Radiohead’s Philip Selway Releases Desolate New Song ‘Let Me Go’
Philip Selway, best known as the drummer in Radiohead, released a bleak piano ballad titled “Let Me Go” on Thursday. The track will appear in an upcoming film of the same name, which is set for a September 15th release.
“Let Me Go” starts with an emotional gut punch. “I waited for you to come back, you never came/ I called out for you, you pushed me away,” Selway sings. Later, he adds an even lonelier pronouncement: “Nobody answered the call.” The drummer delivers these lines in an unnervingly soothing tone over somber piano. Eventually, a snappy beat and mournful strings rise to join the keyboard.
Selway composed the entire score for Let Me Go. It’s a predominantly instrumental work, with only the title track and one other song featuring Selway’s vocals. The album will be released digitally on September 15th and a physical release is slated for October 27th.
Let Me Go is based on the real-life story of Helga Schneider, who was abandoned by her mother in 1941. Schneider’s mother leaves her daughter to join the Nazi SS and becomes a concentration camp guard. The film is set in the year 2000, when Helga, her daughter and her granddaughter find out that the elder Schneider is still alive. Let Me Go, written and directed by Polly Steele, stars Juliet Stevenson, Lucy Boynton, Jodhi May and Karin Bertling.