Recording and Musical Style
The song was written late one night by Thom Yorke on a piano at home. According to Yorke, "I bought a piano for my house, a proper nice one - a baby grand. And this was the first thing I wrote on it. And I'm such a shit piano player. I remember this Tom Waits quote from years ago, that what keeps him going as a songwriter is his complete ignorance of the instruments he's using. So everything's a novelty. That's one of the reasons I wanted to get into computers and synths, because I didn't understand how the fuck they worked. I had no idea what ADSR meant."
The recording was largely finished in another night by Yorke together with drummer Phil Selway and producer Nigel Godrich. The final composition featured neither guitar, piano, nor drums, but electric piano, drum machine and computer manipulations of Yorke's voice. The song features an unusual chord progression with a great deal of dissonant harmony, which, combined with the bizarre vocal effects and unintelligible sounds, gives the song an ominous feel. Another distinguishing feature is its marriage of an unconventional time signature (10/4) to a dance/house groove. The feel of the song, especially when played live, has been seen as akin to house music and minimal techno due to its keyboard part, which plays an ascending chord sequence in a syncopated rhythm, alongside a steady, synthetic bass drum.
Though not all band members contributed directly to the sound, all are credited equally on the track, as always. Thom Yorke and guitarist Ed O'Brien have both cited "Everything in Its Right Place" as the moment their frustrations with a year of contentious recording sessions began to give way, and they felt they were actually getting somewhere with their experimental approach, which had initially been worrisome to O'Brien. After the completion of the song in early 2000, the album was finished in only a few more months in an atmosphere of greater cooperation and understanding between Yorke and the other band members. Thus it formed a natural opening track for Kid A, the first album compiled from these recording sessions.
Yorke's chopped up, effected, vocals in the beginning appear to say the phrase "Kid A, Kid A" twice. When the whole track is reversed, these vocal effects sound exactly the same—forwards and backwards.
Read more about this topic: Everything In Its Right Place
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