Harrowdown Hill


"Harrowdown Hill" is a song by Radiohead singer Thom Yorke, released on his debut solo album The Eraser. It was released as a single on 21 August 2006, peaking at #23 in the UK Singles Chart. A music video was released on 31 July 2006 and had its first play on Channel 4. Yorke wrote the song about the death of David Kelly, a British weapons expert who told a reporter that the British government had falsely identified weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Writing

According to the Globe and Mail, "Harrowdown Hill" resembles a love song with a sense of "menace" and "grim political showdown". Yorke said the song had been "kicking around" during the sessions for Radiohead's sixth album, Hail to the Thief, but felt it could not have worked as a Radiohead song.
The lyrics are about David Kelly, a British weapons expert who is presumed to have committed suicide after telling a reporter that the British government had falsely identified weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Kelly's body was found in the woods of Harrowdown Hill, near Yorke's former school in Oxfordshire.
Yorke was uncomfortable about the subject matter and conscious of Kelly's grieving family, but felt that "not to write it would perhaps have been worse". In an interview with the Observer, he said it was "the most angry song" he had ever written. He told the Globe and Mail: "The government and the Ministry of Defence were implicated in his death. They were directly responsible for outing him and that put him in a position of unbearable pressure that he couldn't deal with, and they knew they were doing it and what it would do to him."

Music video

The "Harrowdown Hill" music video was directed by Chel White of BENT Image Lab in 2006. It features stop-motion eagle animation by David Russo, time-lapse footage by Mark Eiffert, and a technique known as Smallgantics. It was released on 31 July 2006 and had its first play on Channel 4.

Track listings

  1. "Harrowdown Hill"
  2. "Harrowdown Hill"
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" - 4:38
  2. "Jetstream" - 3:44
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" - 4:38
  2. "The Drunkk Machine" - 4:07
  3. "Harrowdown Hill" - 7:01
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" - 7:01
  2. "The Drunkk Machine" - 4:07
  1. "Harrowdown Hill" - 7:01
  2. "The Drunkk Machine" - 4:07
  3. "Jetstream" - 3:44