Radiohead's most complex song
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 19. 03. 2023
- Thanks to the band @taperunsout for sponsoring this video! Check out their music: www.taperunsout.co.uk/pages/F... đđ¶
Radiohead are no strangers to odd time signatures, modes and unusual song structure, but there is one song in their back catalogue that pushed the bands musicality to the limit, Sail To The Moon đ
In this video I had to use @JoeEdelmann3 cover version of Sail To The Moon to avoid a copyright strike. Check out his fantastic Radiohead covers: âą Radiohead - Sail to th...
My re-uploaded Chromatic Mediant video: âą Songs that use Chromat...
SOURCES:
Background on 'Sail To The Moon': citizeninsane.eu/music/httt/s...
Interview with Thom Yorke (2003): âą (2003/04/xx) Hail to t...
And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channelâs Patreon saints! đ
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: / davidbennettpiano đč
Thanks to Tape Runs Out for sponsoring this video! Check out their music: www.taperunsout.co.uk/pages/Floodhead/ đđ¶
Content idea: songs that use their chords as the melody (example: [Am [root only] moving to Am [full]. Try to play this:
[root, full, full-root*, root, root-root, full_ -full]
*Half + full beat)
Progression: F#m F#m D E
It's the Blast Processing bass but as fifths instead of octaves
Sorry in advance for the confusion đ
By the way, is there such a thing as [note]3 or [note]4 chords? (Only third/bb5 maj or min)
Hail to the Thief is definitely the dark horse of their discography. Itâs surrounded by more well-known albums and often gets overlooked for it.
It has their best individual songs but as an album it's lackluster. It's a common theme with Radiohead imo but this album is the most extreme between the insane quality of some of the songs and the overall tracklisting being poorly thought out. Even the band themselves talked about how the tracklisting isn't good and suggested alternative versions
Great album. Musically complex and dense but with moments of pure beauty. Just because it didn't have the themes of Ok Computer or the amazing flow of In Rainbows but, like the Beatles White album it's more about the incredible variety and rich tapestry of sounds. I loved this album, it was a step back from the electronic sounds of.Kid A/amnesiac. Lots of acoustic piano and guitars.
@@placeadrien5566 do you know where to find these alternative tracklistings? Would like to try them out
Some of my favorite RH material is in Hail to the Thief. 2+2=5, Sit Down, Sail to the Moon, Go to Sleep, There There, Myxomatosis, Wolf at the Door... The ĂĄlbum is full of amazing songs
@@BTBAM819 exactly, plus cool experimental stuff like Sit Down Stand Up, etc and the slowest song ever to have people clap along too...forget the name but its like "are you happyyyyyyyy (slow clap), are you saaaaaad (slow clap)
As soon as I saw the title, I knew it was definitely going to be Sail to the Moon. It's such a beautiful song, and one of their best in my opinion
yea rite
loving that album cover
@Paul Yeah, if it wasn't that then I also was thinking Pyramid Song. Still can't believe that it's in 4/4.
@@STERNWAERTS Thanks haha, it's a classic
Yo... Also, their track 'Pyramid Song' is similarly complex... i thought it was gonna be about that one.... †ok.. big up radiohead, nice video!
That wasn't the original recording?? That is absurdly accurate
Ikr, it sounded so similar. That guy is amazing at covering Radiohead songs. Heâs on a tribute band called There, There.
@@MDE128 wow, they got me too.
That is insane, fooled me
For a while there, I thought it was a live performance by Radiohead themselves. Incredible.
Bro itâs nearly impossible to accurately replicate Thom Yorkerâs vocal, Though the instrumental is basically perfect
Really appreciate the kind words David! Your channel is a fantastic resource and I love this video (and the song âșïž).
i was so happy to hear your cover in this video, i love those covers so much
Thanks Joe! You deserve the praise and thanks for allowing me to use your fantastic cover version!
I never even realized that it was a cover watching this video! Absolutely insane job!
Subscribed. Whilst YT and bands continue to not get the principle of fair use and education (and afterwards, if ever they do engage their brains), you should be getting recognition (and money) for your interpretative skills and heartfelt performances.
