The music theory of Paranoid Android

This song is amazing, it’s just art. Incredible.

I hate the fashionable but ridiculous use of the word 'THEIR', while it is about 1 person.

But what is the track right at the very end of the this video?!

Can this song be labelled surreal? Both the lyrics and the music, PARTICULARLY the gorgeous flows of 7/8?

Give up the ghost is a great example of counterpoint(from the basement)

Why don't you analyse a.r. Rahman and ILLAYARAJA llayaraja songs , which even more mind blowing🤯, the GOAT ' S 🐐 OF TAMIL MUSIC.

David finally breaking down my all time favorite song, today is a good day

I don't think calling this an episodic song has much explanatory power at all.

To me, it's better to think of as an instrumental chorus song. The "first section" are the two verses. The "second section" is the first two choruses, the first being the riff just on an acoustic and the second when the distorted guitar joins in (the fact that there is singing over part of it is kind of irrelevant, many instrumental choruses have some unobtrusive vocal work to accompany the centerpiece) The "third section" is the bridge. And the reprise of the second section is the final chorus.

This has the benefit of acknowledging that each of these sections behave as you expect in a standard song. The verses are quiet, the lowest energy of the song, and divide pretty cleanly into verse-prechorus configurations (a second immediately repeating verse before the first chorus is also a common strategy.) The chorus is higher energy, catchier, and each builds on the energy of the previous while being periodically recurring. They are clearly the focal point of the song. And the bridge is a much slower build into the final chorus (it's also modulating which is common for bridges but every section modulates so that doesn't mean much.)

Obviously, there's a substantial deviation from the standard verse-chorus structure as one would expect from Radiohead. But it goes a much longer way to explaining how those parts actually fit together and are heard. This isn't Bohemian Rhapsody.

Very instructive video thank you ! Any idea on why, according to the couterpoint melody, Ed is not singing backing vocals until the "that's it Sir line" live ?

Fantastic. I had no idea of the counterpoint going on in the song, but it all makes sense now.

Good job i like this song

Nice work David, one of my Radiohead favourites - I always felt that the E alternates to Esus4 before the A Cm in the slow section

Brilliant analysis of a fantastic song

The only problem with this video is that I'm gonna drop it to listen to Paranoid Android now

Thank you.

Paranoid Android is one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. It's one of the few examples of contemporary music that will likely still feel interesting and noteworthy to people centuries in the future.

My player skipped back like 10 seconds after you said "it gives a skipped record feel" and I thought you did something really clever/cute lmao

The slow section always reminds me of Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding."

Awesome video, as usual. Thanks so much!
Now, if you ever felt like analysing Sinéad O'Connor's "In this heart" it'd make me SO happy. 🙏😄

Thanks for this analysis of a brilliant piece!

If you think about it, Paranoid Android has kind of a symphony structure

I don’t hear the E -> A -> Cm as a secondary dominant, dominant, tonic. I hear it as a dominant, tonic, tonic. It sounds more like a key change.

I first heard this song for the closing credits of one of my favorite anime shows, Ergo Proxy. It is an alternate reality show, I think is in the future and it’s about their robot assistants they call auto-raves and part of the robots contract a virus that gives them consciousness. It’s worth the watch only one season and the English voice acting in my opinion is very good. The closing credit song really puts the show in a neat (imo) perspective. ☺️☺️

Simply brutal.

I never seem to get tired of Paranoid Android analysis

This should have gone on for another hour! More please.

I’d love to hear a cover of Paranoid Android by Sabrina Carpenter…

…or Rebecca Black.

I was today years old when I found out the fat guy with the mask and axe in the music video was Boris Yeltsin...

Pretty Things “In the Square” ripoff tbf

meh. overrated band and song.

Even if Radiohead are not comfortable about this tag, for me this is the prog rock masterpiece of the '90s. I remember not liking it the first time and loving it more after each listen. Although the ending still feels too abrupt to me.

Thank you for this video

the slow tempo section sounds like 'Mellohi' from Minecraft by c418

I'm hopeful that one day Radiohead will come out with another good song--I haven't heard a good one of theirs since High and Dry.

I love how the third part seems safer every time

Great stuff 👍

Man, the progression in this song is absolutely gorgeous.

Finally!! This is my favourite Radiohead song and I'm so glad you're talking about it!!!

I remember the first time I heard this song. I was driving in my car in probably December of 1998 and had to pull off the road because my brain was melting. Safety first 😂

gosh, i think my favourite part of this song is that last chord progression. it feels like an inverse Shepard's tone, constantly falling and falling deeper into despair.

please change the thumbnail i really didn't want to click on it lmao

Hey David! Do you plan on making more videos where you create original songs or recreate existing ones? Those are some of the ones i enjoy the most from you
Cheers

Radiohead's feeling for sounds is simply unbelievable.
And, the song (like every RH song) is far from being over-produced. Chords, melody, the whole composition speak for itself.

Hey DBP you should do one on Happiness is a Warm Gun.

No analysis - or even an acknowledgement - of the guitar solos? 😢

"Never appeared in any other song" is a large statement but I'll take it with salt for this song