Editing OK Computer (section)

====Tracks 7–12====
[[File:Lcii-system.jpg|thumb|A 1990s [[Macintosh LC II]] system. Radiohead used the [[speech synthesis|synthesised voice]] of "Fred", included with older [[Macintosh]] software, to recite the lyrics of "Fitter Happier".<ref name="complete q"/>]]

"Fitter Happier" is a short [[musique concrète]] track that consists of sampled musical and background sound and spoken-word lyrics recited by "Fred",<ref name="complete q" /> a [[speech synthesis|synthesised voice]] from the Macintosh [[SimpleText]] application.{{sfn|Randall|2000|pp=158–159}} Yorke wrote the lyrics "in ten minutes" after a period of [[writer's block]] while the rest of the band were playing.<ref name="Moran_92"/> He described the words as a checklist of slogans for the 1990s; he considered it "the most upsetting thing I've ever written",<ref name="MM">{{citation
 | first = Mark
 | last = Sutherland
 | title = Return of the Mac!
 | date = 31 May 1997
| magazine = [[Melody Maker]]}}</ref> and said it was "liberating" to give the words to a neutral-sounding computer voice.<ref name="Moran_92"/> Among the samples in the background is a loop from the 1975 film ''[[Three Days of the Condor]]''.{{sfn|Randall|2000|pp=158–159}} The band considered using "Fitter Happier" as the album's opening track, but decided the effect was off-putting.<ref name="SELECT"/>

Steve Lowe called the song "penetrating surgery on pseudo-meaningful corporations' lifestyles" with "a repugnance for prevailing yuppified social values".<ref name="LOWE"/> Among the loosely connected imagery of the lyrics, Footman identified the song's subject as "the materially comfortable, morally empty embodiment of modern, Western humanity, half-salaryman, half-[[The Stepford Wives|Stepford Wife]], destined for the metaphorical farrowing crate, propped up on [[Fluoxetine|Prozac]], [[Sildenafil|Viagra]] and anything else his insurance plan can cover."{{sfn|Footman|2007|p=86}} Sam Steele called the lyrics "a stream of received imagery: scraps of media information, interspersed with lifestyle ad slogans and private prayers for a healthier existence. It is the hum of a world buzzing with words, one of the messages seeming to be that we live in such a synthetic universe we have grown unable to detect reality from artifice."<ref name="STEELE">{{citation
 | first = Sam
 | last = Steele
 | title = Grand Control to Major Thom
 | date = July 1997
 | magazine = [[Vox (magazine)|Vox]]}}</ref>

"Electioneering", featuring a [[cowbell (instrument)|cowbell]] and a distorted guitar solo, is the album's most rock-oriented track and one of the heaviest songs Radiohead has recorded.<ref name="Guardian review"/> It has been compared to Radiohead's earlier style on ''Pablo Honey''.{{sfn|Randall|2000|pp=158–159}}{{sfn|Footman|2007|pp=93–94}} The cynical "Electioneering" is the album's most directly political song,<ref name="100 GREATEST Q">{{citation|title=The 100 Greatest Albums in the Universe|magazine=[[Q (magazine)|Q]]|date=February 1998}}</ref><ref name="KUIPERS"/> with lyrics inspired by the [[poll tax riots]].<ref name="Moran_92"/> The song was also inspired by Chomsky's ''[[Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media|Manufacturing Consent]]'', a book analysing contemporary mass media under the [[propaganda model]].<ref name="SAKAMOTO"/> Yorke likened its lyrics, which focus on political and artistic compromise, to "a preacher ranting in front of a bank of microphones".<ref name="WADSWORTH"/>{{sfn|Randall|2000|p=226}} Regarding its oblique political references, Yorke said, "What can you say about the [[International Monetary Fund|IMF]], or politicians? Or people selling arms to African countries, employing slave labour or whatever. What can you say? You just write down '[[Cattle prod]]s and the IMF' and people who know, know."<ref name="IRVIN"/> O'Brien said the song was about the promotional cycle of touring: "After a while you feel like a politician who has to kiss babies and shake hands all day long."<ref name="HUMO"/>

{{Listen
 | filename = Climbing Up the Walls.ogg
 | title = 'Climbing Up the Walls'
 | pos = left
 | description = "Climbing Up the Walls" contains sampled ambient sounds, distorted drums and Jonny Greenwood's [[Krzysztof Penderecki]]-influenced string section. This audio sample is from the beginning of the second chorus to the guitar solo.}}

[[File:Krzysztof Penderecki 20080706.jpg|upright|thumb|''[[Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima]]'' by [[Krzysztof Penderecki]] (''pictured'') inspired the string arrangement on "Climbing Up the Walls".]]

