Daydreaming

**Daydreaming** is the second track from Radiohead's ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool.

## Recording

Daydreaming was finished early in Radiohead's sessions at the La Fabrique studio in France. Nigel mentioned on Twitter that the song had the working title Daydreamers. Thom described it as a "breakthrough". Nothing was known about it before the album release.

For the introduction, the band slowed the tape, creating a pitch-warping effect. The strings, recorded at RAK Studios in London, were arranged by Jonny and performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra. Jonny had the cellists detune their cellos, creating a "growling" sound for the outro. Cellist Oliver Coates said: "Nigel, Jonny and Thom all have this awesome relationship, and were so animated during the recording. I remember we were laying down the cello part at the end of Daydreaming and Thom said, 'That's it – that is the sound of the record.'"

## Lyrics

Some have speculated that the lyrics refer to Thom's relationship with his ex-partner Rachel. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't.

The song ends with a repeated phrase reversed and slowed down. When reversed and pitch-corrected, the words resemble... well some people think he's saying "Half of my life" or "Half of my love" - perhaps a reference to the years he spent with Rachel, or the time releasing music with Radiohead.

Or perhaps he's saying something else entirely. In live performances, Thom seems to sing "Careful my love".

### The white room

It seems that Thom may have thought about "the white room with the window" for some time. In 1997, he told Mojo about touring during the making of The Bends:

There's a sense of limbo that's really inspiring. Everything's taken care of for you, and you become a functioning organism only when someone plugs you in. It's also very lonely — but again that's inspiring. Because everything that happens becomes so acutely important. You're in a **white room and there's only one window** and whatever goes past that window takes up your whole existence. I think we've always worked best in isolation. So there's this sense on the one hand of being exposed to lots of different stuff and on the other being in forced isolation to consider it.
## Release

Daydreaming was the second song released from A Moon Shaped Pool, after Burn the Witch. After releasing excerpts on Instagram, Radiohead released the Burn the Witch video and song as a download on 6 May, a few days before the album was released.

## Music video

The Daydreaming music video was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, for whom Jonny has composed several film scores. In the video, Thom walks through a series of doors and passageways leading to various disconnected locations, including a hotel, a hospital, a laundry, and a convenience store. He eventually climbs a snowy hill, enters a cave, and mouths the song's closing words as he lies down next to a fire.

Anderson and the band sent 35 mm prints of the music video to select theatres inviting them to screen it.

## Vignettes

On 16 July 2016, Radiohead announced a fan competition to create a music video vignette for Daydreaming. The clip provided by Radiohead features additional strings cut from the final version.

The YouTube video below collects all the vignettes made for *A Moon Shaped Pool*, including all the shortlisted videos for Daydreaming.