OK Computer at 20: 20 fascinating facts about the landmark Radiohead album

For Radiohead, it was a sea change.

The year was 1997, and the British band had already hit the big time with their first two albums, Pablo Honey — which included the famous single "Creep" — and The Bends.

But when they set out to record their next album, they didn't want it to be an extension of that past; in fact, they purposely set out in a completely different direction. 

The result was OK Computer, an album that was instantly lauded as one of the best of the year — and of all time. And ever since, its blend of Morricone-inspired atmospherics, Talking Heads-level quirk, and P.J. Harvey-styled mix of calm and fury has inspired countless acts that followed.

OK Computer turns 20 this week, so to mark the occasion, we've gathered 20 facts that you might not know about the landmark album.

1. The album was recorded in a 16th-century stone manor

The album was recorded at St. Catherine's Court, a 16th-century manor house north of Bath in picturesque southwest England. It was originally home to the monks of Bath Abbey, and later became a private home; in 1984, it was purchased by actress Jane Seymour and her husband, who renovated it extensively. Under Seymour's ownership, several albums were recorded there, among them The Cure's Wild Mood Swings and New Order's Waiting for the Sirens' Call, as well as TV shows including MTV Cribs. Neighbours reportedly complained about the noise, and tried to restrict alcohol licenses. Radiohead made use of different acoustics in the house, too, with the vocals on "Exit Music (For a Film)" featuring natural reverb from a stone staircase, and "Let Down" was recorded in a ballroom at 3 a.m. 

2. 'Lucky' was recorded in 5 hours

"Lucky" was recorded first, and long before the other tracks, as part of a War Child charity album. It took just five hours from start to finish — and the band loved that it wasn't overthought or overworked. As a result, they aimed to record the rest of the album with the same spontaneity. "We did that ... in five hours, and I took it home and played it and I cried," said frontman Thom Yorke in a 1997 interview. "I think it was because we'd been on the road for a while and we were really comfortable with each other, and it expressed the excitement and happiness that we felt. It was written around the time that we first met R.E.M. and everything was changing shape, exciting and yet terrifying."

3. Yorke was trying on look on the bright side

After their first two albums, Pablo Honey and The Bends, Radiohead – and Yorke in particular — had become known for their morose songs; but Yorke wanted to break that mold. "You know, the big thing for me is that we could really fall back on just doing another moribund, miserable, morbid and negative record, like lyrically, but I really don't want to, at all," he explained in an interview before OK Computer was recorded. "And I am deliberately just writing down all the positive things that I hear or see. But I'm not able to put them into music yet."

4. The band 1st performed several of the songs while on tour with Alanis Morissette 

After the massive hit "Creep" from their debut album, their sophomore record The Bends was well-received — but it sold half as well. At the same time, the band was becoming known for its electrifying live shows, which earned them an opening spot on tour with Alanis Morissette. It was on that tour that Radiohead road-tested many of the songs that ended up on OK Computer — including a "10-minute, hair-raising version" of their hit "Paranoid Android." "My main memory of that tour," remembers guitarist Jonny Greenwood in a recent interview, "is playing interminable Hammond organ solos to an audience full of quietly despairing teenage girls."

5. One of the songs was created for Romeo + Juliet

During their tour, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann commissioned Radiohead to write a song for his film Romeo + Juliet. When they saw the scene where Claire Danes holds a gun to her head, the band immediately started working on the song, which became "Exit Music (For a Film)" and appears over the end credits. Yorke later said the song helped solidify the direction for the entire album, and that it was his first genuinely proud moment. "'Exit Music' was the first performance we'd ever recorded where every note of it made my head spin – something I was proud of, something I could turn up really, really loud and not wince at any moment."

6. Bitches Brew was a major inspiration 

Yorke said that the starting point for OK Computer was Bitches Brew — the landmark avant-garde jazz album by Miles Davis. So what drew Yorke to that record in particular? "It was building something up and watching it fall apart, that's the beauty of it," Yorke said in an interview. "It was at the core of what we were trying to do with OK Computer." The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds was also a key influence, as was the music of Morricone and Harvey.

7. Most of the album was recorded live

Rather than recording the instruments separately, then overdubbing, most of OK Computer was recorded live. "I hate doing overdubs, because it just doesn't feel natural," said guitarist Ed O'Brien. "Something special happens when you're playing live; a lot of it is just looking at one another and knowing there are four other people making it happen." Many of Yorke's vocals are also first takes. 

8. It was also recorded with a bunch of pricey gear they didn't know how to use

By the time the band recorded OK Computer, they could afford pricey gear, and they told producer Nigel Godrich to "write out a wish list of all the equipment you could possibly want and we'll go and buy it." Soon they were fully decked out; the only thing was, they had no idea how to use the stuff. "We'd been listening to Ennio Morricone and Can and lots of stuff where they're abusing the recording process," said Yorke in a 1998 interview. "We wanted to try that. We were coming at it from complete ignorance, though, standing in front of some beautiful digital delay going [makes manic knob-twiddling motion and accompanying noise] and Nigel's going, 'Oh, f--king hell,' until suddenly everyone says, 'That sounds great!' And that's what we'd use. It's children with toys. You don't really know what's going on but you're digging all the lights."

9. It was the 1st album Radiohead produced themselves

The band also produced the album themselves, hoping to get back to the "idealized state of bliss" they had before signing a record contract, when they could have an idea, record it on a four-track, and it was done. "The main difference in the atmosphere of this record was in the recording — the studio experience," remembered Greenwood. "We were all of the same age, mid- to late-twenties, and doing a record in the middle of nowhere. And there were no established professionals there. It wasn't a real recording studio, and we had our friend doing the artwork in the studio at the same time. We were all at the same stage of our life and all working together for something, it was quite a buzz." 

