Thom worked out a completely new (perhaps Tom-Waits-inspired) arrangement during the Kid A sessions, that made use of a 19th century harmonium pedal organ, which had already been played on the Pablo Honey recording of 'Thinking About You'. The choir and harp samples, that were partly inspired by Alice Coltrane records and are supposed to evoke the atmosphere of old Disney movies, were added by Jonny.
Steve Lamacq: "We're joined for the final part of this part of the programme by all the members of the band, and the thing is, that track, which comes at the end, which is called 'Motion Picture Soundtrack', after everything you've been through, through the album, and you get the impression that... I've got this sussed, (Thom laughs) it's 1984, no it's something else, no, it's the album, no, we're going over here, all of a sudden, everything, all your preconceptions go down the drain, and it suddenly becomes..... the whole album suddenly becomes on reflection... feels like a collection of contemporary film soundtracks, ending with The Wizard Of Oz."
Thom: "It's definitely the... well, if we were going to make a video for it, which of course we're not going to, but if we were, our dream was to actually have you know, the bluebirds... I don't know what..."
Ed: "Disney."
Thom: "...Disney film that's from, you know, 'the bluebird's on my shoulder'?"
Steve: "Oh, the kind of Zippedy-doo-dah."
Colin: "Louis Armstrong, 'What A Wonderful World', when he does the beginning of Disney, and he's got the bluebirds and the dancer."
Thom: "Oh, that's it, yeah, yeah."
Steve: "Down, Phil, (everyone laughs), back, just for a second, don't be getting any ideas... Now I had this yellow brick road thing in my mind, almost at the end of that, do you see what I mean, you could take various tracks, although there won't be any videos obviously for this record, but some of them are actually quite filmic in their design and their sound, do you see what I mean?"
Thom: "Maybe. I have to say that really... err..."
Steve: "It hadn't crossed your mind?"
Thom: "No, well, it wasn't the intention by any means, I think the reason that that song... I mean, that song is really, really ancient."
Steve: "Is it?"
Thom: "Yeah, yeah, that's like... that's pre-Creep, that song."
Steve: "Is it?"
Thom: "Yeah, yeah."
Ed: "Well, John Leckie wanted... always he... do you remember when we were making The Bends?"
Thom: "He kept banging on about it the whole time."
Ed: "He kept on going 'That crazy song', he said 'listen lads, can we get that crazy song again?' 'Nah...', you know, whatever, and that was about two, three years before that, wasn't it?"
Thom: "Yeah..."
Ed: "So that was 1994."
Thom: "Yeah, it was, it was before 'Creep'."
Steve: "How many songs have you got lying around in drawers?"
Thom: "Err... quite a lot. I mean, yeah, we always get... you get people at gigs going 'play 'True Love Waits'' or 'play...' - what was it - 'Nude' or... what was it, the other one, 'Big Boots', or 'Man-O-War' or, all these ones... and 'Lift', that's a classic one. (laughs)"
Ed: "Mmmm. (laughs)"
Thom: "Mmmm, yeah, hmmm. Well, you know, you have these songs, and you... from my point of view anyway, you know, you write these songs and the words like really really mean something to you, and then three months down the line, or three years down the line, you no longer understand where it came from, so you can't even begin to work out how to record it, or how to create the atmosphere that's supposed to go with it."
Steve: "How to vocalise it..."
Thom: "Yeah, and 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' was a classic sort of... I did it because everyone was sort of saying 'oh, you know, we should do this', and I was mucking around with it on this pump organ thing, and then that was the extent of my involvement and had absolutely no emotional contact with it at all, you know. And Cozzie and Jonny and Nigel were really like into it, and they thought it was really great, and I was like 'yeah, ok, well I'm going home now', and I came back, you know, twenty-four hours later, and Jonny had basically done all these harps and double basses on it, and it just sounded like, you know... I'd always wanted that song to be this big tragedy, but actually it is supposed to be a homage to Disney, you know, it's basically sort of saying, you know, you've been sold a massive white lie, and there's something essentially missing from your life, but... erm... it's essentially Disney's fault, that's what it's saying. (laughs)"
Steve: "But that must be quite nice, to actually have....to be in a position where even now, you have a shared idea, even though you don't know it."
Thom: "Yeah, that's it."
Steve: "Jonny comes in and does all the things, you pick up an idea and turn it into something else."
Thom: "Yeah, I mean ask him where that came from, because I've got bloody no idea."
Steve: "Yeah, where did the harps come from?"
Jonny: "Err, oh, it's just a mixture of... I mean it's a bit like... it's... for me it's an adolescent dream at the moment because we just have a studio that just has instruments lying around, and that was always my kind of... always what I wanted to be able to do, and so you just have access to so many sounds and colours and instruments, and it's... you can try anything and..."
