The Neil Young song that showed Thom Yorke it was OK to be himself: “I immediately fell in love”
Thom Yorke has gone through many different phases in his career, and wildly different things have acted as key inspirations for his creative output. Radiohead’s earliest material rode on the coattails of the alternative rock and grunge movements of the early 1990s, but by the turn of the century, Yorke and his bandmates had developed new infatuations with electronic acts like Aphex Twin and Autechre, and jazz artists such as Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman.
This constant reimagining of the band’s sound was what made them such a fascinating prospect throughout their career, and Yorke’s refusal to rest on his laurels and repeated innovation sets them apart from many of their contemporaries. However, one artist who has always remained an inspiration for his songwriting process is Neil Young, and his work has often been cited as a major reference point in Yorke’s work.
Young himself is no stranger to reinventing his sound either. Throughout a career that has never dwindled in importance since the 1960s, the Canadian songwriter has shown himself to be adept at writing and performing in folk, country and rock styles. The distorted guitar playing style he adopted in his band Crazy Horse is often regarded as having been a precursor to the grunge sound that emerged from the US in the 1980s.
Even if not all of Young’s musical endeavours sound like they’d be appealing to you, there’s plenty for someone to latch onto due to the sheer volume and variety within his discography. For Yorke, he was instantly drawn to Young’s music when he first heard about him aged just 16. Speaking to broadcaster Lauren Laverne on a 2019 episode of Desert Island Discs, he revealed that this epiphany came after he sent some early demos to the BBC as a teenager, and comparisons were drawn between Young’s style and the young Yorke.
Blissfully unaware of who Young was at the time, Yorke set about searching for some indication of their similarity, and when he happened upon a copy of After The Gold Rush in his local record store, he was immediately enthralled by what he heard, and quickly became obsessed.
“I immediately fell in love with his music,” Yorke told Laverne on the show. “He has that soft vibrato that nobody else has. More than that, it was his attitude toward the way he laid songs down. It’s always about laying down whatever is in your head at the time and staying completely true to that, no matter what it is.”
Yorke’s inspirations have always come and gone in waves, but his love for Young has been omnipresent at all stages of his career. The “soft vibrato” that he talks about is something that has always been a characteristic of his own delivery. One could argue that Yorke possesses more variation and control over his voice than Young has ever demonstrated, never straining to hit the higher registers and often leaning on digital effects to enhance aspects of his vocals further.
However, what can’t be disputed is the brilliance of both artists, and their respective importance to the continued growth and development of rock music from its humble beginnings in the mid-1950s to where it is now. Without Young, Yorke might not have ever realised his own potential, and there are plenty of budding songwriters out there today who can probably say the same thing about the work of Yorke.
