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Hail to the Thief
Radiohead (2003)
In my first review I ever wrote, I said that Radiohead’s seventh album, In Rainbows, was a bounce-back after a relatively disappointing Hail to the Thief. And yes, following Kid A and Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief was disappointing.
That is, for the public. For me, this album is incredible. I really don’t get why people don’t like it as much as some of their other stuff. For instance, The Bends. Sure, The Bends is catchier and has a more accessible vibe to it. But I feel like Hail to the Thief only takes what’s been done on The Bends, as well as other elements from OK Computer and Kid A, and expands on it. It adds a completely different side to Radiohead’s discography, partially coming back to guitar rock after Kid A, but not entirely abandoning the experimentation done in that era. For some people, that melting pot doesn’t hit the spot, but it does for me. And this is my review, so yes, I’m reviewing Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief right after In the Court of the Crimson King. Sue me.
This is by far Radiohead’s most political album yet. It was their first album recorded after the 9/11 attacks, and the political unease around the world really shows on Hail to the Thief. Songs like “A Punch Up at a Wedding,” and “We Suck Young Blood,” while not my favorite songs on the record whatsoever, definitely contribute to the angsty feel to the album. Yorke’s lyricism is also noticeably more straightforward, adding to the political messages. Yorke didn’t want the songs to go unnoticed, so he dumbed the lyrics down to the audience’s level. Unfortunately, nobody can tell what he’s saying anyways.
My quip about the lyrics isn’t entirely true. Yorke is a gifted lyricist, we know that. We’ve heard him write songs like “Fake Plastic Trees,” “Paranoid Android,” and “Karma Police.” It’s a different style of lyricism here. Instead of the heavy metaphors and vague references to external media, Yorke often addresses the listener themselves. At fifty-seven minutes, Hail to the Thief is Radiohead’s longest album to date. It really goes to show how Radiohead goes for quality of quantity, that their longest album doesn’t even exceed an hour. That said, I do agree with Yorke in that the album suffers more than a little from fatigue. Tracks like “The Gloaming” and “Backdrifts” are often more of an atmospheric throw-in than a song that could be played on its own. For a band with such high expectations for themselves, it’s a bit uncharacteristic to see fourteen songs in an album. But, in 2026, ten years after the release of A Moon Shaped Pool, I’m honestly grateful for any more Radiohead I can get.
A lot of the songs on this album are pretty short, and “2 + 2 = 5” is no exception. Its runtime of just over three minutes starts with the sound of Jonny Greenwood plugging in his guitar, quickly followed by a drum machine and a 7/4 arpeggiated guitar. It’s a really weird meter, even though it’s just 7/4 (saying “just 7/4” is hilarious, but I’ve been numbed by some insane time signatures. You’ll see what I mean.). The riff feels like it should repeat after eight beats, but it doesn’t. It feels like the last beat is cut out, leaving an offputting hole in the music.
“2 + 2 = 5” feels like a mini “Paranoid Android.” Both tracks are through-composed, abandoning a traditional verse-chorus structure. In the next section, it transitions to an even 4/4 meter, with the guitars creating a smooth, atmospheric line. The picking by O’Brien and Greenwood is masterful, building suspense without taking the channel over. The suspense has nowhere to go but out.
The track explodes. Yorke repeats the line, “you have not been paying attention,” acting as an alarm call for all the people ignorant of the current political scene. The drums kick in, playing an acoustic drum set for the first time in the song, as the heavily distorted guitars play deafening powerchords. It’s just an incredible usage of dynamic contrast.
In the final section, Radiohead partially lifts their feet off the gas, but leaves just enough on the accelerator to drive it home. The guitars switch from purely noise-centered to a rhythmic, swaggery strumming pattern, complimenting Yorke’s singing perfectly.
“Are you such a dreamer
To put the world to rights?