10. Radiohead thought the album wouldn't go anywhere

"When we finished it and were putting it together, I was, like, pretty convinced that we'd sort of blown it, but I was kind of happy about that, because we'd gotten a real kick out of making the record," said Yorke in a 1997 interview. By then, the album was being hailed as one of the best of the year; still, the bandmembers were skeptical. "In terms of people saying it's the album of the year, people say that all the time. In Britain, it's great — in the space of two weeks, our album was the album of the year and so was Prodigy's," said Yorke. "Two weeks from now it will be another album. It's just what people say."

11. Thom Yorke was channeling many voices

Yorke felt that, on The Bends, no matter what he sang, he sounded melancholic. So on OK Computer, he wrote the lyrics and performed them channeling different personae. "The voices on 'Karma Police,' on 'Paranoid Android' and on 'Climbing Up The Walls' are all different personas, though actually it's not blatantly obvious. But it was something I was acutely aware of," he said in an interview.  "I think 'Lucky,' the lyric and the way it's sung, is really positive, really exciting. 'No Surprises' is someone who's trying hard to keep it together but can't. 'Electioneering' is a preacher ranting in front of a bank of microphones. It's like taking Polaroids of things happening at high speed in front of you and doing an impression of it."

12. The album's title comes from A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

While on tour for The Bends, the band was listening to an audio version of Douglas Adams' A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and at one point, a spaceship computer says it's unable to ward off incoming missiles. "OK, computer," responds galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox, "I want full manual control now." The phrase marks the point in the book where humans wrest control from machines. 

13. 'Airbag' was originally titled 'Last Night an Airbag Saved my Life'

The opening track, "Airbag," was inspired by a car crash involving Yorke and his girlfriend. "I tell you something, every time you have a near accident, instead of just sighing and carrying on, you should pull over, get out of the car and run down the street screaming, 'I'm back! I'm alive! My life has started again today!'" said Yorke. "In fact, you should do that every time you get out of a car. We're just riding on those things — we're not really in control of them."

14. It is not a record for doing housework

Originally the band wanted to create a highly atmospheric album, one that would blend into the background — but it turned out to be far more jagged and angular. "When we started, I really wanted to make a record that you could sit down and eat to in a nice restaurant, a record that would be cool and be part of the furniture," said Yorke at the time. "But there's no way you can eat to this record. You have to sit down and stop doing whatever you're doing. You can travel to it. You can sit on a plane. You can probably drive to it. I don't think you can really do the housework to it."

15. The album isn't really about technology; it's about the isolation it causes

At the time OK Computer was recorded, the World Wide Web was still relatively new and taking shape, and Yorke was disturbed by the isolation and disconnection it was beginning to foster. "I was getting into the sense of information overload, which is ironic, really, since it's so much worse now," said Yorke in a recent interview. "The paranoia I felt at the time was much more related to how people related to each other. But I was using the terminology of technology to express it. Everything I was writing was actually a way of trying to reconnect with other human beings when you're always in transit. That's what I had to write about because that's what was going on, which in itself instilled a kind of loneliness and disconnection."

16. There were several tracks that didn't make the record

There were at least three tracks that didn't make it onto the album, and they are being included on a special 20th-anniversary release. The first was the uplifting "I Promise," which was recently released with a technology- and transit-themed video, and the others are "Lift" and "Man of War" – also known by fans as "Big Boots."

17. At one point Yorke tried to escape — and ended up among a bunch of Radiohead fans

After OK Computer's release, Radiohead's fame skyrocketed — as did the demands on the band. Notoriously anxious, Yorke at one point tried to make a break for it at a tour stop in Birmingham, England. "I walked out of [the] sound check, disappeared, lost the security and then was trying to get out of the building," said Yorke, who wandered around, then ended up on a train full of Radiohead fans on their way to the show. "There was nowhere to go, so I hid on the train. And that was the nearest I came to trying to escape."

18. The lyrics actually do make sense — if you're in the know

At the time, Yorke cited Scott Walker, Michael Stipe, Elvis Costello and Harvey as major songwriting influences — and while many say his lyrics are nonsensical, Yorke says he had ideas he wanted to express; he just wasn't sure exactly how. "Say, on 'Electioneering,' for example. What can you say about the IMF, or politicians? Or people selling arms to African countries, employing slave labour or whatever. What can you say? You just write down 'Cattle prods and the IMF' and people who know, know. I can't express it any clearer than that, I don't know how to yet, I'm stuck," said Yorke. "That's how I feel about 'Day in the Life.' Lennon was obviously stuck and said, 'I'm going to write a song because I've got to get this down' and it's everything that he didn't say by doing that.... That was what I dreamt of doing on this record."

19. The album cover might be a scene from a hotel in Hartford, Conn.

For years, fans have speculated about what location inspired the album's memorable cover art — and the most convincing theory is that the original photo was shot from the window of a Hilton hotel where the band stayed in Hartford, Conn., in August 1996, one of the last live shows before OK Computer was recorded. A fan even went to the hotel to confirm the theory, and the hotel staff played along. 

20. Thom Yorke put 'The Tourist' as the final track as a note to self

When it came time to arrange the songs, Yorke found himself waking up in a panic for two weeks, shuffling the songs into different orders on a MiniDisc machine, but not finding any resolution. In the end, the band realized that putting "The Tourist", which implores the listener to "slow down," as the final track was the only solution. "It was really obvious to have 'Tourist' as the last song. That song was written to me, from me, saying, 'Idiot, slow down.' Because at that point, I needed to," said Yorke in an early interview. "So that was the only resolution there could be: to slow down. If you slow down to an almost-stop you can see everything moving too fast around you and that's the point."

— Jennifer Van Evra, q digital staff

Miss an episode of CBC q? Download our podcast here.