducing and resolving a minor conflict between C and C# but keeping major keys constant so the overall positive mood of the melody is never dropped, instead passed between two hands. No doubt Jonny penned this bit. The final A rings out and three aural dots punctuate the song like, well, an ellipses...
Thom's solo rendition on a nylon string plays up the song's Neil Youngish folksy quality. His voice sounds fantastic and focused, he even jams out a little bit near the end and busting into the straight up F and A chords at the end after keeping the intro in A was so effective thematically compared to the studio versions' emphasis on the tonal difference in the intro moreso than the outro. I actually just watched this after writing up the studio version, so I wouldn't have probably noticed as much if I wasn't just now sitting here figuring out how the album version all goes on a guitar. As for the live band version I'd have given one from this tour - they play it often but there aren't any videos that do Clive and Phil justice to my knowledge. And I doubt Thom has gotten more buck with it in 2012 than he did in Belfort. This is one where there's a million live performances to choose from and it'd be hard to go wrong with any of them.
10/10
Pyramid Song
Airbag
Where I End And You Begin
The National Anthem
Karma Police
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At The Door
Fake Plastic Trees
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Little By Little
Videotape
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