From album
OK Computer
Radiohead · 1997 · Track 12
Details
TonalidadF#m
Compás3/4
Tempo76 BPM
Duración5:24
CompositorColin Greenwood / Ed O'Brien / Jonny Greenwood / Phil Selway / Thom Yorke
ÁlbumOK Computer
Año1997
ISRCGBAYE9701378
Credits
Music Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway, Thom Yorke
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The story behind
The way The Tourist is presented at the end of OK Computer has a very clear intention. Thom Yorke explained that albums often end with a sense of rush, where everything happens too quickly. The inclusion of this song, with its slow pace and spaces, was precisely intended to counteract that. Jonny Greenwood, who composed it, described it as something that didn't usually sound like Radiohead, allowing things to happen without the need for something new to occur every three seconds. The rhythmic structure, in ¾ with an extra beat at the end of each verse, contributes to that feeling of deliberate calm. Yorke even conceived it as a message to himself, a reminder of the need to "slow down".
The inspiration for The Tourist came from an observation by Jonny Greenwood in a square in France. He saw tourists who, in their eagerness to see everything in a short time, missed the beauty of the present moment. This image of overwhelmed people, trying to capture every detail without truly absorbing the experience, became a metaphor for living fast and overloading life, instead of enjoying the present. The song, with its 5:25 duration, was recorded in 1996 and early 1997 along with the rest of the album OK Computer, in places like their rehearsal room in Oxfordshire and St Catherine's Court mansion in Bath, with production by Nigel Godrich and engineering by Jon Bailey, Gerard Navarro, and Chris Scard.
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