Hail to the Thief

Following the sudden change in sound with the albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), Radiohead decided to make a more guitar-driven album, while keeping the drum machines, synthesizers, and the heavily-manipulated vocals from the previous releases.

The title of the record has different points of reference. While the phrase was used by anti-Bush protesters following the controversial 2000 presidential election, lead singer Thom Yorke stated it was in reference to the 1824 election, which was won by John Quincy Adams. When explaining the reason behind the name, Yorke explained it came from:

“the rise of doublethink and the rise of general intolerance and madness, and feeling very much like individuals were totally out of control of the situation that somehow it was a manifestation of something you know, not really human, or something like a cloud like entering the next dark ages or middle ages."

The track-listing for the record has various subtitles, which came from

“old Victorian playbills which chronicled the kind of moralistic songs which were played in music halls. That whole theatre culture was wiped out by the development of cinema.”

While the lyrical content can be interpreted as politically charged, with 2+2=5 referencing George Orwell ideology and “Sit Down, Stand Up” inspired by the Rwandan genocide, guitarist Jonny Greenwood explained that the record wasn’t meant to make a political statement, instead, saying how the lyrics are

“about our rights and responsibilities, about how to take a stand as an individual within a society, a patchwork of articulate responses to living now.”