Thom Yorke Dances Alone

Radiohead announced and released The King of Limbs within days of each other in February 2011, and "Lotus Flower" was the single that came with a video: Thom Yorke alone in what looks like an empty soundstage, wearing a black fedora, dancing. Not performing for anyone. Not doing anything that required a second person in the room. Just moving through some private choreography for the length of the track like the camera was either irrelevant or was exactly the point. Within hours the internet had mapped his movements onto everything it could find, which told you something about collective discomfort—you don’t meme something unless it gets under your skin first. The song underneath all that is characteristically withholding, built on fractured rhythms and a falsetto that keeps reaching for something just slightly out of range. I watched the video a lot that week. I still come back to it when I want to feel briefly and usefully outside my own body.