Harrowdown Hill

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Harrowdown Hill"
Single by Thom Yorke
from the album The Eraser
B-side
  • "Jetstream",
  • "The Drunkk Machine"
Released21 August 2006
GenreAlternative rock, electronic
Length4:38
LabelXL
Songwriter(s)Thom Yorke
Producer(s)Nigel Godrich
Thom Yorke singles chronology
"Black Swan"
(2006) 		"Harrowdown Hill"
(2006) 		"Analyse"
(2006)

"Harrowdown Hill" is a song by the English musician

UK Singles Chart
. A music video was released on 31 July 2006.

Writing

"Harrowdown Hill" was released on Yorke's debut solo album, The Eraser (2006), recorded while Yorke's band Radiohead were on hiatus.[1] According to The Globe and Mail, it resembles a love song with a sense of "menace" and "grim political showdown".[2] Yorke said the song had existed during the sessions for Radiohead's sixth album, Hail to the Thief (2003), but that it could not have worked as a Radiohead song.[3]

The lyrics are about David Kelly, a British weapons expert who allegedly killed himself in 2003 after telling a reporter that the British government had falsely identified weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Kelly's body was found in the woods of Harrowdown Hill, near Yorke's former school in Oxfordshire.[4]

Yorke was uncomfortable about the subject matter and conscious of Kelly's grieving family, but felt that "not to write it would perhaps have been worse".[2] In an interview with The Observer, he said it was "the most angry song" he had ever written.[5] He told The Globe and Mail: "The government and the Ministry of Defence were implicated in his death. They were directly responsible for outing him and that put him in a position of unbearable pressure that he couldn't deal with, and they knew they were doing it and what it would do to him."[2]

Music video

The "Harrowdown Hill" music video was directed by

Smallgantics. It was released on 31 July 2006 and was first played on Channel 4.[6]

Release

"Harrowdown Hill" was released as a single on 21 August 2006, and reached number 23 in the

UK Singles Chart.[7] In 2008, to celebrate the election of US President Barack Obama, Yorke released a remixed version of "Harrowdown Hill" as a free download.[8]

Track listings

  • Promo CD
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" (Early Fade)
  2. "Harrowdown Hill" (Full Length)
  • 7" XLS238, limited to 5,000 copies
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" - 4:38
  2. "Jetstream" - 3:44
  • CD XLS238CD, limited to 10,000 copies
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" - 4:38
  2. "The Drunkk Machine" - 4:07
  3. "Harrowdown Hill" (extended mix) - 7:01
  • 12" XLT238, limited to 3,000 copies
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" (extended mix) - 7:01
  2. "The Drunkk Machine" - 4:07
  • 12" XLT238US
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" (extended mix) - 7:01
  2. "The Drunkk Machine" - 4:07
  3. "Jetstream" - 3:44

References

  1. ^ Fricke, David (1 June 2006). "Radiohead's Thom Yorke on going solo". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 July 2006.
  2. ^ a b c Evert-Green, Robert (June 14, 2006). "Radiohead retooled". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
  3. ^ "Thom Yorke: 'Why I made a solo album'". NME. 2 July 2006. Retrieved 14 April 2018.
  4. ISSN 0458-3035
    . Retrieved 3 June 2015.
  5. ^ Mclean, Craig (18 June 2006). "All Messed Up". Observer Music Monthly. Archived from the original on 23 July 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2006.
  6. ^ "Harrowdown Hill". 28 July 2006. Archived from the original on 10 August 2006. Retrieved 2006-08-06.
  7. UK Singles Chart
    . Retrieved 2021-08-22.
  8. ^ Kreps, Daniel (6 November 2008). "Thom Yorke Celebrates Obama Victory With Free Track". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 21 July 2018.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harrowdown_Hill&oldid=1185379311"