“Notes for “The Present Tense”. Thom Yorke: “early notes for ‘the present tense'”
Thom Yorke shared some interesting notes for “The Present Tense” on Twitter earlier today. “The Present Tense” is an unreleased song that debuted in 2009 and has been performed live by Thom Yorke during several solo appearances and with Atoms For Peace. The page contains a lot of different lyrics and words, including Britney Spears name (Thanks to reddit user whitepagolin for the screen capture), and gives you an interesting look at Thom’s songwriting process.
“The Present Tense” was first heard in 2008 during a soundcheck in Mansfield before a Radiohead concert, and in several other soundchecks during the In Rainbows tour, but has not been performed live by Radiohead. During a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) last year Thom was asked “Will we ever hear “The Present Tense” or “Burn The Witch”?”, to which he responded, “def the first one!” Radiohead are currently in the recording studio working on their ninth studio album. Could we see “The Present Tense” on Radiohead’s next album?
In other Radiohead news Thom Yorke’s second solo-album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes has now been downloaded over 4.2 million times on BitTorrent. It’s unknown how many of those are paid downloads vs free downloads (the opening track “Brain in a Bottle” was offered as a free download). BitTorrent didn’t release the number of purchases at Yorke’s request. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter BitTorrent’s chief content officer Matt Mason revealed some more information about the album. He first pitched the idea to Thom during Christmas of last year as a three-song EP and Thom instead offered a full-length album and how he was able to keep the album a secret.
Phil Selway’s second solo album Weatherhouse is out now and you can buy it directly on his website or over at Amazon. Jonny Greenwood hired Supergrass to record the unreleased Radiohead track “Spooks” The Guardian is reporting for Paul Thomas Anderson’s upcoming film Inherent Vice.
@pitchfork except it's really a half idea we never made work live. I rewrote it and got supergrass to play it. It's good, but not very rh!
— Jonny Greenwood (@JnnyG) October 6, 2014
Video: Radiohead performing “Spooks” in 2006.