Burn the Witch

**Burn the Witch**is the first track from Radiohead's ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool. It has a long history; Radiohead worked it during the sessions for their albums *Kid A* (2000), *Hail to the Thief* (2003), and In Rainbows (2007).

## History

According to Nigel, Radiohead first worked on Burn the Witch at the end of the sessions for Kid A. They worked on it again during the Hail to the Thief, and lyrics from the song appeared in the Hail to Thief artwork inside the booklet.

On Wed 28 2005, during the In Rainbows sessions, Thom wrote on Dead Air Space that he had finished writing the lyrics:

**storm coming**
satellite not working
rain rattling down the chimney. windows buffering.
not got th e words to PAY DAY yet
but today i got the words to BURN THE (WHITE?) WITCH.. that’s a good un. jonny has lots of orchestration tasks now including this..(‘oh good’ says he exiting stage left)
blackboard filling up with ideas. lots of things happening all over the studio at once.. which i always like.. although I keep having to remind myself to sit down occasionally.
Thom
Burn the Witch appears on the blackboard of song titles posted in a photo on Dead Air Space on September 30:

It also appears on the list of songs may have rehearsed for their 2006 tour, which they used to roadtest In Rainbows material:

At a show on February 4, 2006, Thom played the opening chords on piano after a fan shouted for it. He told the audience: "One day. When we get the orchestra, we'll do Burn the Witch." On the 2008 tour, during the show in St Louis on May 14, Thom played the chords again after a fan shouted for it again.

## Recording

According to Jonny, who arranges Radiohead's string sections, Burn the Witch was written with strings in mind. He said: "Very rarely for us, we managed to get strings on near the beginning [of the A Moon Shaped Pool sessions]. We left it unfinished on purpose and left lots of room for the strings and we never do that usually. Usually the strings are the icing on top."

The strings were recorded at RAK Studios in London. They were performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra. Rather than bowing the strings, the orchestra players used guitar plectrums, creating a percussive effect.

Nigel's father died on the day of the recording. According to Nigel, "I literally left him on a fucking table in my house and went and recorded. And it was a very, very emotional day for me. He was a string player as well so it was one of those things where it felt like he would want me to go and just do this."

After Trump was elected US president on 8 November 2016, Yorke tweeted lyrics from the song and linked to its music video.

## Release

In April 2016, days before the album's announcement and a week before its release, fans who had previously made orders from Radiohead received embossed cards with lyrics from the song: "Sing a song of sixpence that goes / burn the witch / we know where you live." Fans promptly went absolutely fucking bananas.

After releasing excerpts from the video on Instagram, Burn the Witch was released as the lead single as a download on 3 May 2016 on Radiohead's website and on streaming and digital media services. A 7-inch single, with the 2015 song Spectre as the B-side, was released that month exclusively in independent record stores. It was the year's 26th-bestselling vinyl single in the UK.

## Music video

The Burn the Witch music video was directed by Chris Hopewell, who previously directed the animated video for There There (2003). It uses stop-motion animation in the style of the Trumptonshire trilogy, a series of 1960s English children's television programmes. According to the son-in-law of Trumptonshire creator Gordon Murray, the family was not asked permission to use the style and saw it as a "tarnishing of the brand". The video was conceived and finished in 14 days and released on YouTube one week later on 3 May 2016.

The story homages the 1973 horror film *The Wicker Man a*nd depicts mob rule in a rural community. An inspector is greeted by a town mayor and shown a series of unsettling sights, culminating in the unveiling of a wicker man. The mayor urges the inspector to climb into it, whereupon he is locked inside as a human sacrifice and the wicker man is set on fire. As the flames gather, the townspeople turn their backs and wave goodbye to the camera. The inspector escapes among the trees.

Animator Virpi Kettu, who worked on the music video, the visual style was deliberately lighter in tone than the song, as Radiohead "wanted the video to contrast with what they're playing and to wake people up a bit".

## Live versions

In lieu of an orchestra, Radiohead created a dramatically different rock arrangement for live performance, with Jonny playing guitar with a bow and playing short solo for the outro.