It’s truly embarrassing to forget your lyrics on stage, but Radiohead’s Thom Yorke made an even more complicated—and hilarious—musical mistake back in 2010. Playing the Fox Theater in Oakland, California with his band Atoms for Peace, he dusted off the 1997 Radiohead classic "Airbag" for a solo-acoustic encore performance. There were a couple innocent hiccups that now live forever on the Internet.
As you can see in the below fan video, everything starts as planned, with Yorke strumming his way through the song’s first verse and chorus. But around the 1:46 mark, he appears to go temporarily blank, stopping the tune to gaze around the theater. It’s unclear from the footage exactly what happens next, but he walks closer to the crowd, hunches down for a few seconds, returns to the microphone, and laughs through a comment.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
Someone, it seems, helped jog his memory with the next lyric—exactly the kind of moment you dream of as a diehard fan. But when Yorke resumes what should be the second verse, he winds up recycling a line he’d already sung ("In the neon sign scrolling up and down / I am born again") instead of the correct one ("In a deep, deep sleep of the innocent / I am born again").
The fan in question later detailed their account in a Reddit thread titled "I gave Thom Yorke the wrong words to his own song at a concert, and he sang them."
"[The song] was beautiful until he got to the second verse and completely forgot the words," wrote user oldmanwicker. "He looked around quizzically and saw/heard me screaming the words at the top of my lungs from the second row. He stepped over his amp, took out his earpiece, and leaned over the row of people in front of me so I could shout 'NEON SIGN!' into his ear. Thom jumped back up to the mike, said 'I've gotta stop smoking that shit,' and resumed playing.'"
Initially, they felt this was "the best moment of [their] life"—until they listened to "Airbag" a few days later and realized their lyrical flub. They had a sense of humor about the whole thing, though, even joking, "Am I allowed to claim I had a creative influence on Thom Yorke?"
- YouTubeyoutu.be
In a Rolling Stone excerpt from Jason Thomas Gordon’s 2023 book The Singers Talk, when prompted to share his "most embarrassing vocal mishap ever," the Radiohead leader recalls a similar incident.
"There was one time we played in San Francisco in this really nice outdoor place, Shoreline," Yorke says. "It was a great show, really, really fun. The audience were brilliant. Then, before the final encore, I smoked a blunt with Jonny [Greenwood]. I went back on and started playing [Radiohead’s 2000 song] ’Everything in Its Right Place' and got completely lost. I think I sang the second verse first, and then I was looking at the keyboard going, 'What’s this?' [Laughter.] Then, I went to sing the next verse, and I realized, I’ve just sung that, and I looked at the others, and they were all going [makes a face] 'Get us out of this one.' I’m just going around the riff, looking at the audience, and they’re all singing the words, and I’m going, 'What?' [Tries reading their lips.] I was so high, I just got up from the piano and [puts his hands up in surrender] walked off. [Laughs hysterically.]"
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
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Problematic homework question
A student’s brilliant homework answer outsmarted her teacher's ridiculously sexist question
From an early age, children absorb societal norms—including gender stereotypes. But one sharp 8-year-old from Birmingham, England, challenged a sexist homework question designed to reinforce outdated ideas.
An English teacher created a word puzzle with clues containing “UR.” One prompt read “Hospital Lady,” expecting students to answer “nurse.”
While most did, Yasmine wrote “surgeon”—a perfectly valid answer. Her father, Robert Sutcliffe, shared the incident on X (formerly Twitter), revealing the teacher had scribbled “or nurse” beside Yasmine’s response, revealing the biased expectation.
For Yasmine, the answer was obvious: both her parents are surgeons. Her perspective proves how representation shapes ambition. If children only see women as nurses, they internalize limits. But when they witness diversity—like female surgeons—they envision broader possibilities.
As Rebecca Brand noted in The Guardian: “Their developing minds are that little bit more unquestioning about what they see and hear on their screens. What message are we giving those impressionable minds about women? And how might we be cutting the ambitions of little girls short before they've even had the chance to develop properly?”
X users praised Yasmine while critiquing the question. Such subtle conditioning reinforces stereotypes early. Research confirms this: a study found children as young as four associate jobs with gender, with girls choosing “feminine” roles (e.g., nursing) and boys opting for “masculine” ones (e.g., engineering).
Even preschoolers avoided careers misaligned with their gender, proving sexist conditioning begins startlingly young.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
The problem spans globally. Data from 50 countries reveals that by age 15, girls disproportionately abandon math and science, while boys avoid caregiving fields like teaching and nursing. This segregation perpetuates stereotypes—women are underrepresented in STEM, and men in caregiving roles—creating a cycle that limits both genders.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
This article originally appeared last year.