Karma Police

"Karma Police"
Song

"Karma Police" was the second single from Radiohead's acclaimed 1997 album OK Computer, and is perhaps Radiohead's best known hit worldwide, apart from "Creep."

While few songs from 1995's The Bends became hits outside the UK, and the six-and-a-half-minute "Paranoid Android" (first single from OK Computer) received MTV promotion but was hardly played on radio, "Karma Police" became an alternative radio anthem, even meriting inclusion on a Now That's What I Call Music! compilation. In the UK, however, the single peaked at number 8, hardly the band's best showing. OK Computer's popularity was largely not seen to be single-driven.

Similarities have often been noted between the piano riff of "Karma Police" and the Beatles' "Sexy Sadie." The band has apparently acknowledged the similarity, though the rest of each song is quite different. While recording OK Computer, they listened to late Beatles albums, among other music (such as Miles Davis, DJ Shadow and Ennio Morricone), for inspiration.

"Karma Police," like several other songs that would make up OK Computer, was debuted live in 1996, when the band briefly supported Alanis Morissette on an American tour. A live version of "Karma Police," performed with a Rhodes piano on The Late Show with David Letterman, is captured in the Radiohead documentary Meeting People Is Easy. Today the song is usually an audience singalong when performed at live concerts, often as an encore. As of 2006, it continues to be played by the band somewhat regularly, though not at each show.

A music video was made for the song, featuring Yorke as the only passenger in a driverless car as it chases a man (Hungarian actor Lajos Kovács) down a deserted highway. Finally, when it looks like the car is finally going to run the man over, it instead reverses, leaving a trail of gas, which the man sets alight. The camera then turns to show the back seat in which Yorke was sat, but he has disappeared. The video was directed by Jonathan Glazer, previously responsible for Radiohead's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" clip. Glazer won MTV's director of the year award in 1997 for his work on this, as well as Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity."

The song was covered in 2003 by Christopher O'Riley on his first Radiohead tribute album True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead. The song is frequently covered by alternative rock band Panic! At The Disco.

Alternate Lyrics

There is a very rare version of Karma Police finding its way into people's collections. It is a bootleg recorded from a live show and has different lyrics.

Early Version

Karma police, arrest this girl, she stares at me, as if she owns the world

And I crashed her party

CD Version

Karma police, arrest this girl, her hitler hairdo, is making me feel ill

And we have crashed her party

Early Version

This is what you'll get, this is what you'll get

This is what you'll get, when you mess with ME

CD Version

This is what you get, this is what you get

This is what you get, when you mess with us

Track listing

• CD1 CDNODATAS03

1. "Karma Police"
2. "Meeting in the Aisle"
3. "Lull"

• CD2 CDNODATA03

1. "Karma Police"
2. "Climbing Up the Walls (Zero 7 Mix)"
3. "Climbing Up the Walls (Fila Brazillia Mix)"