"Climbing Up the Walls" – described by ''[[Melody Maker]]'' as "monumental chaos"<ref name="SUTHERLAND"/> – is layered with a string section, ambient noise and repetitive, metallic percussion. The string section, composed by Jonny Greenwood and written for 16 instruments, was inspired by [[20th-century classical music|modern classical]] composer [[Krzysztof Penderecki]]'s ''[[Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima]]''. Greenwood said, "I got very excited at the prospect of doing string parts that didn't sound like '[[Eleanor Rigby]]', which is what all string parts have sounded like for the past 30 years."<ref name="WADSWORTH"/> ''[[Select (magazine)|Select]]'' described Yorke's distraught vocals and the [[atonality|atonal]] strings as "Thom's voice dissolving into a fearful, blood-clotted scream as Jonny whips the sound of a million dying elephants into a crescendo".<ref name="MORAN"/> For the lyrics, Yorke drew from his time as an orderly in a mental hospital during the [[Care in the Community]] policy of [[deinstitutionalisation|deinstitutionalising]] mental health patients, and a ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' article about serial killers.<ref name="HUMO"/> He said:

{{blockquote|This is about the unspeakable. Literally skull-crushing. I used to work in a mental hospital around the time that Care in the Community started, and we all just knew what was going to happen. And it's one of the scariest things to happen in this country, because a lot of them weren't just harmless&nbsp;... It was hailing violently when we recorded this. It seemed to add to the mood.<ref name="Moran_92"/>}}

"[[No Surprises]]", recorded in a single take,<ref>{{citation
 | first1 = John
 | last1 = Harris
 | first2 = Serge
 | last2 = Simonart
 | title = Everything in Its Right Place
 | date = August 2001
 | magazine = [[Q (magazine)|Q]]}}</ref> is arranged with electric guitar (inspired by the Beach Boys' "[[Wouldn't It Be Nice]]"),{{sfn|Footman|2007|p=110}} acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and vocal harmonies.<ref>{{citation
 | first = Bill
 | last = Janovitz
 | title = No Surprises
 | magazine = [[AllMusic]]
 | url = https://www.allmusic.com/song/no-surprises-t1416673
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101210230041/http://allmusic.com/song/no-surprises-t1416673
 | archive-date = 10 December 2010
| url-status = live}}</ref> The band strove to replicate the mood of [[Louis Armstrong]]'s 1968 recording of "[[What a Wonderful World]]" and the soul music of [[Marvin Gaye]].<ref name="HUMO"/> Yorke identified the subject of the song as "someone who's trying hard to keep it together but can't".<ref name="IRVIN" /> The lyrics seem to portray a suicide<ref name="STEELE"/> or an unfulfilling life, and dissatisfaction with contemporary social and political order.{{sfn|Footman|2007|pp=108–109}} Some lines refer to rural<ref name="BERMAN">{{citation
 | first = Stuart
 | last = Berman
 | title = Outsiders
 | date = July 1997
 | magazine = [[ChartAttack|Chart]]}}</ref> or suburban imagery.<ref name="LYNSKEYq"/> One of the key metaphors in the song is the opening line, "a heart that's full up like a [[landfill]]"; according to Yorke, the song is a "fucked-up nursery rhyme" that "stems from my unhealthy obsession of what to do with plastic boxes and plastic bottles&nbsp;... All this stuff is getting buried, the debris of our lives. It doesn't rot, it just stays there. That's how we deal, that's how I deal with stuff, I bury it."<ref>{{cite web
 | first = Ken
 | last = Micallef
 | title = I'm OK, You're OK
 | date = 17 August 1997 | publisher = [[Yahoo! Music Radio|Yahoo! Launch]]
 | url = http://www.music.yahoo.ca/read/interview/12052847
 | archive-url = https://archive.today/20130101173137/http://www.music.yahoo.ca/read/interview/12052847
 | archive-date = 1 January 2013
| url-status = dead
}}</ref> The song's gentle mood contrasts sharply with its harsh lyrics;<ref name="q review"/><ref>{{citation | first = Scott | last = Kara | title = Experimental Creeps | date = September 2000 | url = https://citizeninsane.eu/media/nez/ripitup/pt_2000-09_ripitup.htm | magazine = [[Rip It Up (New Zealand)|Rip It Up]] | access-date = 10 September 2023 | archive-date = 9 December 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211209015953/https://citizeninsane.eu/media/nez/ripitup/pt_2000-09_ripitup.htm | url-status = dead }}</ref> Steele said, "even when the subject is suicide&nbsp;... O'Brien's guitar is as soothing as balm on a red-raw psyche, the song rendered like a bittersweet child's prayer."<ref name="STEELE"/>

