NME forecasts a number 74 for “Creep”, and Thom Yorke predicts a classic

John Harris gives “Creep” about two weeks in the chart and a peak near number 74, in an NME profile of Radiohead, while Thom Yorke expects people to be calling it a classic within five to 10 years. Ed O'Brien allows the forecast may be right, says recognition will come in the end, and that until then it is other people's loss.

Harris's case is that signing to EMI has cut Radiohead off from the independent sector, where 3,000 sales make a band, and he puts them with PJ Harvey and Suede in a new wave of articulate British lyricists. Back at NME, he writes, “Creep” has been getting approving plays around the office for weeks.

Every copy sent to radio has one word of the chorus replaced. Yorke calls the substitute the least bad option, since a bleep would not work, and expects listeners to go looking for the uncut record. O'Brien credits the noise in the chorus to Jonny Greenwood. Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie produced it, and the band's press officer says it was done in one take.

Yorke says the song is about one person.

I was in the middle of a really, really serious obsession that got completely out of hand. It lasted about eight months.

Thom Yorke¹