Ambiguity: the quality of being open to one or more interpretation.
The first time I heard “Creep” was in 8th grade. I loved it. I have no idea why or what the lyrics really mean to this day, and I honestly don’t care. Actually, it’s how I feel about all Radiohead tracks. The melodic grace of their songs, combining absurd guitar solos, a chaotic precision by every member and the genius of Thom Yorke. He looks like his lyrics. Cool, weird, stylish, hauntingly deep below the surface. He is truly a Davinci, Michelangelo type of artist and the millions singing in mass, lyrics Freud couldn’t decipher, is evidence of how truly special his band is.
Even if you have never heard a song from them before, masterpieces like “Fake Plastic Trees”, “No Surprises” and “Karma Police” make people weep like when they witness the Mona Lisa for the first time. They have no idea why, but it moves them to emotions some did not know they had within them. The lyrics are weird. They are cryptically beautiful and memorable. I have no idea what or who has a “Hitler-Hairdo”…but I fucking love that song. Other lyrics are extremely easy to interpret and even more so relate too, all within the same track. “For a minute there, I lost myself” is hard not to empathize with. Such is the essence of the front man for Radiohead.
Yorke is a true genius. A literal mad scientist of rock in the purest elemental form. No lead singer has ever looked more like he was on really good drugs, and in reality, completely sober and just high as shit on his art. He has a traditional habit of closing his eyes when he performs, and this skill set came in handy during a technical malfunction while the band was headlining Glastonbury. He was completely deaf to his own voice when his earpiece failed. A quarter of a million fans screaming, Yorke closed his eyes as always and never heard the legendary performance until after the show. The whole band is in their own beautiful, strange, emotional world on stage, and only acknowledging the thousands of fans howling their names with a simple, elegant “Thank You”.
You know you’ve made it when South park has your band as the focal point of an iconic episode, and Cartman lovingly imitating your first opus, years after the fact. Radiohead are true artists. They evoke emotion without intention or permission in the best possible way, and the last twenty odd years of hits we don’t truly understand or need to are evidence to the perspective of what music should be. Interpretive to the individual, while still kicking a little ass, and getting a little weird. Whenever I listen to them, I inform my girlfriend the following statement. “I had a tough day… I’m listening to Radiohead…It’s about to get fucking loud and weird in here.”
Radiohead Songs to Get Loud and Weird Too
- My Iron Lung
- Paranoid Android
- Planet Telex
- Fake Plastic Trees
- The Bends
- No Surprises
- Idioteque
- High and Dry
- Let Down
- Airbag
- Bones
- Everything In Its Right Place
- Just
- Subterranean Homesick Alien
- Black Star
- Lucky
- The National Anthem
- Knives Out
- 2+2=5
- Creep
The Modern Renaissance Man 
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