“How to Disappear Completely” was based on a dream Thom Yorke had in which he was floating around the city as if he were a ghost. The chorus also came from advice that Michael Stipe of R.E.M. gave him during the OK Computer tour so that he could “get away” from everything.

The aesthetic of the instrumentals and the vocals in this song dovetail nicely, resulting in an almost impressionistic effect, wherein the band sonically recreates the sensations and mind states of those fleeting, dreamlike or seemingly-hallucinatory glimpses of life. This ephemeral, mind-out-of-body-and-time aesthetic is carried throughout Kid A.

The title is taken from Doug Richmond’s 1986 book, How to Disappear Completely and Never be Found, a guide on faking one’s death and establishing a new identity—ideally borrowed from an actual dead person with similar vital statistics.

Speaking during a 2006 BBC interview, Thom Yorke described “How To Disappear Completely” as “the most beautiful thing [they] ever did.”