“It was an ambush.” Thom Yorke’s soft wails permeate throughout “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)”, Radiohead’s first studio recording since In Rainbows. The tribute to the late British combat soldier Harry Patch is coincidental and timely, as the song was recorded just before his passing in late July. He was 111-years-old.
Patch, the alleged sole survivor of the first World War, spoke to the BBC in 2005 and began discussing his war experiences for the first time, nearly 80 years after the fact. Soon the war veteran became a diplomat of sorts, telling stories of the horrors he had witnessed in France when a bomb struck and killed his entire unit.
Moved by the BBC interview, Yorke took it upon himself to record a song incorporating a selection of the soldier’s own words, using an innocent and youthful falsetto. The sounds of history resonate amidst theatrical clamor, sending the listener to another place, enabling clear-headed meditation and a time for reflection."
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