Joeâs covers are remarkably faithful to the originals and demonstrate just how complex the songs and their arrangements are. I have a greater appreciation for Radiohead every time I see his cover videos, and Iâm very glad that heâs getting the recognition he deserves. Kudos to both Joe and David.
Iâm not surprised itâs from Hail to the Thief.
The album is a masterpiece.
Yes , and very underrated
@@valentinasanchez5757 ..especially by radiohead 'fans'!
Very, very strong & underrated album.
@@fluentpiffle fans who dont like your fav album are still fans.
It's slightly bloated, but i still love it and the opener and closer are in my top 5 radiohead songs
I never anything weird about this song and used to listen to it all the time back when the album was new.
Itâs funny that this can sound so ânormalâ but have the sheet music look so strange, while Pyramid Song sounds so weird but ends up just being in 4/4.
ice age coming ice age coming
faster johnny
this is really happening
im back to say the n word
Winter is Coming.
Let me hear both sides, let me hear both sides, let me hear both-
I have no idea, as a musician for almost 40 years, how you can be *this* creative and still come up with an almost perfect sounding song. It's insane to me.
Radiohead a magical and genius! â€ïžâđ„â€ïžâđ„
i think what makes their risks pay off is that theyâre so insistent that it works. they seem to really drive their dissonance/rhythmic complexity with repetition plus of course thomâs clear and intent vocals really drive it home
I can't believe that was a cover of the song. Massive respect to the band who did it. I'm a massive fan of Radiohead and I love this song and the album as a whole and I didn't even realise it was a cover until you said at the end. Really impressive
I felt something in the guitar was slightly off and I attributed it to me not having listened to the song in a while and misremembering it. It's so well made that I'd sooner question myself than the recording.
Whatâs baffling is that I think itâs just 2 people doing it
I thought he used a live version of the song. So very good.
I'M SORRY BUT ITS A LIVE VERSION.
@@anthonyfuqua6988 look in description
I didnât expect that this song was that complex. Iâm intrigued.
ikr, it sounds pretty simple on the surface. but i guess i never looked close enough at it to realize the time signatures were so different on each pass.
The way this song ends is one of my favorite musical moments, just in general
That gently ascending spacey soundâŠ.the piano tinkling off into nothingness. Gorgeous.
This song is an absolute pleasure, from Thom's slightly diffuse vocals, to the crisp guitar from Jonny, to that mournful, almost funereal piano throughout.
I've played this and many other Radiohead songs dozens of times on acoustic guitar, and I have to admit that I never consciously think about time signatures, I just play the song exactly as it sounds. Discovering how complex it is is actually very eye-opening!
I think thatâs exactly what Thom meant when he said you canât really hear the complexity. You kind of feel it
Speaking is easier than writing. (Hence so many illiterate but vocalising people throughout time).
Music sheet / notation does pretty much seem to be an attempt at what we did with words. Put them into a written language.
It makes sense that sometime as intricate and complicated as music is really hard to depict when you limit it to a written language.
Just like speaking and writing.
@@MV-vv7sg Considering that maybe the most complex thing humans do is real time language communication - the immediate connecting of thoughts, meaning, words, strung together and "performed" - we are all naturally equipped with the capacity for such complexity, but it just seems like one is harder than the other due to practice.
Most musicians get to a point where they don't really have to count explicitly. The next note becomes just as natural as the next word. You don't have to stop and think unless you want to try a different path in real-time.
But once you try to formalize that process, like here, it starts to look grotesquely complex. I think it's actually unfortunate that we linger on this complexity and formalism a bit too much sometimes, as often is the case in other domains like math and programming. When really it's ultimately simple component ideas that can be learned just as any natural language, and seem just as natural.
@@sibbyeskie Agreed. By trying to make âunderstandingâ happen, we make things awfully complex. We try to reduce things to smaller parts to make it âconsumableâ but in doing so we create the need for many complex other things. We employ analogies because using an already existing thought that is know to compare to another is useful. But we forget analogies are representations, transpositions, not perfect translations. We introduce false ideas and errors when we then use the rest of the notions about the thing we analogised with and thus arrive at mistakes.
@@MV-vv7sg exactly. I like that thought because these types of formalism are very loosely transposed from something like mathematical formalism. Yes, harmony and tempo and many musical concepts have mathematically precise reasons for being true. However unlike in pure math, you donât have to adhere to those boundaries with music composition, and sometimes the most interesting results come from forgetting the boundaries exist.
