The one RH topic where I can't immediately rank everything, but I will say that anyone who put You over Planet Telex needs to listen to them back to back and seriously re-evaluate their opinion.
As for OKC re-workings, scrap Fitter Happer, make The Tourist the seventh song, CutW the eleventh song, close with Lift. I think that would do a lot to highlight the blistering immediacy of...
Electioneering
Studio version -
Leno -
...seeing as how it would be framed as a brooding retort to the albums now expansive seventh-inning stretch and the supposed 'final fit' before the docile glow of No Surprises, instead of acting as a jolt of life after the negative experimental halt of Fitter Happer and retroactively being neutered by the one song that achieves Electioneerings' goal on this album better than Electioneering does. Of course, in my fantasy the album ends with Lift so the closing line is "lighten up squirt", Thom referencing himself instead of...Thom screaming like a madman. Which would be a great way to end the album, it's be really gripping but it would make the album a whole lot more depressing. But I do like the way The Tourist lyrically proceeds right into Airbag...maybe in the end I wouldn't change a thing.
The song's tumbleweed showdown intro is probably an Ennio Morricone nod, coupled with the title the stage is set for political showdown or as Thom has described it "a preacher ranting in front of a bunch of microphones". The persistent cowbell only fuels the satire of the political system, as the 'preacher' rants "when I go forwards you go backwards and somewhere we will meet" as separate guitars are simultaneously moving forwards and backwards it makes for a clever and biting indictment of a broken system in which political gain leads to lobbies being represented more than voters. And suffice it to say the IMF has done enough to merit contempt over its duration, though don't know where cattle prods specifically figure in. The imagery is all that's required, really.
Musically, this is about as "traditional rock" as it gets, Thom's simple riff is doubled by Ed and Jonny uses the opportunity to solo harder than anything this side of Paranoid Android. For once there's no rhythmic trickery at work here, the only significant harmonic interpolation comes in the form of the tremelo-picked breakdown, leading up to a classic Greenwood guitar frenzy of muting the down beat super hard right before letting that slicing chord ring out on the up beat. To this day nobody has mastered the art of muting a guitar like Jonathan Greenwood, something about his ferocity when shutting the guitar up is just as effective as making it scream out. He's a percussive player, in many respects.
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