The National Anthem

Yorke wrote the bassline at sixteen. Drums and bass were recorded in late 1997 for a planned B-side to OK Computer, and the track was kept back for Kid A. In Gloucestershire in mid-1999 Yorke played bass and sang through a ring modulator, while Jonny Greenwood added ondes Martenot and radio samples. An early demo surfaced on OKNOTOK 1997 2017 in 2017.

In November 1999 a horn section recorded free-jazz parts, with Yorke and Greenwood asking for a sound like a traffic jam. The horn style came from Charles Mingus's The Complete Town Hall Concert, which Yorke called the most formative record of the period. The players included Andy Bush on trumpet, Stan Harrison on baritone saxophone, Mark Lockheart on tenor saxophone and Mike Kearsey on bass trombone. The brass section also included Andy Hamilton and Steve Hamilton on saxophones, Martin Hathaway on alto saxophone and Liam Kirkman on trombone, and Henry Binns supplied rhythm sampling. Yorke said he jumped up and down so much while conducting that he broke his foot.

Meaning and reception

Yorke said the band wanted to convey angry people stuck in a lift or in traffic, and that some listeners did not want to hear that much anger. Sputnikmusic heard the first track on the album that remotely sounds like a rock song. Exclaim! called it probably the standout of the album and compared it with the My Bloody Valentine remix of Primal Scream's If They Move Kill 'Em. In Spin's review, the track was a strange, thrilling blast of kosmik highway music that combined Hawkwind's Silver Machine with Can's Mother Sky. Pitchfork's Brent DiCrescenzo called it the shrill peak of the album, and The Guardian put it at number 8 on a 2020 list of the band's 40 best songs. When Radiohead played Saturday Night Live in October 2000, the show's house brass band improvised over it.