Im willing to bet in this instance Radiohead didnât even think about every time signature change. In some places it probably just âseemed rightâ to end a bar a beat early, or extend it. Thatâs also probably why it flows so naturally. Theyâre a good example of a band who can strike a musical balance, which is not easy once all of these theoretical concepts start to enter the process.
This was strangely one of the first Radiohead songs that made me fall in love with them. I was on a bus trip through Costa Rica with headphones on and the song plus the scenery drifting by was almost an out of body experience.
Were you on a chicken bus? It was on a chicken bus in Costa Rica that I realized how obsessed Latin Americans are with New Order and Depeche Mode
Iâm from CR Iâm definitely obsessed with Radiohead
It's such a breath of fresh air to see someone cover a song from Hail to the Thief. It's always OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows. HTTT is my favorite of their albums and this is probably my favorite song of theirs. So thanks for covering it
this is the first time iâve seen a band sponsor a youtube video, thatâs pretty cool.
Thanks for using our coverđ„șđ
I love Radiohead and this is one of my favourite songs from them. I never realised it was so complex till now, I always saw it as a simple beautiful song. At least I was half-right
I always heard this as a beautiful piano ballad. I had no idea it was this complex. Truly a testament to Radioheads musicianship.
I had a friend in high school who was musically very gifted and also an incredibly intelligent person in general, one of the smartest people I've ever met, and they were very much interested in jazz, classical, modern orchestral, opera, and so forth; they didn't think rock music like Radiohead would do much for them. But I played them the HTTF album and Sail To The Moon in particular really impressed her, she was quite taken with it.
to be fair you need to have a very high iq to understand radiohead, theyre one of the most experimental bands out there
@@giles3211 i hope youâre joking
â@@giles3211 same with Tool
did u hit
Joe Edelmann is AMAZING! He is also in the Radiohead tribute band called There, There - which is out of this world incredible! I've seen them several times and have met most of the band members. Close your eyes and you'd swear it was Radiohead, they're THAT accurate. I mean, listen to Joe in this video. Super talented musicians who happen to be genuinely nice, humble human beings! Although I love music, I do not have a technical understanding of it, so I never realized how complex this track really is. It's always been one of my favorites. Thank you for this enlightening video!
Just when I'm listeting to Radiohead you came up with a Radiohead song... great.
Haha sameđ€
The cover its crazy
aaah! my favourite song of theirs, alongside Pyramid Song and Everything in its Right Place... So happy to see it get the love it deserves
that guy made such a accurate cover that it involved jonny greenwood himself
Joe Edelman makes incredible Radiohead covers, I'm glad you used on of them in your video!
Joe is just SO good... I love his work, he's amazing. And I'm a huge fan of some of his own work. He's got songs like Marionette which are REALLY good, they're crazy good!
After you covered this song I completely fell in love with this!
Love that you found a clever way to keep the whole song in the video, well done! Also fun way to be sponsored
i think we can all agree that we all need Thom Yorkeâs voice in our lives
Totally agree. I was think just that, about Radiohead in general.
@@maryk6780 yes
I find it extremely cool and unique that a band sponsored your video. And they sound great. It worked on me!
That Tape Runs Out song âPaperbackâ is great, just had it on repeat for a few spins. How unique to have a band sponsor a video!
I listened to Sail To The Moon for the first time in a while last night, re-affirming how much of a haunting yet blissful song it isâŠlife truly is a simulationâŠ
Of what though?
Our experience of life is truly a simulation.
@@MyNameIsNeutron suffering
@@MyNameIsNeutron of David Bennett Piano making amazingly in-depth and digestible music theory analysis of songs you've 'coincidentally' listened to recently
@@radio.ned1385 It's nice when schizophrenia isn't dark.
this was the first radiohhead song i ever heard, it was so perfect, and truly got me into music. This entire album is heavily underrated
It took me half the video to realize this was a cover. That says a lot considering how intimately I know the song.
I continue to absolutely adore this song!
Great cover job!
Me too đđđ
Is that a Joe Edelman's cover?
