The singer that Thom Yorke was in awe of: “To stand in front of him was enough”
The more extravagant parts of success never seemed to appeal that much to Thom Yorke. Whereas most people would relish every second of being in the spotlight, Yorke was always more content hanging back and making the kind of music that appealed to him, with no thought put into whether the critics liked it. He still loved the classics, though, and when he got to meet Elvis Costello, he went from a disaffected rock god to a teenager all over again.
Although Radiohead and Elvis Costello don’t seem to have that much in common on the surface, both of them at least had a desire to go against the grain. In an era when most artists were jumping on the punk bandwagon, Costello was a true original just for how weird his presentation was, donning Buddy Holly-style glasses and making the kind of classic rock and roll that The Clash or The Beatles could have played across My Aim Is True.
In fact, there’s a good case to be made that Costello helped usher in the alternative singer-songwriter to the masses. Alternative music already started picking up steam thanks to acts like The Velvet Underground, but Costello proved that the songs could still be catchy even though they weren’t mainstream, with tracks like ‘No Action’ or ‘Radio Radio’ having some of the stickiest choruses of the late 1970s.
While Yorke had been cutting his teeth in the early 1990s when Costello was in the midst of his evergreen period, he still greatly respected what he could do as a vocalist. Despite becoming one of the greatest balladeers of his generation, Costello also moulded himself into one of the most versatile vocalists of his time, almost inhabiting a character every time he wrote a tune.
Speaking with Mojo, Yorke was on a high just getting to be in Costello’s presence, saying, “Elvis Costello – I like the way he’ll go from singing in a completely neutral, detached way to being really violent and alarming. Just to stand in front of [him] and talk to him was enough for me, like a major step, a closure of a certain thing.”
That kind of jarring vocal tone is much easier to pick out of Yorke’s vocal style once you realise where it comes from. ‘Creep’ may have been their signature song for the first few years of their career, but in terms of his vocal range, ‘My Iron Lung’ might be a better indication of what Yorke can do, singing in a soft-hearted tone throughout the verses before the guitars turn slightly disgusting and he comes back in sounding like he’s singing through a static storm.
But more than anything, Costello was the kind of artist who encouraged younger bands to do anything they wanted. There had been artists that had tried to push the boundaries before, but seeing Costello go against higher-ups on Saturday Night Live reminded everyone that no one had to play by the rules to become legendary.
Yorke would go on to break every one of those rules as well, making Kid A one of the most abrupt switch-ups in rock history once Radiohead entered the 2000s. Other acts like REM played by their own set of rules, but Costello was the one who helped boost Yorke’s confidence in being himself.
