Songfacts®:

• Unusually for Radiohead, this song finds lyricist Thom Yorke ruminating in a direct way about sexual relationships.
• This song was premiered by Thom Yorke in the of summer 2005, when he performed "House of Cards" as part of a 5-song solo acoustic benefit for the Trade Justice Rally at London's Methodist Central Hall.
• In an interview with Pitchfork Media, the interviewer commented that this song appeared to be warmer than many of Thom Yorke's previous songs. The Radiohead vocalist replied: "I'd guess one doesn't really need reminding of the ice outside at the moment, do you? It's maybe a good thing to try to make music that feels reassuring in some ways - something that's got a good feeling, a good vibe about it."
• Some of In Rainbows was recorded at Tottenham House in Wiltshire England, a Grade-I listed building, which dates back to the 1720s. The house had a haunted ambiance, which imprinted itself onto the album. Bassist Colin Greenwood explained in an interview with Mojo magazine February 2008 how the producer Nigel Godrich took advantage of this: "Nigel recorded the smudges and fingerprints of those rooms and put them back into the sound later, like the reverb on the 'House Of Cards' vocal. His computer is like a rattle bag. He can pick out any sound, irrespective of where he recorded it, then map it on to a track we recorded somewhere else. Amazing."