Black Swan

Album: The Eraser (2006)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song has its origins in the Radiohead Kid A sessions. Thom Yorke told Rolling Stone magazine in 2006: "'Black Swan' has this tiny, shredded segment of something that was one of the library samples we had. It was Ed (O'Brien guitar) and Phil (Selway drums) doing this thing, and I sliced it into bits. The sample was 2000, but the song was 2005."
  • In an interview with Mojo magazine February 2008, Thom Yorke confessed that one of the things from doing a solo album that he'd learned was that all the stuff he does on a laptop gets him excited because he can hear what he is going do vocally. However unless he has an actual vocal in place, it's a bit unfair to expect anybody else to understand what is going on. When asked to give an example Yorke replied: "I was playing bits of 'Black Swan,' 6 minutes of, er, mostly drivel, and Nigel's (Godrich the producer) like, 'Bloody hell! I'm not interested in any of this.' I said, I've been working on this for ages. It's great. 'No it's not,' he says. But as soon as I put the vocal on, he was like, 'OK, now it makes sense.' It reminded me just how important the voice is."
  • This plays over the closing credits on the 2006 Richard Linklater movie A Scanner Darkly.

Comments: 1

  • Tarq from Wellington, New ZealandI first heard this song at the end of the movie mentioned above. It was so apropos to the general feel of the movie, as well as being extremely evocative on its' own account, I liked it immediately. A lot.
    (The movie's out there, too.)
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Justin Timberlake

Justin TimberlakeFact or Fiction

Was Justin the first to be Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher? Did Britney really blame him for her meltdown? Did his bandmates think he was gay?

Prince

PrinceFact or Fiction

Prince is shrouded in mystery, making him an excellent candidate for Fact or Fiction. Is he really a Scientologist? Does he own an exotic animal?

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Mac Powell of Third Day

Mac Powell of Third DaySongwriter Interviews

The Third Day frontman talks about some of the classic songs he wrote with the band, and what changed for his solo country album.

Who Did It First?

Who Did It First?Music Quiz

Do you know who recorded the original versions of these ten hit songs?

Dennis DeYoung

Dennis DeYoungSongwriter Interviews

Dennis DeYoung explains why "Mr. Roboto" is the defining Styx song, and what the "gathering of angels" represents in "Come Sail Away."