(Credits: Far Out / Greg Williams)
Sat 6 September 2025 16:30, UK
Much to the band’s intense disdain, chances are, Radiohead will be remembered for ‘Creep’. With an anthem that huge and defining, it’s pretty much impossible to escape, even if they quit playing it long ago.
“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 of the song as it boomed to success. That was their initial response: boredom. But as the years have gone on, it’s intensified into something else.
“Fuck off, we’re tired of it,” Thom Yorke once yelled at an audience member requesting the song. Now, they’ve called their biggest hit “anally retarded” and essentially claimed that anyone who likes it is stupid. But those stupid people got them a multi-platinum record and bought them the career they had from then on, as that looming debut single opened a lot of doors for them and granted them a lot of freedom from that moment on.
Yet, if it were up to Thom Yorke, he’d wipe that track from the face of the other earth and replace it with another. In his mind, the song he’d want to be remembered for is something slower, sadder and less conducive to a singalong.
Written during a period of intense burnout and poor mental health during a hectic touring schedule, ‘How to Disappear Completely’ would be Yorke’s pick for his legacy as he said simply, “It’s the most beautiful thing we ever did.”
“I dreamt I was floating down the Liffey, and there was nothing I could do. I was flying around Dublin, and I really was in the dream. The whole song is my experiences of really floating,” Yorke said, talking about a dream he had that inspired the track.
But perhaps there’s more to it than that. The track details Yorke’s feelings of complete disassociation, inspired by some advice from REM’s Michael Stipe. “I just needed a break. And in fact, I didn’t get one for another year and a bit, by which point I was pretty much catatonic,” Yorke recalled of its emotional context and in a moment where he felt he might quit it all, he called up Stipe who told him to repeat the phrase “I’m not here, this isn’t happening” to himself.
Inspiring those exact lyrics in the song, the track is both about Yorke’s coping mechanism, but also became one itself as it saved him from packing it all in, as this new spark of inspiration hit him at his lowest.
As far as the band goes, it’s a good contender for a legacy song. Yorke’s vocal performance is beautiful, the instrumental is interesting and nuanced, and it’s cinematic and wistful as ever. But will it ever come close to usurping ‘Creep’? No, absolutely not, and that’s something the band just need to get used to.
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