This sounds like such a simple song but if you listen to all the parts separately it's one of the most complex and technical songs you will ever hear. Every instrument, including his voice, is in it's own separate tempo and time signature and the beat is off of the end of the 1st quarter beat... It must be hell to play, but worth it when you pull it off... Beautiful song...
In an interview with the New Musical Express December 8, 2007, Thom Yorke talked about the recording of this song about a dying man saying goodbye to loved ones on old-fashioned videotape: “We would have these days where there were big breakthroughs and then suddenly… no. ‘Videotape’ to me was a big breakthrough, we tried everything with it. One day I came in and decided it was going to be like a fast pulse-like a four to the floor thing and everything was going to be built from that. We threw all this stuff at it. But then a couple of months later I went out and came back and Jonny and (the producer) Nigel Godrich had stripped it back. He had this bare bones thing, which was amazing.” Thom Yorke expanded on the recording of this song in an interview with Mojo Magazine February 2008: “We were looking for something that had a real effect on us, an emotional impact, and that happened when we were doing ‘Videotape’ and I was semi kicked out of the studio for being a negative influence. Stanley (Donwood who did the album’s artwork) and I came back a bit worse for wear at about 11 in the evening and Jonny and Nigel had done this stuff to it that reduced us both to tears. It completely blew my mind. They’d stripped all the nonsense away that I’d been piling onto it, and what was left was this quite pure sentiment.”
Before I die, I want to record myself speaking my last words with love to the people I care about so they have something to look at and to remember how much they meant to me. That they will never be alone and that I'll be by their side in spirit (or at least memory) when they need support. That they are lovable, they are loved, that they were and are perfect to me.
I'm almost 19, I've had several close instances with death and I've lost too many loved ones. This comment made me cry beyond belief. With so much loss in life, there's nothing more important than who I love. I never go a day without telling people I love them because I couldn't let anyone have any doubt that I love them enough to sacrifice my life for theirs. It's the fear of loss while the urge to love and hold all the marbles and protect them. When I die, I want to know I had people love me a fraction of what I did and have a video naming every loved one and tell them every detail and every small anecdote in my memory. Your comment made me cry so much. I hope you live many years because somewhere in this world, your videotape will be seen and you will be loved.
I turn to this song every times life beats me up and depression kicks me and I wish I'll be dead under the ground. It is so evoking the suicide that it simply soothes you to stay calm and reflect: life is deadly, but beautiful, somehow
In English: You are my axis as everywhere spin out of control on videotape on videotape. on videotape. This is my way of saying goodbye, because I can not face to face, so I speak before ... No matter what will happen. Do not be afraid. For I know that today was the most perfect day I've ever seen.
Dude, that's not what the songs about at all, he's sayin today he chose not to let the devil tempt him. So he he's watchin that day from heaven and thinkin to himself I wish I could tell myself don't worry, you did good, and that this was a beautiful day to watch from heaven.
In an interview with the New Musical Express December 8, 2007, Thom Yorke talked about the recording of this song about a dying man saying goodbye to loved ones on old-fashioned videotape
