Whenever I tell someone that I like Radiohead, I get one of two reactions: an eye roll, or a superficially concerned enquiry into my mental state. Fair enough, I suppose. Radiohead are known for their viscerally depressing music and tend to invoke an image of a single man, alone in the dark, lamenting his oh-so difficult life as “Creep” drones through his headphones. But as a young female student, I also love Radiohead’s repertoire of admittedly pessimistic but observant lyrics. It makes me feel less alone in my sometimes bleak outlook on the world, and despite most of my favourites having come out in the 1990s, is all too relevant today.
I knew all the words to “Creep” at the ripe old age of about eight years old, because my dad’s band covered it and put it on a CD amongst other songs such as the Kaiser Chief’s “I Predict a Riot”. It makes me laugh, looking back, and I do wonder if that had an influence on my music taste today. As a young adult discovering the world and beginning to truly understand Thom Yorke’s lyricism, however, my appreciation for Radiohead just continues to grow.
Often, Radiohead’s music is simply labelled as “depressing”, which is not incorrect, but it overlooks the vast range of themes they discuss in their albums. There are classic sad love songs like “High and Dry”, a harrowing dystopian feeling in “Karma Police”, and outright anger in “Just”. As a huge Shakespeare fan I also have to commend them for capturing the bleakness of Romeo and Juliet’s ending in “Exit Music (For a Film)”. As you can tell, The Bends and OK Computer are my favourite albums. But it is the songs that delve deeper into the state of the world, and our role within it, that truly captivate me.
Thom Yorke recorded “Fake Plastic Trees” twice before collapsing to the floor in tears. Honestly, I get it. This song makes me sob. It is a heart-breaking reflection on grotesque consumerist culture. Almost two decades later, as climate change ravages the world around us, the prospect of a “fake plastic earth” has never felt more pertinent. It is eery to listen to, knowing that everything Thom sings about is present today, only even worse. Thinking about the climate crisis, and over consumption, as the song says, “wears me out”. It articulates my disillusion with the government and multi-national corporations better than I could myself.
But my all time favourite song is “Let Down”. OK Computer is a tremendous album, packed with classics, but there is something about this song that I connect with so deeply, it sets it above the rest for me. It is not quite as miserable as sticking your head in an oven, as in “No Surprises”, but rather a more beautiful sort of sadness in which I love to wallow. Fittingly recorded in a ballroom at 3AM, “Let Down” speaks to a sense of feeling totally disconnected from the busy society that surrounds us. “Don’t get sentimental/it always ends up drivel”, Yorke reminds us. It’s hardly an optimistic perspective, but I find something comforting in the sense of sitting with a sense of emptiness, knowing that others feel it too.
As the world often feels like it is crumbling around us, Radiohead has never felt more current than it does today. Thom Yorke’s gut-punching lyrics have an enduring power that reaches across generations. Sure, it’s not the most cheerful sort of music. But sometimes it is good to engage with the sadness. It’s a part of life, after all.
Image “Radiohead” by PaKKiTo is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.