Karma Police (1997)

"Karma Police" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 25 August 1997 as the second single from their third studio album, OK Computer (1997). It features acoustic guitar and piano, and lyrical themes of insanity and dissatisfaction with capitalism.

The music video, directed by Jonathan Glazer, has the singer, Thom Yorke, in the back of a car pursuing a man. It won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards.

"Karma Police" reached number one in Iceland and number eight on the UK singles chart. In the US, it reached number 14 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. It was included on Radiohead: The Best Of (2008). Rolling Stone placed "Karma Police" at number 279 in its rankings of the 500 greatest songs of all time in 2021 and 2024.

Composition

"Karma Police" is in common time and played in standard tuning. The key is ambiguous and changes throughout. The verse section can be interpreted as either moving between A natural minor and A dorian, or between E natural minor and E phrygian. The chorus section is in G major and the coda section can be interpreted in either B minor or D major. Acoustic guitar and piano are the most prominent instruments. The piano riff resembles part of "Sexy Sadie" by the Beatles.

The song progresses from the intro into a mid-tempo section which alternates between a verse and a chorus. The verse begins with the line "Karma police", and the chorus begins with the line "This is what you'll get". After this section cycles through twice, the song switches into a second section which is based around the line "For a minute there, I lost myself". Thom Yorke's voice is put through a reverb effect and a sliding melodic figure serves as a counterpoint to his vocals. In the final minute, Ed O'Brien distorts his guitar by driving a delay effect to self-oscillation, then lowering the delay rate, creating a "melting" effect.

After Yorke told the producer, Nigel Godrich, that he was not happy with the ending, the pair reconstructed it with loops and samples, a technique they developed on later Radiohead albums. Godrich said: "It was the first time we did anything like that. Just us in the studio, and a forerunner of a lot of things to come, good and bad."

Lyrics

The title lyric originates from an inside joke; the members of Radiohead would threaten to call the "karma police" if someone did something bad. Yorke said the song was about stress and "having people looking at you in that certain [malicious] way". He said: "It's for someone who has to work for a large company. This is a song against bosses. Fuck the middle management!"

Yorke and Jonny Greenwood emphasised that "Karma Police" was humorous and "not entirely serious". The lines "He buzzes like a fridge / He's like a detuned radio" refer to distracting, metaphorical background noise that Yorke called "fridge buzz", one of the themes of their 1997 album OK Computer. "Karma Police" also shares themes of insanity and dissatisfaction with capitalism.

Yorke cited the closing refrain, "Phew, for a minute there I lost myself", as an example of his practice of using everyday phrases in his lyrics; he said he probably heard it on television. According to the Financial Times, "When sung in his trembling high voice, this unexceptional phrase becomes charged with power." Yorke said: "It's so ironic that for years people would write about the way I wrote lyrics as if it's like some deep heartfelt thing. It's fucking not at all. It's like collage. It's just walking down the street and experiencing something and thinking, 'What would that be like if I stuck that in your face?'"

Release

In the United Kingdom, "Karma Police" was issued as the second single from OK Computer on 25 August 1997. It was released on two CD singles and a 12-inch vinyl single and reached number eight on the UK Singles Chart. In the United States, the single was serviced to modern rock radio on 13 October 1997. Five months later, in March 1998, it peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. In March 2010, almost 13 years later, "Karma Police" reached number 15 on the Danish Singles Chart. Early versions of "Karma Police" were released on the 2019 compilation MiniDiscs [Hacked]. In 2023, American post-hardcore band Pierce the Veil covered "Karma Police" on Triple J while touring Australia.