Thom Yorke says “Creep” is about a character, not himself

Thom Yorke says “Creep” is not a report on his own state of mind but a study of a figure he made up, and that “Prove Yourself” works the same way. He tells Steve Hochman of the Los Angeles Times, in the paper of 15 August, that one song has been enough for people to file Radiohead as gloomy writers. The songs are personal to him, he says, but he is not setting out to tackle adolescent unhappiness head-on, and “Creep” has now been read into so many lives that he thinks of it as belonging to the people who listen to it.

By the paper's count, Pablo Honey has sold 400,000 copies in the United States, and “Creep” is closing on 300,000 as a single.

It lives up to what I’d imagined and more. It’s like joining the circus or something.

Thom Yorke¹

He traces the band to a friendship between the five of them in Oxford, whose listening ran from Queen to Joy Division, and who cared about success as much as about playing. At eight he told a guitar teacher he was going to be a rock star, and the teacher took it for a joke.