(Credits: Far Out / Raph_PH)
Sat 17 January 2026 14:00, UK
Towards the back end of 2025, Radiohead confirmed that they were getting back in the tour bus and heading out on the road again.
Philip Selway announced the news in a message to fans. “Last year, we got together to rehearse, just for the hell of it. After a seven year pause, it felt really good to play the songs again and reconnect with a musical identity that has become lodged deep inside all five of us,” he wrote.
Adding, “It also made us want to play some shows together, so we hope you can make it to one of the upcoming dates. For now, it will just be these ones but who knows where this will all lead.”
The news was well-received by music lovers across the globe. There is no escaping the fact that the band have had their fair share of controversy over the years, but it’s also pretty undeniable that, regardless of your opinion on their choices, they’ve also made some really great music. They’re never afraid to shy away from different themes and concepts, meaning no matter what record you dive into, there’s always going to be something new to explore.
Jack Black realised this first-hand. The comedic rockstar admitted previously that he’s a huge fan of the band and said that he gets different things from different albums. While a lot of musical outfits have a specific sound that they stick to, Radiohead embrace a variety, using different effects, writing techniques, and narratives in order to keep throwing listeners off balance, no matter how accustomed they are to their music.
“If you want concept, you go OK Computer,” said Black when discussing the album, “But if you wanna rock – if you want straight-up fucking songs – you go The Bends. The first few listens, I was like, ‘I don’t understand… My brain’s not computing…’ Then it clicked in: ‘Ohhhh, I see! It’s the best band in the history of rock!’”
With such different approaches to music present throughout their discography, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that listeners have often struggled to understand or misinterpret some of their songs. One which people frequently ask questions about is 2003’s ‘There There’, one of the bigger tracks which features on their record Hail To The Thief. People have previously asked questions about the song’s meaning, specifically what’s inferred with the line “we are accidents waiting to happen”, and it’s tough to find a solid answer.
So, what did Radiohead mean?
The reason why this is such a prevalent question is that working out a definite answer is incredibly hard. Firstly, we can take the song (and subsequently the words) at face value, which would make us believe it’s about a relationship falling apart. The words certainly point to this meaning, and therefore, the lyrics would refer to the self-destructive tendencies that people take into relationships, which lead to their ultimate destruction. However, there is a deeper level to the song.
‘There There’ isn’t just about a crumbling love life; rather, it’s about disillusionment as a whole. The song asks listeners not to be seduced by illusions, which can sometimes manifest as love, but can also present themselves as other things. You can particularly pick this up in the chorus where it says, “Just cause you feel it, doesn’t mean it’s there.”
As such, rather helplessly, the line “We are accidents waiting to happen” could reflect the fundamental flaws in humans, which mean they keep falling foul of such illusions.
The song’s music video also plays into the latter theory of believing something that isn’t there, as it sees Thom Yorke plunged into a fictional world, which he navigates as if it’s real.
“Thom Yorke had an idea of being a character in one of the little stories you get in Bagpuss (A UK 1970s children’s animated TV series about a cat),” said the video’s director Chris Hopewell, “A cross between that and a Grimms fairy tale. Once I heard that, any idea of having people playing instruments or mouthing the lyrics went straight out of the window.”
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