ne pas a.v.a.l.e.r. : how to disappear completely and never be found

premier live

1er avril 1998, Los Angeles

version originale

30 novembre 1998, Meeting People Is Easy

7:23

autre version

27 septembre 2000, Kid A

5:55

reprise

26 juin 2001, Anyone Can Play Radiohead

Lunasect

When Jonny did the strings on How To Disappear, he disappeared for two weeks basically, into his room in the studio with scores or whatever and came out half way through and showed me it and I went, "How about a bit that goes w-o-o-o-o-o-p?" [makes upwards diagonal motion] and that was my entire contribution. He went back for a week and finished it.

Jonny has some ideas for string arrangements that aren't your usual string arrangements and the players were open minded enough to try them. What was going on there?

We deliberately got the Orchestra of St Johns because they play pieces by Penderexia and Messiaen and all that lot. When you look at the scores they look like lines across like this [making diagonal slashes in the air]. No notes, and that was the sort of thing Jonny was scoring out! But they were great about it. The leader of the orchestra who conducted it, he was doing tutorials with Jonny, saying, "That's going to work. What do you mean by that?" And Jonny felt really good about it, because he'd been really frustrated. He was going to do music at Oxford, Brooks University here, and we pulled him out to start with the band, so it was really good for him to go back to all of that because he's got an amazing talent for it. He was quite lucky in that the orchestra were happy for someone quite naive to try and explain themselves. They were really good about it.

Thom y joue de la guitare acoustique, Jonny du Rhodes, et la batterie ressemble à la fin de Talk Show Host. Éthéré, en voix de tête, apparemment très spatial et rêveur, ce titre sonne même cosmique et comme un mantra. Elle a été dédiée à Nigel Godrich. Thom a commencé à écrire la chanson en juin 1997 à Toronto. Il l'appelait alors This is not happening.

Peu de gens s'intéressent à la première version, en effet, How to disappear completely and never be found (titre de 1998), était relativement différente de la version studio. Elle sonnait un peu plus OK Computer avec ses deux guitares électriques, le Rhodes et était plus longue (environ 7 minutes 30) donc encore plus spatiale que la version que tout le monde connaît. C'est une chanson bien plus classique, la plus classique avec Optimistic, dirions-nous, de Kid A.
Il existe une version acoustique de cette chanson, celle de Paris en 2001 au concert privé, nombres des fans présents ont accordé que cette chanson procurait beaucoup d'émotions et en live, souvent en rappel, c'est un grand moment. (Flavien)

Thom Yorke a dit que Michael Stipe est responsable du vers "I'm not here, this isn't happening".

That song is about the whole period of time that OK Computer was happening. We did the Glastonbury Festival and this thing in Ireland. Something snapped in me. I just said, "That's it. I can't take it anymore." And more than a year later, we were still on the road. I hadn't had time to address things. The lyrics came from something Michael Stipe said to me. I rang him and said, "I cannot cope with this." And he said, "Pull the shutters down and keep saying, 'I'm not here, this is not happening'".

À première vue, aucun lien avec la chanson Disappear de l'album de R.E.M. (confirmé le 4 décembre 2000, Rolling Stone et les news de Murmurs). Pourtant dans des news plus récentes, Michael Stipe admet une inspiration involontaire dont il s'est excusé auprès de Thom, qui lui a répondu que ce n'était pas grave, puisque la chanson avait fait le chemin en sens inverse...

Stipe was asked if he listened to a lot of other people's music while he makes his own record, and said he tended not to, for good reason.
Peter Buck, my guitar player, is the exact opposite of me with this. He absorbs music and books at a rate which I've never seen before. He buys 30 DVDs and CDs at a time. He goes to see live music, new bands, everything. But my fear is that I would steal something [from another artist] without knowing. 'I'm so brilliant'... No, Polly Harvey is really brilliant, and I stole that from her!
Has this ever happened?
Absolutely. I write this song called Disappear, and then days later realized it was a Radiohead song called How To Disappear Completely. I called Thom Yorke and left him a message saying, 'Thom, I think I stole your song', and he didn't call me back. I was so upset. Finally, a few weeks later, I heard from him, and he said, 'Michael, that song came from a conversation we had four years ago!'

a pretty frustrating day, but now we've been doing this for so long, you realise it can't all be like last week. it starts well with a different version of 'how to dissapear' and 'everything in its right place'. [...]

un jour assez frustrant, mais nous faisons ça depuis si longtemps maintenant qu'on se rend compte que ça ne peut pas être comme la semaine dernière. On a bien commencé avec une version différente de 'how to dissapear' et 'everything in its right place'. [...]

i read a rumour from the internet [never believe a single nuance - sd] that we are supposed to be collaborating with 'godspeed you black emperor' on 'how to disappear' - this person cited a number of chance occurences, including such impossible coincidences as 'they came to see us at a gig'. if that were sufficient corroborating evidence then, judging on the bands i've seen recently, you can hear us with 'the divine comedy' and the mighty 'asian dub foundation'. [...]

j'ai lu une rumeur sur internet comme quoi nous sommes censés travailler avec 'godspeed you black emperor' sur 'how to disappear' - la personne citait un certain nombre de coïncidences, y compris une assez improbable : 'ils sont venus nous voir en concert'. Si cela était une preuve suffisante de nous voir travailler avec quelqu'un, alors, considérant les groupes que j'ai vus récemment, vous pourriez nous entendre avec 'the divine comedy' et les puissants 'asian dub foundation'. [...]

phil is presently putting down drums on 'how to disappear' - we're doing a demo of the song to present the song to an 'orchestral fella'. we've kind of shirked away from strings in the past as they seem to have been recorded in the same manner for the last 30 years (ever since the beatles). jonny is particularly keen to use an orchestra but not in the standard cliched way........more like the end of 'climbing up the walls'. thom's vocal on it was jaw-dropping. it's very strange to be playing that song again as we played it frequently on the OK Computer tour.......................... suddenly you're back there. [...]

Phil est en train de poser la batterie sur 'how to disappear' - nous faisons une demo de la chanson pour la présenter à un 'gars d'orchestre'. Nous avons évité les cordes dans le passé parce qu'on dirait qu'ils ont été enregistrés de la même manière depuis 30 ans (depuis les beatles). c'est jonny en particulier qui veut utiliser un orchestre, mais pas de la manière habituelle, clichée......... plus comme à la fin de 'climbing up the walls'. la voix de thom était impressionnante dessus. c'est très bizarre de rejouer cette chanson, parce que nous la jouions régulièrement pendant la tournée d'OK Computer.......................... tout d'un coup on s'y retrouve. [...]

more work on 'how to disappear'... after phil did his drums last night, jonny came up with an outrageous martenot part - multitracked it sounds like the string section from mars. jonny has this uncanny ability to bring in weird chords, that at first distract you but after a couple of listens completely make sense...it's just a matter of getting on his planet. brilliant. coz and i tied up our respective bits and it's sounding fairly complete. not bad for a demo. thom was immersed in protools/cubase land in the other studio. the song now has a really strong arrangement and the rhythm track is pumping...........onwards to friday. [...]

travaillé sur 'how to disappear'... une fois que phil avait fini sa batterie hier soir, jonny s'est pointé avec une piste de martenot extravagante - avec plusieurs pistes ça sonne comme la section corde venue de mars. jonny a cette capacité étrange de produire des cordes bizarres, qui vous distraient au début, puis, après quelques écoutes, deviennent complètement compréhensibles. il faut juste atteindre sa planète. brillant. coz et moi avons terminé nos morceaux respectifs, et ça semble presque terminé. pas mal pour une demo. thom s'est immergé dans le monde des protools/cubase dans l'autre studio. la chanson a maintenant un arrangement qui tient vraiment la route et la piste du rythme marche bien...........on passe à vendredi. [...]

parts I & II are finished - the final movement is proving a little tricky though

sounds very good. not finished yet.

I dreamt i was floating down the liffey and there was nothing i could do. i was flying around Dublin and I really was in the Dream. the whole song is my experiences of really floating

J'ai rêvé que je flottais le long de la Liffey et je ne pouvais rien y faire. je volais autoure de Dublin et j'étais vraiment dans le Rêve. toute la chanson représente mes expériences de flottement.

No no no no no no. It's going good I think. haven't touched it this year. 6 minutes, I hate people who exaggerate.

want to try and finish the bulk of what we've started, which may sound obvious but there you go.......so had what seemed like a pretty unfruitful day on 'how to disappear'.......try and get it away from that band thing with an acoustic guitar, which may have been alright when we were making The Bends, but let's face it has been done to death by both us and every tom, dick and harry guitar band. went down a few cul-de-sacs.........all part of the process.
today however has been a quite different affair. still on the same song. jonny found the one chord thing; it's to be played by the strings(to be recorded soon).....in fact jonny has spent much of the last two weeks scoring and arranging strings in his room; which is a huge undertaking as 24 string players are going to be playing precisely what he has scored and these people are professionals....thom has this evening just done a wonderful vocal and the song is beginning to go another way. bad day, good day, good cop, bad cop.