(Credits: Far Out / Press)
The phenomenon of an artist coming to hate their own music is always an interesting one. Sometimes, it simply comes down to developmental reasons, as they feel they’ve improved since, looking back at early work like old, embarrassing drafts. But sometimes, it’s even stronger than that, as the dislike for the track only grows and grows with each repeat and each fan demanding to hear it. Radiohead know that feeling well, as Thom Yorke seems to wish he never even recorded these songs.
Music is often treated like the child of the artist. They not only conceive the songs but nurture them, too. They raise them up over rehearsals and recording sessions; they set them free into the world, and we usually assume the artist then watches with pride as the piece goes beyond them. Coming directly from their creative brain, it’s expected that artists love their songs, all of them, as reflections of their time and talent. But that’s not always the case.
A lot of things can come in between and taint a track. Sometimes, it’s another person stepping in, like Phil Spector making Paul McCartney hate some of his last Beatles tracks. Sometimes, it’s a regret with certain lyrics or how an artist handled a song as it was released, like Leonard Cohen regretting attaching Janis Joplin’s name to ‘Chelsea Hotel No 2’. But sometimes, and certainly, in the case of Radiohead, an artist just seems to get completely and utterly sick of certain songs.
Thom Yorke’s case is extreme, as not only is he vocally tired of these tracks, but he will literally fight people who try to get him to play them. That happened with the first of the two tracks he wishes he could wipe from history as he yelled “fuck off” at a fan demanding to hear ‘Creep’.
Despite being their biggest song and the piece that made their name, ‘Creep’ is certainly the track the band hates most. “We seemed to be living out the same four and a half minutes of our lives over and over again. It was incredibly stultifying,” Johnny Greenwood said about the early tours after its release, but that feeling has not only endured but grown. By now, Yorke is found calling fans of the song “anally retarded” as he seems to regret ever making it.
But it’s not the only track he wishes he could get rid of. ‘High And Dry’ is another, despite again being one of the band’s most popular tracks. Moody, cinematic and stunning, it’s one of the pieces people most commonly associate with the band, but that fact would send a shiver down Yorke’s spine as he said the song was “not bad, it’s really bad”.
In both cases, fans would argue back. No doubt fans going to see the band would still love to hear these two classics. But while Yorke can’t wipe them from the face of the earth or go back and change history to mean he never recorded them, he can cut them from the setlist and verbally abuse people asking for them.
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