How to Disappear Completely

Credited to all five members but written mainly by Yorke, the song began in Toronto in June 1997 during the OK Computer tour. It grew from a dream after a windy, rainy show at the RDS Arena in Dublin, in which Yorke ran naked down the River Liffey chased by a tidal wave. O'Brien said the Dublin show and the strain of touring, especially on Yorke, inspired it. A week later Yorke nearly walked off at Glastonbury after technical problems and O'Brien persuaded him to continue. In July 1997 Yorke told an interviewer in Canada that he had written a song with the chorus "I'm not here / This isn't happening", and the song in turn inspired Stipe to write Disappear for R.E.M.'s Reveal. The chorus draws on advice about coping with stress from R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe. The title comes from a 1985 book by Doug Richmond about erasing one's identity, and early working titles were This Is Not Happening and How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found.

A demo was made at Batsford Park on 27 July 1999, and a 1999 attempt in Paris was dismissed by Yorke as sounding like old Radiohead. The main sessions ran from December 1999 to February 2000 in the Canned Applause mobile studio at Sutton Courtenay, with Selway's drums recorded on 1 December and Yorke re-recording his vocals in late January. On 4 February 2000 the Orchestra of St John's, conducted by John Lubbock, recorded the strings in a single take at Dorchester Abbey, arranged by Jonny Greenwood, who also layered ondes Martenot. The same session produced strings for Pyramid Song and Dollars and Cents, and the isolated strings later appeared as How to Disappear into Strings on Kid A Mnesia. According to Godrich the orchestra burst into giggles at Greenwood's score because they found it unplayable, but their leader John Lubbock encouraged them to experiment, and the recording used several microphones and an Apple G3 computer owned by Godrich.

Sound and live life

The song is in F-sharp minor in 6/8 at 102 beats per minute, and it is the first Kid A song with clearly audible, unprocessed vocals from Yorke. Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima is among the influences named for it. Simon Reynolds of Uncut called it a missing link between Scott Walker and My Bloody Valentine.

An acoustic version at a New York soundcheck in August 1997 appears in the film Meeting People Is Easy. The band played it at Glastonbury in 1997 and on the BBC Radio 1 Evening Session on 15 November 2000, at 6:37. A recording from a tent in Dublin in October 2000 has been released, and further live versions exist from Jersey City in 2001, San Sebastian in 2002, Blackpool and Bonnaroo in 2006, Prague in 2009 and a Haiti benefit in Los Angeles in 2010. The song was a promotional single in the United States, as a double A-side with Idioteque, and also in Poland and Belgium, and it went gold in New Zealand. It was used in the film Life as a House and the television series Roswell, and the Argentine writer Mariana Enriquez named a 2004 novel after it. Pitchfork's Brent DiCrescenzo wrote that it boils down Let Down and Karma Police to their spectral essence, and The Guardian ranked it second among the band's 40 best songs, calling it a masterpiece of avant-garde balladry. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield heard the Moody Blues in its strings and Chris Squire in its bass. The version from the BBC Radio 1 Evening Session appeared on the 2009 Special Collectors Edition of Kid A, and the Canal+ performance filmed in Paris on 28 April 2001 is on its DVD.