THE TOURIST
Released: June 1997
Length: 5:24
Disc: OK Computer
Tablature: Guitar

Other Versions:
String Version - Strung Out On OK Computer

The Tourist was written by Jonny, who, explains Thom, was "in a beautiful square in France on a sunny day, and watching all theses American tourists being wheeled around, frantically trying to see everything in 10 minutes." Jonny was shocked at how these people could be in a place so beautiful and so special and not realize it because they weren't taking the time to just stop and look around.

One of only two known songs of Radiohead's that wasn't written by Thom (the other, also written by Jonny, was Last Flowers Till The Hospital, an unreleased instrumental track which not many people have even heard.. In fact, it's only a rumour that Jonny wrote it).

Possibly the greatest album closer in the world ever, it's a very spacy track. There's an awful lot of room and air. The sound is extremely relaxed, and yet, it has a great sense of beauty to it. The closing 'ping' which finishes off OK Computer signifies what has just been the last track of the perfect album.

It barks at no one else but me
Like it's seen a ghost
I guess it seen the sparks a-flowing
No one else would know

Hey man slow down, slow down
Idiot, slow down, slow down

Sometimes I get overcharged
That's when you see sparks
They ask me where the hell I'm going
At a thousand feet per second

Hey man slow down, slow down
Idiot slow down, slow down

Hey man slow down, slow down
Idiot slow down, slow down
Jonny Greenwood "I was amazed that the others made it come on the album so easily. The only things we argue about as a band are the songs appearing on the setlist and the songs on to appear on the album. Our b-sides are often songs which are chosen for the album by two or three people, but rejected by the others. The Tourist sounds relaxed and spatial. In most of the songs there are three or four things happening at the same time. Maybe they wanted to end the album with a song in which very little happens. To me the Tourist is a song about speed. About the amount of speed you live your life with. But also about other things, about how you communicating with people. The Tourist is the last song on the album, but that doesn't mean it offers a solution or concludes something. It has something cold en distant, but I like that." - Jonny

"I'm still amazed that everyone else in the band let it on the LP. It was a bit of a late runner. We were packing up and leaving when we decided to do it." - Jonny

"Thom didn't play a thing, he just listened. It's quite nervy, with a lot of space. It sounds like the last song on an album." - Jonny

"We just wanted a song where we weren't paranoid about making something happen every three seconds and where we could record it with space." - Jonny Thom Yorke

"What do I think of Jonny's songwriting? Whenever I am tired, he is there and awake." - Thom
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