I’ll stay home forever
But two and two always makes a five”
The song’s title, “2 + 2 = 5,” is a clear reference to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (I guess that’s another parallel between Radiohead and Pink Floyd). I’ve been looking for an adjective I can use to describe Hail to the Thief as a whole, but I think I’ve finally found it: Orwellian. The lyrics of “2 + 2 = 5” represents an innate “wrongness.” Two plus two is five. January has April showers. As the song progresses, it becomes clear that the “wrongness” didn’t come to be on its own. Someone made it happen. Just as someone is behind every problem in the world, when you look into it enough.
Again, Radiohead starts their songs with drum machines. They use a loop to open “Sit Down. Stand Up,” followed by a glockenspiel and a distorted piano. Yorke sings the words “Sit down, stand up” in a hypnotic trance. It doesn’t feel like him singing it, if that makes any sense. The entire first half of the song builds up, adding harmonies to Yorke’s vocals and additional percussive elements like electronic bass drums and other synthesizers. It’s one of the most mind-boggling atmospheres you’ll find, in the buildup towards the release in this song.
“The raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops, the raindrops…”
Yorke repeats the same phrase over and over and over again. Usually in a song, the rhythm section is what holds the song down, providing constants for the soloists and vocalists to mess around with. Here, it’s reversed Yorke’s singing of “the raindrops” provides rhythmic and harmonic ideas for the drums and bass to build on. In the end, that’s what’s climaxing. Selway and Colin Greenwood are the ones having fun here, as well as Jonny Greenwood, who somehow manages to make his guitar sound like a laser gun. This man would do wonders in the shoegaze genre.
Alright, so remember how I talked about the rhythmic dissonance in “2 + 2 = 5?” Well, if that confused you, maybe just skip this song. “Sail to the Moon” opens with what might be the most insane time signature I’ve ever heard. It’s a solo piano, not only because it allows the song room to grow, but also I don’t think anyone can follow along with more than one person playing it. So, as a little challenge, I’d like you to listen to “Sail to the Moon” and try to count the beats.
Yeah, I can’t either.
When the beat finally settles down, Yorke’s vocals enter.
“I sucked the moon
I spoke too soon
And how much did it cost?
I was dropped from moonbeams
And sailed on shootin’ stars”
Supposedly, Thom Yorke wrote the main piano part for this song in five minutes, for his son, Noah Yorke (on that note, check out some of Noah Yorke’s stuff, it’s quite good). From that context, the songs’ lyrics make much more sense. He’s directing the message from father to son, warning that, even if he grows to be a powerful man, he still must know right from wrong.
One of the reasons I love reviewing music is that I learn things about it that I didn’t know before. I’ve heard Hail to the Thief dozens of times. In fact, I’ve streamed “Sail to the Moon” over fifty times on Apple Music alone. Yet, reading the lyrics now, I picked up on a new phrase that I hadn’t noticed before.
“Or in the flood, you’ll build us an ark
And sail us to the moon”
His son is named Noah. You get the reference now?
I’ll just say it. “Where I End and You Begin” is a banger. It has an odd synthesizer intro, but after that, it’s all head bobbing. Seriously, this bassline is something else. It’s not even the notes that are played (although they’re also great), it’s how Greenwood is articulating each pluck. He adds an extra swagger to it that not a lot of other bassists can add. It’s the difference between someone who can play their part and someone who plays their part.
Instrumentally, this song is full of oddities. The synths playing on the higher registers add a unique atmosphere. It feels freeing, like flying in the sky, but the bassline keeps you grounded simultaneously. It’s indescribable. As the song transitions into the coda, the bassline shifts to repeat the same motif. Yorke repeats the same lyrics: “I will eat you all alive.” It’s a sinister ending to what’s been a pretty villainous sounding song.
But lyrically, it’s one of my favorites on all of Hail to the Thief. The words sung in the first verse are perfectly poetic and fit into the music without any issue. It’s also Yorke’s delivery of the lyrics, sometimes soaring above the other instruments, while other times taking a back seat for the other synths to take the melodies.
