On “I Promise”, Radiohead Hold Up Their End of the Bargain

Only Radiohead Could Turn the Release of a Twenty-Year-Old Throwaway into a Goddamn Event

 

Last year, on their magnificent album A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead performed a resurrection. It’s called “True Love Waits“, a gorgeous song that had been a staple of their concerts for twenty years without ever receiving a proper studio release, until they finally dragged it from its purgatorial slumber into the light of day; as with most resurrections, the small differences it came back with did nothing to diminish the fanfare upon its arrival. This is the sort of long game few musical acts can pull off, and one that Radiohead have managed yet again with the plaintive “I Promise”.

An outtake from the OK Computer studio sessions that was occasionally played live in the late ’90s, “I Promise” has the distinct feel of a song from that precise era in Radiohead’s career. Sandwiched between the grunge-lite/Britpop stepping stones of The Bends and the ominous digital sonics of Kid A, OK Computer sounds like a band flourishing within their alternative/art rock leanings. In fact, they’d become such adept musicians by this point that they were on the cusp of transcending the “rock and roll saviours” narrative altogether.

While we’re on it, though, the album went a little something like this: slippery, abrasive guitars shimmering alongside a cryptic Thom Yorke, singing about technology and doom with a hidden Cheshire grin; operatic three-piece suites, where no one was safe from the cascading rain; rowdy meat-and-potatoes rockers that felt like cheery leftovers from the year before; utterly fucking haunting soundscapes of indescribable terror; and, finally, breezier, less congested tracks where everyone still probably dies at the end.

“I Promise”, for what it’s worth, fits into the latter category. The solemn acoustic guitar and weird mix of hopelessness and defiance in Yorke’s voice recalls “Karma Police“, but with simpler sentiments. Meanwhile, there’s still a hesitant uplift to the chords and overall feel of this track that fits with the triumphant final pre-chorus of “Let Down“, albeit on a much smaller scale. Actually, that’s probably the best description I can offer for anyone curious to know what “I Promise” sounds like: it’s everything you loved about OK Computer, in miniature.

It’s a sad, intimate song, like the first half of “Exit Music (For a Film)“, but winds up more redemptive and less harrowing by the end, like a version of “No Surprises” where you breathe deep and ignore the lyrics. For the most part, it succeeds on the merits of its simplicity: a strummed acoustic guitar, nebbish percussion, lulling bassline and Yorke’s incomparable voice. It shifts into slightly higher gear, however, after the second refrain, as a watery string section waltzes onto the song. It takes the pleading heartache and regret that Yorke’s vocals instil, stirring it all with a breezy whisper. By the time it all crescendos at the end, it has the same effect as tears against the light, blurring the last images of a train as it pulls out of the station.

You’ll love it, I… swear.