Pyramid Song

A song inspired by Egyptian underworld art and cyclical time, featuring piano, strings, and an unusual rhythm.

Released in May 2001 as the lead single from Radiohead's fifth studio album, Amnesiac, "Pyramid Song" marked the band's first single since "No Surprises" (1998), breaking a silence that followed their previous album, Kid A. The track features piano, strings, and an unusual rhythm, with lyrics inspired by ancient Egyptian underworld art and concepts of cyclical time found in Buddhism and discussed by Stephen Hawking. Thom Yorke wrote the song while living in Cornwall, playing a new grand piano; he noted the chords involve many black notes but are simple. Inspired by Charles Mingus's "Freedom" (1962), the recording initially included handclaps that were later removed. Jonny Greenwood instructed the Orchestra of St John's to play strings in a jazz style. The animated music video, created by Shynola and depicting an undersea world based on a dream Yorke had, won the 2002 NME Carling Award for best music video.

Quick Facts

Artist: Radiohead
Album: Amnesiac
Released: 16 May 2001
Recorded: 1999
Studio: Medley Studios, Copenhagen
Genre: Art rock; jazz-rock
Length: 4:51
Label: Parlophone; Toshiba-EMI

Lore & Background

Thom Yorke wrote "Pyramid Song" in Cornwall after the OK Computer tour, restricting his musical activity to a new grand piano. He composed it alongside "Everything In Its Right Place" in the same week. The song was inspired by Charles Mingus's "Freedom," released on The Complete Town Hall Concert (1962). An early version included handclaps similar to Mingus's track, but Yorke erased them, feeling they sounded wrong. He transferred his playing to a synthesizer for "Everything In Its Right Place" but left "Pyramid Song" untreated because it sounded better raw. The lyrics drew from an exhibition of ancient Egyptian underworld art Yorke attended while recording in Copenhagen, alongside ideas of cyclical time found in Buddhism and discussed by Stephen Hawking. Jonny Greenwood noted the challenge of arranging the song, asking how they could improve upon Thom's solo performance without making it worse.

Reader's Guide

"Pyramid Song" is an art rock song blending jazz, classical, and krautrock elements. Journalist Alex Ross described Yorke's piano chords as "laced with suspended tones" that hang between serenity and sadness. The rhythm has been debated; drummer Philip Selway interpreted it as swung 4/4. Lyrically, the lines "Jumped in the river and what did I see? / Black-eyed angels swam with me" reference the spiritual "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," while "we all went to heaven in a little row boat" appears in Shirley Ellis's "The Clapping Song" (1965). In 2001, O'Brien called it Radiohead's best work. Selway noted its constituent parts are simple but blend with real depth. The music video by Shynola shows a scuba diver exploring a sunken city and entering a submerged house, inspired by a Yorke dream. It won the 2002 NME Carling Award for best music video.

Did You Know?

Drummer Philip Selway found it difficult to follow the rhythm until he stopped analyzing and responded directly to inflections in Yorke's playing.
The strings were recorded at Dorchester Abbey, a 12th-century church, with Greenwood instructing the musicians to swing like jazz players.
In 2026, John Doran described it as "popular music's most seductive evocation of death" since Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky."