Song · Pablo Honey era (1992–93)
Vegetable
Ed O'Brien called it a warning against being dehumanised; the band played it 102 times and dropped it in December 1995.
Pablo Honeyalbum- 1993released
- 3:13length
1993
what o'brien said
The band have said little about it, and the comment on record comes from Ed O'Brien, not from Yorke, who wrote the words. Talking to the Washington Times on 24 June 1993, O'Brien picked out two songs on Pablo Honey as political. “Stop Whispering” was about people who fail to stand up for their rights; this one, he said, was a warning against letting yourself be dehumanised, against becoming a vegetable. He offered them as examples, not the full list.
Bryan Wawzenek, in Ultimate Classic Rock on the album's 25th anniversary, wrote that Yorke drew on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the lyric. The words fit that: a narrator who has worked hard and played the part, refuses to be quietened, and turns on whoever keeps him fed.
1993–2018
the notices
It had at least one champion at the time. Rob Haneisen, reviewing Pablo Honey for The Strobe at Fitchburg State College in November 1993, rated this the strongest song on the album and suggested it could stand as the band's anthem against doing things by formula.
Later readers were cooler. Scott Plagenhoef, reviewing the 2009 reissue for Pitchfork, put it with “How Do You?”, “I Can't” and “Ripcord” as “run of the mill at best”. Zaleski in Salon found its bottled-up irritation a little comically overdone.
1992–95
on stage
The archive has 102 nights, from the Duchess of York in Leeds on 27 October 1992 to Gino in Stockholm on 1 December 1995. Fifty-four of them were in 1993, when it was a regular in the set. Paul Moody's NME feature that September names it from a warm-up show at The Venue in Oxford. It was on the set EMI filmed at the London Astoria on 27 May 1994, and it opened three shows and closed one.
A live recording went on the limited 12-inch of the 1993 reissue of “Creep”, with “You” and “Killer Cars”, and the 2003 site lists it on Itch, the EP EMI put out in Japan on 1 June 1994.
on stage
Live at Gino, 1995.· kc93watch on youtube →
Live history
| Times played | 102 shows |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Tuesday 27 October 1992 · Leeds |
| Last played | Friday 1 December 1995 · Stockholm |
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. All setlist stats →
Tabs (1)
sources8
- Washington Times, interview with Ed O'Brien, 24 June 1993.
- Bryan Wawzenek, “When Radiohead Imitated Their Heroes on ‘Pablo Honey’”, Ultimate Classic Rock, 22 February 2018, for the Cuckoo's Nest source.
- Rob Haneisen, review of Pablo Honey, The Strobe, Fitchburg State College, 17 November 1993, p. 8.
- Wikipedia, “Pablo Honey”, for Plagenhoef's verdict (citing Scott Plagenhoef, Pitchfork, 16 April 2009).
- Annie Zaleski, “Pablo Honey: Beyond ‘Creep’”, Salon, 23 February 2018.
- Paul Moody, NME, 11 September 1993.
- Wikipedia, “Live at the Astoria”; Wikipedia, “Creep (Radiohead song)”, for the live B-side; Wikipedia, “Radiohead discography”, for the Itch release.
- The 2003 treefingers.com song file, for the Itch listing.