"[[Lucky (Radiohead song)|Lucky]]" was inspired by the [[Bosnian War]]. Sam Taylor said it was "the one track on [''The Help Album''] to capture the sombre terror of the conflict", and that its serious subject matter and dark tone made the band "too 'real' to be allowed on the Britpop gravy train".<ref>{{citation
 | first = Sam
 | last = Taylor
 | title = Gives You the Creeps
 | date = 5 November 1995
| magazine = [[The Observer]]}}</ref> The lyrics were pared down from many pages of notes, and were originally more politically explicit.<ref name="SELECT"/> The lyrics depict a man surviving an aeroplane crash<ref name="100 GREATEST Q"/> and are drawn from Yorke's anxiety about transportation.<ref name="KUIPERS"/> The musical centerpiece of "Lucky" is its three-piece guitar arrangement,<ref name="CAVANAGH"/> which grew out of the high-pitched chiming sound played by O'Brien in the song's introduction,<ref name="SUTCLIFFE"/> achieved by strumming above the [[nut (string instrument)|guitar nut]].<ref name="Fricke's Picks">{{cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-guitarists-of-all-time-19691231/ed-obrien-20101202|title=Ed O'Brien – 100 Greatest Guitarists: David Fricke's Picks|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]] |access-date=24 August 2015|date=3 December 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150909205556/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-guitarists-of-all-time-19691231/ed-obrien-20101202|archive-date=9 September 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> Critics likened its lead guitar to [[Pink Floyd]] and, more broadly, [[arena rock]].<ref name="nme review"/>{{sfn|Randall|2000|p=161}}<ref>{{citation
 | first = Sam
 | last = Taylor
 | title = Mother, Should I Build a Wall?
 | date = 5 November 1995
| magazine = [[The Observer]]}}</ref><ref>{{citation
 | first = Jim
 | last = Shelley
 | title = Nice Dream?
 | date = 13 July 1996
| magazine = [[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

The album ends with "The Tourist", which Jonny Greenwood wrote as an unusually staid piece where something "doesn't have to happen&nbsp;... every three seconds". He said, {{"'}}The Tourist' doesn't sound like Radiohead at all. It has become a song with space."<ref name="HUMO">{{citation
 | title = Radiohead: The Album, Song by Song, of the Year
 | magazine = [[HUMO]]
 | date = 22 July 1997}}</ref> The lyrics, written by Yorke, were inspired by his experience of watching American tourists in France frantically trying to see as many tourist attractions as possible.<ref name="Moran_92"/> He said it was chosen as the closing track because "a lot of the album was about background noise and everything moving too fast and not being able to keep up. It was really obvious to have 'Tourist' as the last song. That song was written to me from me, saying, 'Idiot, slow down.' Because at that point, I ''needed'' to. So that was the only resolution there could be: to slow down."<ref name="LAUNCH">{{cite web
 | first = Dave
 | last = DiMartino
 | title = Give Radiohead Your Computer
 | publisher = [[Yahoo! Music Radio|Yahoo! Launch]]
 | date = 2 May 1997
| url = http://music.yahoo.com/read/interview/12048024
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070814183856/http://music.yahoo.com/read/interview/12048024
 | archive-date = 14 August 2007}}</ref> The "unexpectedly bluesy waltz" draws to a close as the guitars drop out, leaving only drums and bass, and concludes with the sound of a small bell.<ref name="CAVANAGH"/>