Ecriture de la chanson : 2001
Répétition en studio : début 2002
Premier live : 22 juillet 2002 (Lisbonne, Portugal)
Travail en studio : septembre 2002 (Los Angeles)
Travail en studio : début 2002 (Oxfordshire)
Fuitage du mix de février : 30 mars 2003
Sortie sur album : 26 mai 2003 (Hail To The Thief)
Remix : 28 novembre 2008 (Sailtothechop – Thom Yorke)

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 2001/2002 [/button]
La chanson a été écrite pour Noah, le fils de Thom, né en février 2001, ce qui explique peut-être ce rythme si doux, ce retour à la voix.

[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / Official Hail To The Thief Interview CD, avril 2003″]Well, it was written for my little boy, which I decided to sort of say, be honest about, ’cause it’s fairly obvious, I suppose. It’s just a very personal song, I think. I mean, I got back into singing. (…) . I think he was sort of enjoying the fact, that I was just singing normally and not complaining.[/quote]
[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / Official Hail To The Thief Interview CD, avril 2003″]Well, it was written for my little boy, which I decided to sort of say, be honest about, ’cause it’s fairly obvious, I suppose. It’s just a very personal song, I think. I mean, I got back into singing. (…) . I think he was sort of enjoying the fact, that I was just singing normally and not complaining.[/quote]

Thom y a mis beaucoup de ses angoisses de jeune père :

[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / BBC Radio 2 ‘Jonathan Ross Show’, 31 mai 2003″]

Thom: “Sail to the Moon. I mean, I sort of- I am denied about whether to sort of say, oh yeah, that is- that it is. It was written sort of actually before he turned up as well. And I was just sort of in the midst of first dad terrors.

Jonathan: “Yeah, you get all that panic in the middle of the night.

Thom: “Of course. Yeah.[/quote]
Il l’a ensuite fait écouter au reste du groupe, Ed, Colin et Phil  furent d’emblée emballés.

[quote cite=”Phil Selway / Official Hail To The Thief Interview CD, avril 2003″]FI mean, it’s a stunning song. As with so much of this record, I think Thom’s voice has really been outstanding, being a real feature. And on the CDs, that he distributed amongst us before we actually started rehearsing, I think that was one of the stand-out songs, really. I think it’s quite a good indication of where his head was at during this recording. ‘Cause I mean, to actually give those kinds of performances you need to be very relaxed and very confident in what you’re doing.[/quote]
Alors que Jonny s’est montré plutôt réservé, préférant que l’on bosse dessus… Il trouvait en fait la chanson mal écrite.

[quote cite=”Jonny Greenwood / Spin, juin 2003″]For every song like ‘I Will,’ which arrived fully formed and was immediately perfect, there are songs like ‘Sail to the Moon,’ which weren’t great. I’m not being rude, but ‘Sail to the Moon’ wasn’t very well-written, and it had different chords and only half an idea.[/quote]
Mal écrite ? Bon Ok, Thom l’a ensuite confessé, ça lui avait pris 5 minutes à écrire …

[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / NME 10 mai 2003″]That was written in five minutes. That’s a love song, I think it’s a bit lovely. There’s a lot of that- about responsibility. Lots of looking to the future and seeing fuck all. That’s probably a very good reason for people not to be interested in this record. If they don’t want to hear that atmosphere I think they should go and buy something else. A general fear of the future, that it’s being jeopardised, that it’s difficult to do very much about, because things have been set in motion that seem unstoppable.[/quote]
Comme Thom le raconte, c’est le groupe et Nigel qui vont la rendre plus cohérente :

[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / Official Hail To The Thief Interview CD, avril 2003″]But as to where they [the vocals] were placed a lot of the time, and how they sounded, I really left that up to Nigel. I think he was sort of enjoying the fact, that I was just singing normally and not complaining. So he could just get on with it. I think the band did an amazing thing with that, because I never thought we’d get it off the ground, because all the counting and the timing on it is really funny. I mean, I guess you can’t hear it, maybe people can’t hear it, but it’s just a total nightmare. And everyone’s having to count all the way through. ‘Ok, this one’s 7, this one’s 6, this one’s 5, bla bla bla’. But it doesn’t really sound like that, they made it sound really effortless. So I was really happy about that, I was really proud of that.[/quote]
[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 22 juillet 2002 [/button]

La chanson est jouée en live pour la première fois à Lisbonne, Portugal, le 22 juillet 2002. Le groupe a envie de roder un peu les chansons avant de passer à la phase enregistrement.

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] septembre 2002 [/button]

Le groupe tente une nouvelle approche pour enregistrer sereinement : ils se rendent tous à Los Angeles, dans un luxueux hôtel, et font surtout la fête… Toutefois, quelques sessions d’enregistrement ont lieu au studio Ocean Way, comme nous le raconte Ed qui détaille de manière lyrique l’enregistrement de Sail To The Moon:

[quote cite=”Ed O’Brien / BBC London 94.9, fin mai 2003”]I think this song was typical of many in the studio that… remember that the way that we were doing it, we were doing a track a day, we did this… we recorded it in L.A. at Ocean Way, and it was just… it was… I think what was great about this record was the confidence we had as a band going in there, and going like ‘ok, we’re just building up to the take’, and it was all done very traditionally, five people in a room, playing, and you know, and this was indicative… it was just like getting into the right mood, and within about two hours, maybe like eight… or eight playbacks, or eight run throughs of it, and recor… you know, we got the definitive take, and it’s a very, very traditional way of recording, you know, when you read your Elvis Presley books, you know, that’s the way that he made records, it goes way back, and it was all about… it’s all about getting into the right, you know, the right frame of mind, and also you know, Thom’s vocal’s like… you’re sort of, kind of, as the rest of the band, I think you’re following his vocals, and you’re hearing him, how he just sort of sits in there, and he’s getting into the mental… the right space for it, so…[/quote]
Voici une feuille grifonnée par Thom en 2002, dans un hôtel de Hollywood, qui permet de voir un peu où en était la chanson à cette époque. Le titre envisagé était alors ’Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky’

Et d’où vient ce titre si surprenant ? A priori, d’une source d’inspiration importante pour le jeune papa : Bagpuss… une série animée anglais.

[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / XFM, printemps 2003″]It’s a really hopeful song, and… quite personal, and that’s about all I can say about it, really. ‘Brush the cobwebs out of the sky’ – that’s from somewhere, but I can’t remember… Oh yes, it’s from ‘Bagpuss’. I think it’s one of those amazing Oliver Postgate songs, story things. I’m not sure.[/quote]
[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 30 mars 2003 [/button]

catastrophe pour le groupe ! Alors même que le mixage n’est pas encore finalisé, plusieurs pistes du futur album fuitent sur Internet, dont Sail To The Moon.

Voici donc la version de la chanson en février 2003, avant le dernier coup de mixage :

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 26 mai 2003 [/button]
On la retrouve sur Hail To The Thief.
Titre alternatif : Brush The Cobwebs Out Of The Sky

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 28 novembre 2008 [/button]

Sur son compte W.A.S.T.E. central, Thom poste un petit morçeau “sailtothechop”… Dur de voir le rapport avec Sail To The Moon…