Radiohead have released the music video for their recently unveiled deep cut ‘I Promise’ from the upcoming OK Computer reissue OKNOTOK
The video was directed by Michal Marczak, and begins with commuters numbly staring out bus windows at night. In a perhaps metaphoric statement for how humans are often passing through life simply observing information and not interacting with one another; it is eventually revealed that one of the commuters is nothing more than an animatronic head propped up against the window, where it views and processes what it’s witnessing.
In an interview with Rolling Stone Thom York told the magazine that OK Computer was partly inspired by how the singer felt he was “living in orbit” while on the long tour in support of The Bends.
“The paranoia I felt at the time was much more related to how people related to each other. But I was using the terminology of technology to express it. Everything I was writing was actually a way of trying to reconnect with other human beings when you’re always in transit. That’s what I had to write about because that’s what was going on, which in itself instilled a kind of loneliness and disconnection.”
‘I Promise’ is one of three unreleased songs included on the 20th anniversary reissue. Watch the video below and look for OKNOTOK on June 23 via XL.
photo credit Raymond Flotat