Thom Yorke tells Het Parool the Hollies in “Creep” were a joke

Het Parool prints Jerry Goossens's interview with Thom Yorke today, two days before Radiohead play Bevrijdingspop in Haarlem; they talked on a café terrace on the Leidseplein during Yorke's first visit to Amsterdam. The lines from the Hollies' “The Air That I Breathe” in “Creep”, he says, were never planned.

A certain chord sequence in Creep turned out to be the same as in The Air That I Breathe. For a laugh I sang a few lines of it.

Thom Yorke²

He loved how naturally the borrowed lines sat in the song. The Lemonheads are covering “Mrs Robinson” right now to general applause. His creative life is a jumble sale, his notebook full of phrases taken from people in the street, pictures from magazines and things written on walls. Lifting a whole Nirvana riff to get into the charts is something else.

Goossens writes that EMI offered Radiohead a contract after only ten gigs. EMI were the first to say they liked the demo tape, though independents courted the band too, Suede's label Nude among them. Yorke knew a major was a bad look in Britain, and he thinks big record companies are fucking terrible. The people Radiohead deal with at EMI take them seriously and never strung them along, and the band would walk out if the company meddled with the music. But an independent record can't get into the big chain shops, and Radiohead were nobody's next big thing, so EMI was the sure way to be heard.

We've done a bit of a doctor Faustus, we've sold our soul to the devil. But we had a valid reason.

Thom Yorke²

He wrote “Pop Is Dead”, out on 10 May, in answer to all the cover versions in the charts, with the past recycled ever faster until pop vanishes into a black hole.

Now we've got the 70s revival, then we'll get the 80s revival, and in the end the early 90s will be done over again.

Thom Yorke²

The self-hatred in the songs is mostly an outsider's view, Yorke says; the man in “Creep” sees himself through the eyes of the woman he is after. As for existentialism, he lasted two weeks in the existentialist club at school, never read Sartre or Camus, and has never held down a job without trouble with the boss.

Working to earn a living, I've never been able to do that. I'm just a freak.

Thom Yorke³