издано:
июнь 2003
доступно:
HTTT LP
версии:
» альбомная
» пре-релизная
» Lisbon 2002-7-23 (впервые)
» live ?..
видео:
» промо @ TMGLMoAT
» unofficial fans video
» live 2003 ??

песня дебютировала на втором концерте турне-2002. аудитория была в шоке, что и неудивительно. текст песни незамысловат, но что из него Том сделал, что за надрыв исполнения — это надо слышать! повторяя много раз припев 'when the rain drops' (или but the rain drops?..), Том входит в раж, почти как в идиотеке. (Напомню, что дождь и вода, как всегда у Radiohead -- это мотив очищения и обновления).

на официальном релизе песня получила подзаголовок 'snakes and ladders' = змеи и лестницы (хм! нифига себе ассоциации...)
Том рассказал, что написал её довольно давно, после ОКС, сидя как-то раз перед телевизором и глядя передачу про красоты Руанды (очень маленькая и бедная страна в сердце Африки. славна природой и слонами).

ещё одна песня про любовь?— а то как же! — соглашается Том.

Thom: "It was sort of written initially... the demo I did of it for the others was very, very, very slow, indeed. And I kind of wanted it to keep that in, keep this sort of like chanting about it, really. And the words weren't really relevant, it was just these melodies going 'round and 'round against each other, you know. I'm not quite sure where that came from, but it's probably kind of a Mingus thing, one of my many Mingus hang-ups from another Mingus track. But then it just turned into this blimming, I don't know, rhythm fest thing. because it was obviously not gonna stay like that, I don't know... It's very, very old as well. I mean, it's pre-Kid A, the initial idea for the song. And the 'rain drops' section just came out of thin air, I don't know where the hell that came from, to be honest. Got no idea.
It was a series of... I mean, virtually everything on that track scarily is from one take. Except obviously the other vocals. I mean, all the instrumentation and everything. And when we were playing that live we were getting this insane response, and we didn't know... 'cause we went out and we tried out all the songs before we recorded them, you know. We went to Spain and Portugal and played all these things. And 'Sit Down. Stand Up.' always used to... I mean, it was such a joke, because, you know, the last 2 minutes of the song we just didn't know what we were doing. We didn't have a clue, you know. Jonny was like sitting there on his big AS machine, and all the lights flashing, Phil was trying to work out where he'd left the beat, and me and Ed are just like 'well, let's just keep singing 'raindrops', and hopefully people will think that it's coherent, even when it's not. And that's basically what we ended up with, really [...]"