Even today, if you meet a fan of the Radioheadyou would do well not to mention him Creep. Admittedly, the song was the Oxford band’s biggest hit, to the point where it’s still a timeless classic to this day. However, those who are familiar with the discography of Thom Yorke and associates, he knows well how little representative the song is of the incredible artistic journey of the band. To the point that, just as Creep was playing all over the world‘s radio stations, Radiohead stopped playing it live, calling it “m*rda”.
In this new episode of Dentro la Canzone we will try to understand why so much hostility, but we will also delve into the meaning of the song which, just this year, turned 30.
The genesis of Radiohead’s Creep: a love affair, an alcoholic evening, a rejection and a plagiarism
Creep was born in 1987, when the band didn’t even exist. Thom Yorke wrote it in his university years and recorded an early audition with a tape recorder and an acoustic guitar. His expressive urgency came from a real condition of desperation: Thom had fallen in love with a girl he often met in a bar, but who didn’t even deign to look at him. According to the book Radiohead: Hysterical and Uselessone night Thom got heavily drunk, confessing his attraction to the girl. However, both for the alcohol and for his personality, he didn’t exactly make a great impression. Hence the concept of feeling like an outcast in the eyes of a beautiful woman out of her reach.
Musically Thom Yorke was inspired by the melody of The Air That I Breathesong of the The Hollies released in 1972, written by Albert Hammond e Mike Hazlewood. Due to the obvious similarity between the two songs, after the success of Creep in the 90s, Yorke will have to pay part of the royalties to the two.
Ah, if the name Albert Hammond sounds familiar to you it is because he is the father of Albert Hammond Jr.the guitarist of The Strokes. But that’s another story. Let’s go back to genesis.
Years after the first draft, in forming a first nucleus of On A Friday (they were called that because they rehearsed on a Friday), Thom proposed the song to the bassist Colin Greenwood. The song will remain in the drawer for some time, at least until the newborn band decides to change its name, inspired by the song Radio Head of the Talking Headsin Radiohead.
“Guys, shall we leave this out?”
In 1992, when Radiohead were in the studio recording Paul Honeytheir first album, they hadn’t even considered including Creep in the disk. On the contrary. Paradoxically, what would become the band’s first single and most successful song, had to remain even off the tracklist. In Thom Yorke et al’s original plans for the lead single, the choice was between Inside My Head e Lurgee. He will be the producer Paul Q. Kolderie to get the band to record Creep and, later, to choose it as a single. You were right, right?
The song that brought them great success brought them to the brink of disbanding
Creep had an absolutely unexpected success, especially in the USA and Israel. The song became a true anthem for a generation of kids who felt insecure and unaccepted. A scream that said “I’m like this, I’m weird, everyone deal with it”.
It wasn’t long before that huge hit began to hang tight with Radiohead, for whom Creep era a self-indulgent, cheesy song. Even too much. Thom Yorke, playing with the assonance between words, came to call her “Crap”, literally shit. Other internal sources, on the other hand, claim that the three out-of-time distorted guitar plays that anticipate the chorus were an attempt to Jonny Greenwood to sabotage that tune which he considered too “sluggish”. Paradoxically, precisely those angry chords of hers made her even more iconic.
The success of Creep it also caused internal strife. Radiohead got frustrated as everyone everywhere was asking them to play that song. In their eyes, concert audiences were only interested in that songand having to play it on various guest houses to promote the single and album didn’t help. By the end of the tour the band was psychologically broken. After all, they found themselves very popular for a song they didn’t even want to include on the record. Frustration dominated their writing sessions.
In the end, after being on the verge of breaking up, they opted for a drastic solution: they would never play again. Creep live. Promise kept for most of their careerwith occasional exceptions.
In 1994, in the song My Iron LungThom Yorke talks about his relationship with Creep, alluding to the song as the “iron lung” in which Radiohead were forced to live in order to survive.
The meaning of Creep by Radiohead: inside the text
When you were here before
Couldn’t look you in the eye
You’re just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
Taking up the anecdote of Thom Yorke infatuated with a girl who doesn’t even look at him, the first verse introduces us to a man’s sense of inadequacy in the presence of a beautiful woman. So beautiful that he can’t even look into her eyes. He can only admire her beauty.
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You’re so fuckin’ special
In his eyes, the woman is so pretty that she seems to float on the street. A sort of dream that snatches him from the misery of his squalid life. He would like to be as beautiful as her, to feel at his level.
On the album version, Thom Yorke sings, “You’re so f*cking special.” The sentence was censored on the radio, for which Radiohead had to provide a watered-down text. In the radio edit version Yorke sings “you’re so very special”. The singer has always expressed his contempt for the change to the text, saying that it disturbs the feeling of the song, which should be angry.
But I’m a creep
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here
The refrain, preceded by those three totally crooked guitar plays by the youngest of the Greenwood brothers, opens with a scream of rage. She’s gorgeous while he’s a weirdo, inappropriate, totally out of context. He wonders what he’s doing in the same world as an angel. All with a disruptive anger, underlined by the distorted guitars in the background.
I don’t care if it hurts
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
The second verse is all about imagining yourself as you are not: I want to have full control of my emotions, feel safe, with a perfect body and a perfect soul.
I want you to notice
When I’m not around
You’re so fuckin’ special
I wish I was special
All to become someone that she is simply able to notice.
She’s running out the door
She’s running out
She run, run, run, run
Run
In a crescendo of emotions, Thom Yorke gives us one of the most iconic vocal climaxes in the history of music, as he tells us about her running away from him, probably after he tries to approach her. After all, in the real story, he approached her drunk, which probably scared her.
In live versions Thom Yorke used to change the lyrics from “She’s running out the door” in “She’s running out again”. Furthermore, this specific part, is one of the sections that have most fueled plagiarism allegations with respect to The Air That I Breathe dei The Hollies.
Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
In a last heartbreaking verse, the man takes note of his condition. She ran away because he scares her. If you’re happy without me, so be it.
In the official video of Creep a very young Four Tet appears
The official video for Creep was directed by Brett Turnbull at an Oxford club called The Zodiac. Among the extras it is possible to note a very young Kieran Hebden, who years later, in 1997, will become one of the most popular DJs and producers in the world under the pseudonym Four Tet.
Live versions and covers: from Prince to Vasco Rossi
As mentioned, Radiohead refused to play Creep for most of their career. However, between videos of the first tour and sporadic live versions of the latest, it is possible to find clips of the band playing the song on the net. There is a comment in the video below that we really liked. One user wrote: “yes, I’m a Radiohead fan, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t like this song”.
While Radiohead have been very reticent to play Creep live, many other artists have instead paid homage to this timeless song. Among the most successful covers we point out that of Prince at Coachella 2008. During that same performance, Prince also paid tribute Come Together dei Beatles.
Creep is also quite well known among fans of Vasco Rossi, as in 2009 Blasco rewrote it in Italian with a blessing from Thom Yorke. Vasco’s version is arranged three semitones below and is called At any cost.
Offer
