Videodrone #26: Knives Out

Videodrone is a weekly(ish) feature looking at music videos from the last half century. 

Knives Out (2001)

The music world was a-changing in the early '00s. The MP3 revolution was quickly putting a dent in physical music sales as the kids were figuring out that you could find just about anything for free on the innernet. That said, music itself was still interesting. 

After the success of 1997's OK Computer, Radiohead was primed to supplant U2 and R.E.M. as the biggest band in the world. But Thom Yorke and co. resisted that pull and moved in a different direction with 2000's Kid A, eschewing the conventional guitar-driven sound of their first three albums for an experimental, electronic-focused sound that divided fans who were looking for OK Computer 2. Frontman Thom Yorke wrote abstract lyrics, taking phrases that he cut and reassembled randomly. And the band released no singles and did very little press.

Despite all this, Kid A debuted at #1 in the U.K. and became the band's first chart-topping album in the U.S. as well. Critics loved it. As it turned out, Radiohead had an album's worth of songs left over from the Kid A sessions and released them in May 2001 under the name Amnesiac.

The second single from the album was "Knives Out," a creepy, pensive song that didn't resemble the rest of the album with its Johnny Marr-esque guitar lines. According to Consequence of Sound, Yorke's lyrics were about cannibalism, "the idea of the businessman walking out on his wife and kids and never coming back" and "the thousand-yard stare when you look at someone close to you and you know they're gonna die." 

The video was directed by Michel Gondry, who had filmed videos for Bjork, Thomas Dolby, Sinead O'Connor, Foo Fighters, Daft Punk and the Rolling Stones. He soon became a film director, with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind being the most notable. He was going through a breakup at the time he filmed "Knives Out"; the video featured Yorke grieving in a hospital room as his partner, played by Emma de Caunes, who is being operated on as if she were the patient in the game Operation. It also features the couple on a train and later, Yorke as a mouse. 

Gondry later said making the video was a terrible experience. "I showed [Yorke] a storyboard and every single detail: He was completely excited and happy for it--and then, it turned out, they all criticize me for being selfish and putting my own views on it and my own introspection...It did not go smoothly, but if it went smoothly, it would be mediocre," he said in an interview with The Playlist.

The video was made in one shot, with Yorke and de Caunes rushing from scene to scene. In an interview with Rebel, Gondry said the video was based on his experiences with his girlfriend dealing with leukemia and then later when they broke up. The video is trippy for sure, fitting the unsettling vibe of the song and keeping the viewer guessing as to what's actually going on.

The song was a hit in the U.K., reaching #13 on the U.K. Singles chart and #1 in Canada. Meanwhile, Amnesiac debuted at #1 on the U.K. Albums chart and #2 on the Billboard 200. The song has been covered by the Flaming Lips, Christopher O'Riley and Brad Mehldau, and the title would later go on to inspire Rian Johnson's film of the same name.

Twenty-five years later, Amnesiac stands out as a classic album and "Knives Out" continues to enchant the listener.