Edit: Oh, it is, just saw the credits lol Now that's a crossover I was hoping for so much!
This IS complicated, but it is a beautiful song, Radiohead always managed to get such interesting structures into their music.
But I bet they needed one of the band members, the drummer most likely, to count along with when rehearsing the song.
That Abmaj7 chord was a genius resolvent of the 2 bars before.
The cover by Joe Edelman struck all the buttons, especially when taking on such a complicated song.
always been my favourite, only tied with probably ful stop
Thanks for recommending Tape Runs Out. I'm enjoying their new album, and starting on the back catalog.
I absolutely LOVE how Radiohead uses mediants. This is probably my favourite example. I always new there were time changes in this song too, but this is really something else. Beautiful song, and very well analyzed! Thanks David :)
I really enjoyed this analysis of âSail To The Moonâ, David. Itâs always been one of my favourite Radiohead songs of all time. Iâve always loved its complexities; and despite them, it still sounds beautiful and calming.
Itâs also worth noting that Thom Yorke wrote this song for his son, Noah Yorke.
I love Radiohead's complex stuff like Sail to the Moon and their simple stuff like the Pablo Honey and Bends LPs. It's all good.
@Jesus From The Hood. The Bends is simple when it comes to like, instrumentation. Classic rock band arrangement most of the time. As far as the actual compositions go, it's far from it.
@Jesus From The Hood. The bends has a mixture of adventurous and forward-thinking compositions (like Planet Telex, Just, and Nice Dream) and pretty simple straightforward arena rock (like The Bends, Bones, and Sulk). Not that it's bad - they executed that style excellently - but they weren't pushing the envelope with *every* track on that album.
Pablo Honey even has odd time signatures though. I think 'You' is harder to play in that respect, and STTM is kind of easy to get your head around, just count down. But 'You' literally skips a beat every 4 so its 6665 AND a heavy animated song where there's less time to think.
Genuinely didnât even notice it was cover until it was mentioned. Wow !!
Gotta love that chromatic mediant party at the end!
Really dig the idea of bands sponsoring content like this. Smart cross promotion. Great vid
Yep, nice to see that sponsors are related to the content of the channels. Upcoming artists can promote music through music-related channels and writers can promote their new book through a literature niche channel.
Excellent stuff, as usual! Thanks David
my god, i never scratched the surface of truly hearing this song. it sounds completely different now with this perspective. thank you so much for opening my eyes to its complexity!!
Fantastic video. I've never deep-dived into Radiohead's discography before but I love watching all your videos about them. So intricate. I suspect someday I'll sit down and explore their music... I just prefer it alongside a score. đ Loved the band at the end too, definitely going to listen to them during my commute today!
This makes me never want to pick up an instrument again. All hail, Thom and Radiohead.
This has always been of my favorite songs by them. It's just beautiful.
Fantastic and really useful theory breakdown, thanks for your work
That is so cool. God, subtle time signature hopscotching giving songs this disjointed, otherwordly feel to them (besides the more obvious bells and whistles of synth and similar timbres) is one of my favorite song hacks. I always feel it, but I never quite put my finger on it until I'm getting analytical, like this or just in closer listening.
I really need to put a bit of that into my own work. Thank you, David.
This is a great breakdown. I love the quote from Thom Yorke about how the band was counting and struggling, but it came out sounding so smooth and easy. You listen to the song, and it flows just fine, except every once in awhile you get a beat that comes in somewhere you don't quite expect it. It doesn't sound complicated, though; the effect is more of anxiety and unsurety, feeling like something about this is just a little off-kilter. There is discomfort in the song, but it's only when you dig below the surface that you can see why the song feels that way. How much work and strange tricks went into that feeling of being on the wrong foot with the beat over and over again.
I love this song so much!! And yes joe edelmann is AMAZING!
Wow! This is a great song, and a fun analysis. This is exactly why I love this channel!
I honestly thought this was just a live recording of Radiohead until the end
This is my favorite song đ thank you for making a video on it
Iâve never heard this song before but Iâll definitely have to check it out for myself now, Radiohead really knows how to make songs that always throw you through a loop and itâs great. Fantastic video as always, David, this was great
I like it's dream-like, yet somewhat unsettling quality of those major 7 chords. Add in that #9 chords at the end and...wow!