“There’s a gap in between
There’s a gap where we meet
Where I end and you begin
I’m sorry for us
The dinosaurs roam the earth
The sky turns green
Where I end and you begin”
Yorke speaks of not-quite intimacy. The feeling that you have a relationship, but you don’t feel the way you should about it. There’s no feeling of comfort, that you could say anything to them and they’d understand. It’s just hollow. And that’s how the song feels in general. It feels like an emotionless shell of a song. Yet, getting rid of emotion makes room for so much of the groove that we hear. It allows for the rhythm section to really shine. And as a pianist, I can’t help but like that.
There’s something about “There, There” that’s special. There’s no song like it. When they play it live, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien exit their roles as guitarists to play the tom-toms that you hear throughout the song. The guitarwork is kept simple, a repeating riff as Yorke sings. During the “chorus,” the guitars switch to a strumming pattern that complements the percussion perfectly. I think the combination of the heavy percussion on the low bass drums, along with the lighter crash cymbals and snare drums of the drum kit are what makes the song so unique.
This is why the song hits so hard when it switches up. The drumwork is the same, but now with much more from the drum set. The guitars start letting out all the pent-up energy. Yorke takes a common saying and gives it so much emotion. It’s crazy how anyone can deliver a line like that.
“We are accidents
Waiting, waiting to happen”
It’s a song that makes you cry in the first half, then awakens you with a new sense of vengeance. It’ll take any sadness you’re feeling that day, multiply it tenfold, then convert it into pure hatred.
What really piques my interest about these lyrics is the repeated lyrics of the chorus.
“Just ‘cause you feel it,
Doesn’t mean it’s there”
It’s true. No matter what it is Yorke is referring to, there’s always false signals. You can never trust yourself completely. But at the same time, it’s more often than not better to trust yourself than to trust others blindly. At least then, if you make a mistake, you’ll know why, and you can do better next time.
I have to talk about “A Wolf at the Door.” It’s just so different from anything else Radiohead’s put out not to talk about it. It begins with an arpeggiated guitar line doubled on an electric and acoustic guitar. This becomes the hypnotic groove that the drums and vocals rely on. Yorke’s deadpan vocals, almost rapping, manage to convey so much with so little emotion. I don’t even get how. Contrast that with the choruses, where we get the emotional vocals that we’re used to hearing from Yorke.
There’s a difference between the first and second verses. In the first verse, most of the vocal melodies were on a single note, whereas in the second, it diverged quite a bit. I’m honestly left speechless by this song. So much happens so quickly that it’s hard to get it all into words. Maybe it’s just that I’ve been spoiled by ten minute songs, but listening to four minute songs just feels kinda fast now. Is that just me? Am I getting old?
In terms of lyrics, there’s a lot to talk about. It’s a much more graphic song than pretty much anything else Radiohead’s done, with lyrics of stabbing in the neck, stepford wives, and just brutal lyricism in general.
“Drag him out the window
Dragging out the dead
Singing, I miss you
Snakes and ladders, flip the lid
Out pops the cracker
Slaps you in the head
Knives you in the neck
Kicks you in the teeth
Steel toe caps
Takes all your credit cards
Get up, get the guns
Get the egg, get the flan in the face,
The flan in the face
Dance, you fucker, dance, you fucker
Don’t you dare, don’t you dare
Don’t you flan in the face
Take it with the love its given
Take it with a pinch of salt
Take it to the tax man
Let me back, let me back
I promise to be good
Don’t look in the mirror at the face you don’t recognize
Help me, call a doctor, put me inside”
There’s a volume of lyrics that’s basically unheard of by Radiohead standards. I think a lot of it is pretty self explanatory, creating a harsh visual of the world that this song is set in. Brutality is commonplace, and emotionless dominance is the name of the game. What a horrible world to live in.
- 2 + 2 = 5: 94/100
- Sit Down. Stand Up: 85/100
- Sail to the Moon: 88/100
- Backdrifts: 78/100
- Go to Sleep: 91/100
- Where I End and You Begin: 94/100
- We Suck Young Blood: 73/100
- The Gloaming: 68/100
- There, There: 93/100
- I Will: 87/100
- A Punch Up at a Wedding: 76/100
- Myxomatosis: 84/100
- Scatterbrain: 82/100
A Wolf At the Door: 87/100
Overall: 82/100
