Radiohead attempted to record a version of tenth track “I Will” in the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions as an electronic song, but abandoned it as “dodgy Kraftwerk”. Components of this recording were reversed to create “Like Spinning Plates” on Amnesiac.

For Hail to the Thief, the band sought to “get to the core of what’s good about the song” and “not get sidetracked by production details or new sounds or whatever,” settling on a stripped-back arrangement with layered vocal harmonies. Yorke described it as “the angriest song I’ve ever written”, with lyrics inspired by news footage of a bomb shelter containing children and families being destroyed in the first Gulf War.

An alternative full-band arrangement of the song was released on the “2 + 2 = 5” single as “I Will (Los Angeles Version)”, presumably recorded during the band’s scrapped American west coast sessions for the album.

Alternative Title: “I Will (No Man’s Land)”