No Surprises Radiohead Cover

[peter]

I’ve always loved this song. I would love to get thoughts on how to improve the mix.

I often record the first time I’ve ever played a song, but for this one, I did play it on piano before I recorded. I mainly use my DAW like a multitrack recorder, like I did as a kid with reel-to-reel and cassette multitrack recorders, building a song one track at a time. Which is what I did here, working with a click track until I did the drum track. Like everything I do these days, it’s far from perfect. While I thought the triplet tom fills I did during the instrumental section were cool, I realize the timing isn’t perfect, but I judged it “good enough for rock and roll.”

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[peter]

I only did one take on the lead vocal, then one take on the background vocal. I might come back to try again or even try the song in a different key.

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[Old Joad]

I am a big fan of Radiohead, and I love what you do with their songs, great job ☮️

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[peter]

On Old Joad said

I am a big fan of Radiohead, and I love what you do with their songs, great job ☮️

Thanks much!

I love Radiohead. They’re one of my all-time favorite bands. I’ve shared that I stopped performing music long ago due to very bad tendinitis, so I’m limited to doing these little recordings. But what was really nice about this one was that because the tempo was slow — and it’s a very simple song — so I was able to play through the entire song with very little tendinitis pain. I realize the triplets I did on the toms were questionable timing (I still kept it — it was my first take), but considering that I really can’t practice anymore and my only time playing is after I press record to do this stuff, I was reasonably happy with the result. Pre-tendinitis, I would probably have been brutally critical of my playing, but it’s relative to what I am physically able to pull off today.

When I was working on this song with my daughter and unsuccessfully tried to persuade to sing, she told me that she had recently asked her school choir director if she could perform “No Surprises” as a solo at the next choir concert. I thought, that’s a cool coincidence. No doubt, growing up hearing me play a lot of Radiohead stuck in a good way.  She grew up hearing a lot of music, from Billie Holiday to Chopin to Coltrane to Nirvana to Muddy Waters to Zeppelin, but she seems to love Radiohead, Nirvana, Coltrane and Jeff Buckley the most.

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