The song Thom Yorke wrote to antagonise Radiohead’s audience: “I just won’t laugh it off”
We all know that Radiohead’s success and acclaim didn’t come courtesy of their debut album, Pablo Honey, but there was one track from it that caused record executives to cartoonishly develop pound signs over their eyeballs. ‘Creep’ was considered an outlier on an otherwise mediocre record, one that showed not only the band’s viability as a commercially successful act trying to ride the wave of Britpop and grunge coming from across the pond but as skilled songwriters who were capable of establishing themselves as critical darlings.
However, despite the chart triumph of the single, which reached the top ten in the UK and top 40 in the US, Radiohead weren’t interested in bowing to the demands of their record label and churning out another record of the same calibre or style. Even though ‘Creep’ stood out from the largely drab and uninspired album fillers, they saw it as part of a record that had been underwhelming in terms of its reception and one that was also a chore for them to make, having represented the band in its infancy rather than showcasing the direction they wanted to take.
When it came to writing their follow-up album, The Bends, Radiohead ought to have considered themselves lucky that they were even afforded the chance to make another record, but at the same time, they were well aware that they had to pull out every single showstopper in their arsenal to impress at the second time of asking. Thankfully for them, and sparing the blushes of their label, Parlophone, the album delivered on the promise of something far more ambitious and accomplished.
Those outside the band’s inner circle may not have realised it at first, but a shift in their sound was underway as soon as they released their first post-Pablo Honey material. The My Iron Lung EP, released in 1994, served as a glimpse of what was to come. The title track opens with a warped, pitch-shifted guitar line from Jonny Greenwood and features a raucous, distortion-heavy chorus far heavier than anything on ‘Creep’. The song’s structure also defies convention, abandoning the familiar verse-chorus formula in favour of something more unpredictable and dynamic.
Many people might not have realised at the time that ‘My Iron Lung’ was written as a direct response to ‘Creep’ and one that was created with the sole intention of antagonising those who demanded they write another hit in the same vein. Using the titular apparatus as a metaphor for how ‘Creep’ kept them alive but was also burdensome to the band, they took the opportunity to slap their fans around the face and give them no option but to pay attention.
“This is our new song, just like the last one, a total waste of time,” sings Thom Yorke on one of the verses to ‘My Iron Lung’, delivering the lines with a sense of complete irony as he tries so hard to distance himself from what ‘Creep’ had become for the band. They were desperate to escape this life support they’d been placed upon, and they’d nailed following up the song with something that wouldn’t necessarily alienate their fanbase completely but would rile them up at the same time as appealing to them.
Speaking to Melody Maker shortly after the song’s release, Yorke insisted that the song was more aimed at the fans than it was their own dismissal of their success. “It’s more a statement about some of the people who come to see us, or certain members of certain audiences we’ve experienced,” he said. “They haven’t really got beyond toilet training as far as I can see… I’m not very good at ignoring people who slag us off. I won’t just laugh it off. To my cost.”
