Radiohead used to be my favourite band. I saw them live three times (at least one I reviewed here) and I had all the albums. I threw them away. I have not listened to a single track since they ignored the Cultural Boycott of Israel. I hadn't expected not listening to them to be as liberating as it is - I strongly recommend it. This week, they have announced a new tour, against which the BDS Campaign has posted:
“Even as Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza reaches its latest, most brutal and depraved phase of induced starvation, Radiohead continues with its complicit silence, while one member repeatedly crosses our picket line, performing a short drive away from a livestreamed genocide, alongside an Israeli artist that entertains genocidal Israeli forces.”
“Palestinians reiterate our call for the boycott of Radiohead concerts, including its rumoured tour, until the group convincingly distances itself, at a minimum, from Jonny Greenwood’s crossing of our peaceful picket line during Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
On the occasion of this, therefore, I post here the poem I wrote in 2024 in response to their transgression of the boycott.
Radiohead before its invasion of
Palestine
What if no-one is who they say they are?
Impossible
to prove
Portraits so
real synonymous to lines
equal to
border dimensions
“The more poetic, the more true” for children to dance on Bushnell St in Areeha.
One
among the myriad others continually
possible,
always ready
How many of
yourself are cowards? So all the ships
on the
horizon turn together landward
as if to
believe risky shift
All very
well if they show you, but they don’t.
