Yes, you can rec again if I ago through yours.
I always viewed Pyramid Song in F# Phrygian, which makes sense because it sounds egyptian and dark and it was called Egyptian song before that so uh yeah. Not that 'refusing to fall into D major' doesn't make sense because they're basically the same notes and well that's basically a good definition of a minor scale like Phrygian but.. I don't know where I'm going with this!
But I'm glad you brought this up because I may have been misleading, I'm not suggesting that I want the harmony to end up on D and characterize it as a more western scale, I've just always noticed that it was a possibility that a less compositionally developed Thom might have played on - I don't think he writes with academic knowledge of scales but I imagine he instinctively understands the divide between the scale sounding eastern and western. It's entirely possible Thom never thought to put his left hand on D but doubtful since D is omnipresent throughout I believe every chord, just not as the root note of any one chord. It would have been an easy and effective card to play and it shows compositional maturity that It is never dealt. I've noticed this reserved tactic across many songs from the Kid Amnesiac period, which brings us to our next song...
Everything In Its Right Place
Studio version with lyrics -
Glastonbury 2003 -
Brad Mehldau Trio cover -
Another rhythmically vexing song, some hear it in 5/4 and some hear alternating bars of 6 and 4, either is correct since the both add up to ten beats (count em) where Thom's lyric ends up in the right place rhythmically on the one, yet the odd rhythm makes the chord progressions feel like loops themselves, each of the three sections feels unable to escape the needle in the groove restarting the song over and over, yet the sections all compliment each other in terms of harmonic tension, lending the song a quality of seeming overall like it actually is in its right place but the actual in-listening experience is one of constant mild tension. Still, I would argue that the song only achieves a rhythmic ideal in concept, 10 beats putting everything in its right place on the 01 song of a 10 song album. If anything prevails on the album version it's the electronic manipulation of Thom's vocal, turning his trance mantra into a psychodrama monologue with black and white vision. What was that you tried to say? Notice the snippets of him being cut to say "Kid A" at the very beginning, or I'm sure you already have. I still haven't been able to crack the lyrics on this once - it's typically vague. EEIRP is a wonderful creative shift for the band and display of impressive dynamic control with the technology they only O.K.'d in 97' (doho).
The live version is enjoyable, it's great that Radiohead has a near trance song to bust out just for the sake of it, the sampling effects are really cool and the countless random covers/rarity intros to the song are priceless, and there are far too many too go through them all. But the 2003 Glasto version is pretty good, and the studio version is really where its at for me anyways. I've seen it live a couple times and it's sometimes strange to have the song play minutes after everyone's walked off stage and just let it loop there. Effective, but you can never help but feel sad at the close of the night. Brad Mehldau is probably the best type of person to be covering Radiohead songs but this one's almost too easy. And really they just make it their own thing anyways but it's still cool.
8/10
Pyramid Song
Everything In Its Right Place
A Wolf At the Door
Little By Little
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