Love Tape Runs Out too. As always, thanks for the video....
I appreciate this video I would normally try to avoid sounding like a typical Radiohead fan but sail to the moon is often overlooked; I'm going to listen to it a lot more now.
Amazing video thank you!
I've always loved this song. I know nothing about musical theory or composition, it's just emotionally riveting with really cool dreamy lyrics. Thanks for the great video!
Tape Runs Out sound pretty good. Def gonna check them out!
Brilliant, David your site is fantastic, thank you..
Thanks Peter đ
@@DavidBennettPiano David, I keep returning to your old videos the content on your site is incredible. Each time I learn more. I was blown away by the 4 inventive keys and knew this video would keep growing because of the content. I don't think I have ever missed a video by you. Thank you again, Peter.
Radiohead is probably my favorite band because of that. They play with rythme so much, it's one of the thing that make them unique. Many bands don't try new things like them, but their influence have probably already changed the musical landscape
Thanks for this. I have no idea how to read music and don't really understand how it's made but I loved your study regardless! It's always been one of my favourite Radiohead songs. It's just so beautiful. There's me thinking it was one of their more simple songs!
Tape runs out sounds really good. Definitely gonna check them out after this.
Wow, I thought that was the Radiohead recording! Amazingly accurate cover.
Fascinating explanation, so many interesting ideas.
I always loved this song. Of course it's the most complex thing ever. Thank you for breaking it down! :)
I think I know Radiohead, but you always bring new insights and ideas that reopens my eyes. Keep the Radiohead analysis coming. Love your channel. Keep up the good work.
Very good video! I could understand despite my lack of music knowledge
Tape runs out has got a new fan
Ahh. Possibly my favorite song. Flows so nicely into Up on the Ladder due to it ending with an Ab major chord up high in the piano. Great track overall â€ïž
Had no idea of this song, thanks for showing!
i wasn't a Radiohead fan before this video but now I'll have to listen to more of their music.
Excellent song and use of time and key changes to follow the theme of the song.
Another great video David.
Thanks
they are incredible! listen to Amnesiac
Listen to everything! Well, maybe not the first album....
I truly envy you I hope they bring as much joy to you as it did for me.
My favourite song ever. Thank you David, I now better understand why I like it so.
They did a awesome cover.
New Davids video with Radiohead? Everything in its right place
holy crap, burying the lead of how sweet that cover was. I was fooled, for sure.
â€By far my favourite Radiohead album, if not overall favourite!
One of my favourite Radiohead songs, it's so haunting yet beautiful at the same time
hail to the thief is such a great album, awsome vid đđŒ
I played a piano arrangement of STTM for my 8th grade recital. It was so fun to learn with all the time signature changes and the jazzy chords. Definitely one of my favorite songs
Shit idk why but I really wasn't expecting the bands music at the end to be that good... that was a jam haha
One of my favorite bands
Great album. Where I end and you begin is a masterpiece.
was expecting Weird Fishes, Pyramid Song, or perhaps Videotape but quite chuffed to see one of favorites and a relatively deep cut
I love this song, so beautiful
Underrated Song! Great Video!
Thanks David for this video, I do enjoy your content - and this is one of my favorite Radiohead songs :)
However I do think that you understated the importance and function of the outro chords. They are not a 'string of unrelated chords', but specific chords all a Major 3rd apart, (so the roots form an augmented triad) from the C to the E to the Ab (I have always thought of this as G# as this is the major 3rd of the E and also comprises the augmented C chord.). I know you did mention that they are chromatic mediants, but in this case they form a loop endlessly rising. I think it would have been useful to show this on a circle of fifths as it loops around in a triangle (just like the Coltrane changes)- as I think this is a really cool feature of this song.
Great video!
One if my fav songs,..really a gem in my cd rack,.
Genuinely one of my favourite songs ever
Absolutely loved this crossover â€
This is one of my favorite Radiohead songs ever made. It's so beautiful.
I love this song, its my second favourite from Hail To The Thief (behind There, There). Sail To The Moon is some of their best piano work to date in my humble opinion.
I'm in the process of working my way through and absorbing the Radiohead discography. I havent teached HTTT yet but after watching this video im really looking forward to discovering it