Nice Dream

There's something in the atmosphere of (Nice Dream) that envelops you from the first chord. The idea behind the recording, as the story goes, was to capture a sense of a "good angel" and a mysterious "garden," something that producer John Leckie sought to emulate with the song's structure, drawing inspiration from George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. However, the instrumentation was modified a bit: when Thom Yorke learned that Leckie had used strings on a job for Ride, a band from the Oxford scene that competed with Radiohead at the time, it was decided to set aside the violins and cellos. For the lyrics, Yorke delved into Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle (Ghiaccio-nove), a story about a substance capable of freezing the entire planet, and from there the image of "the sea would electrocute us all" emerges.

The recording of (Nice Dream) took place at Manor Studio, and it was part of the creation process of The Bends, Radiohead's second album, released on March 13, 1995, by Parlophone. This album marked a turning point, with more subtle arrangements and enigmatic lyrics compared to their debut, 1993's Pablo Honey. The production of The Bends was a joint effort, with John Leckie leading and the participation of Nigel Godrich and Jim Warren in additional production. Work sessions for this album began in February 1994 at RAK Studios in London, a period of high pressure for the band. After an international tour in May and June, they resumed recordings at Abbey Road and then at Manor in Oxfordshire. It was during these sessions that Godrich began his long collaboration with the band. The duration of (Nice Dream) is 3:53.