The Section Quartet “Paranoid Android”

In an earlier post, I was talking about how I kept a Kevin Bacon song on my hard drive, not because I listened to it or even liked it, but more for the show and tell factor.

So if someone says in conversation, “What would some great modern rock songs sound like if they were rendered by a classical outfit?” I can point them to the Section Quartet.

Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” was perhaps the most unlikely radio/MTV success of the last 20 years. No chorus, no hook, indecipherable lyrics. It just wasn’t made for Pop consumption. But in spite of/because of its breathtaking, adventurous musicianship, it did achieve a level of mass popularity. And more so, it’s become a musician’s musician song.

One of the great, unposted outtakes from the mvyradio Archives is the band Moe taking on this song, acoustically. They did a tremendous job, and I sat slack-jawed in a crowded Louisville On-The-Road hotel room, as I watched them work through the twists and turns of the piece. And when it was over, one of the guys in the band said, “Well that sucked.” So we never got to use it.

On the album “Fuzzbox” The Section Quarter covers Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, and even The Postal Service. But this Radiohead track is the one that really lends itself to the violin-viola-cello instrumentation and the classical precision necessary to pull it off.

Hear The Section Quartet “Paranoid Android”

See the band, in the studio, creating the song, here