Songfacts®:

• Lead singer Thom Yorke: "The first essay I ever wrote in school was, 'you are an alien from another planet. You have landed, and you are standing in the middle of Oxford, and write an essay about what you see if you're an alien form another planet, how would you see these people?' and that's where a lot of it came from, really."
• The title is a play on the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues." In Humo magazine July 22, 1997, Yorke said: "A tribute to Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues.' (sings) 'Jonny's in the basement mixing up the medicine, I'm on the pavement thinking about the government.' Do I really hope to be on a spaceship? Why not. I believe there are aliens under the ground. I want to see them. I want to see ghosts. I want to walk on the street smiling, knowing that there are little green creatures with incredible large brains and big, beautiful, black eyes, that are filming us with their video cameras."
• On this song, the band was trying to mimic the sound of Miles Davis' album Bitches Brew using synthesizers and guitars. >>>

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  Bertrand - Paris, France, for all above
• This was originally titled "Uptight."
• An influence on this song was an experience Yorke had when he was driving down a country road and hit a pheasant. After stepping out of the car to investigate he began thinking about alien abduction.