Radiohead reveal origins of OK Computer title

It was also the inspiration behind ‘Paranoid Android’…

Radiohead have revealed the origins behind the title for their seminal third album OK Computer, which turns 20 this year.

Talking to Rolling Stone, Thom Yorke explained that the idea originated in 1996, while Radiohead were touring their second album The Bends in the US.

The band were listening to the audiobook of Douglas Adams’ comedy sci-fi opus A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which features an exchange between a spaceship computer and galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox. At one scene about halfway through the book, the computer informs Beeblebrox of its inability to defend the ship from a missile attack, to which Beeblebrox responds: “OK, computer, I want full manual control now.”

“The whole album is really fucking geeky,” Yorke toldRolling Stone. “I was kind of a geek when I was a kid, unashamedly so. Then I’m in this rock band famous for drinking tea and never socializing, where the truth is somewhat different.”

Yorke also recalls recording OK Computer in a haunted mansion, claiming “ghosts would talk to me while I was asleep,” while Jonny Greenwood talks about the influence of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. Read the full interview over at Rolling Stone.

Earlier this week, Radiohead debuted a studio version of OK Computer-era deep cut ‘I Promise’ on BBC Radio 6. The track will feature on the forthcoming OK Computer reissue, OKNOTOK. [via NME]