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Song · On a Friday / pre-Pablo Honey (1986–92)

Fragile Friend

College rock, played by a school band.

Unreleasedalbum

1986

on a friday

It opens a 1986 demo tape by On a Friday, the school band in Oxfordshire that became Radiohead, and is firmly of its decade: the band trying out American college rock.

the video

A recording of a song they never released.· AllRadioheadwatch on youtube →

details

Type	Unreleased/live-only
Live	no performance on file

Never officially released. What is known of it comes from fan tapes and fan archives, and it is left out of the catalogue counts.

lyrics

i've been away for a long while
the holidays made a change
oh but the bit of me that you revile
is diffused in this exchange
i knew you then, you were a good friend
swapping books and clothes and things
your incessant smile is marred with sin
but it strains with the happy within

don't push me fragile friend
don't let me down
i'd snap hard back at you
and hurt a fragile friend
don't let me down
don't let me down, yeah yeah yeah

your fragile friend is desperate
to learn the tricks of the trade
to catch up fast with all his friends
who left him on parade
this fragile friend isn't perfect
all the grapes in his mind are going sour
learning the rules as he plays it
how much his smile has the power

don't push me fragile friend
don't let me down
i'd snap hard back at you
and hurt a fragile friend
don't let me down
don't let me down, yeah yeah yeah

sources2

Claire Lobenfeld, report of the On a Friday tape's auction, Stereogum, 13 September 2013, for the 1986 tape and its running order.
Ryan Leas, “On A Friday: Radiohead In The ’80s”, Stereogum, 9 March 2015, for the college rock.

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