“A total waste of time”: The song Radiohead wrote about ‘Creep’
Radiohead have one of the most well-loved catalogues in the realm of alternative rock. From the innovation of OK Computer to the gentler beauty of A Moon Shaped Pool, they’ve penned countless classics in the genre, but there is one song that has always eclipsed the rest. The success of the band’s debut single, ‘Creep’, has never been topped, and it’s a song that’s still endlessly referenced over three decades after it was first released.
Sludgy and sinister, ‘Creep’ paired Thom Yorke’s suitably creepy words with guitars that flit between understated plucks and harsh whirrs. “But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo,” Yorke sings in the now-iconic lyrics, “What the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong here.” They’re lines that have been endlessly quoted in the 30 years since ‘Creep’ became a hit.
Though ‘Creep’ may have catapulted Radiohead into worldwide success, paving the way for them to become one of the most referenced and revered bands in modern alt-rock, it wasn’t always sunshine and roses. The band found the success of ‘Creep’ to be somewhat limiting, not wanting to be defined by that one hit. They were even moved to pen a song about their conflicting feelings towards the early hit.
Not long after the success of ‘Creep’ and the release of their debut album, Radiohead got to work on their sophomore offering, The Bends. Immediately separating themselves from the mammoth success of their debut, they kicked things off with lead single ‘My Iron Lung’, which directly addressed their relationship with ‘Creep’.
The album’s titular image seems to serve as a metaphor for this relationship. To Radiohead, it seems that ‘Creep’ had become comparable to an iron lung, a device that served as a sort of sonic life support but, at the same time, made them feel strained and stagnant creatively.
“Well this, this is our new song,” Yorke sings over gravelly guitars, “Just like the last one, a total waste of time, my iron lung.” His words quickly become buried under screeching riffs and pulsing percussion, a sound just as stifling as ‘Creep’ was to the band. It’s a juxtaposition that proves his statement – like their debut, the track veers between intense and subdued, though a sense of frustration always lies just beneath.
The song would never eclipse the success of its subject. In fact, it was outshone by the singles from The Bends that followed it – by the gentler ‘High and Dry’ and the contemplative ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ – but it didn’t seem that eclipsing ‘Creep’ was ever Radiohead’s intention.
To match or outdo the success of their debut would be an insurmountable task, one that the band still haven’t managed to achieve three decades on, but ‘My Iron Lung’ allowed them to express their creative frustrations about the song while acknowledging the transformative impact it had on their careers.
The creative constraints they felt didn’t seem to come across in their output, either. Throughout the decade that followed the success of ‘Creep’ and the subsequent release of ‘My Iron Lung’, Radiohead would continually reinvent and refresh alternative rock. As they experimented with electronics and ventured into solo careers marked by film composition, they proved that ‘Creep’ could never stifle them creatively.
Listen to ‘My Iron Lung’, the song Radiohead wrote about ‘Creep’, below.
