Creep (Radiohead song)
| Creep | |
|---|---|
| Radiohead | |
| publication | September 1992 |
| length | 3:59 |
| Genre (s) | Alternative rock |
| Author (s) | Thom Yorke , Albert Hammond , Mike Hazlewood |
| album | Pablo Honey |
| Cover version | |
| 2010 | Scala & Kolacny Brothers |
|
Chart positions Explanation of the data |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Singles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Creep is a song by the British band Radiohead . It was released as the band's first single in 1992 and on their debut album Pablo Honey a year later .
copyright
Since the song has a similar harmony sequence and melodies as the song The Air That I Breathe by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood, these are listed as co-authors. The Air That I Breathe was published by Hammond in 1973; a cover version of the Hollies made it to number 2 on the British singles chart a year later. By recognizing the similarities to The Air That I Breathe , there was no litigation in the first place.
success
When it was first published in 1992, the song received no special attention. The BBC found it too depressing and removed the song from its playlist . It wasn't until the single was re-released a year later that it entered the singles charts in Great Britain and the USA. In the meantime, the song has been played on various radio stations and has become better known.
There was a censored version for the American market in which the text line “you're so fucking special” was rephrased to “you're so very special” . In 2008, as a result of a re-release as part of the appearance of the Radiohead: The Best of album, the song returned to the single charts (or in some countries such as Switzerland for example). With a cover version in the casting show The Voice Kids , the song was able to place itself in the charts of all German-speaking countries and thus for the first time in Germany.
Style and content
The G – B – C – Cm chord progression runs as a harmonic ostinato through both the stanzas and the refrain. The change from the calm verse to the rocking chorus with two hits each on Jonny Greenwood's guitar is particularly significant . Radiohead itself banned the song from their live program for a long time after its immense success. Only later did they occasionally incorporate it into their concerts. Singer Yorke often sarcastically announces the song with the phrase "It's time for some karaoke ".
The song is addressed to an imaginary person, she is admired. The singer calls himself a disgusting person (creep), a weirdo, who doesn't belong here. He wants to have a perfect body and a perfect soul. The other one is so special and he wishes the same for himself.
Versions and covers
There is an acoustic version of Creep on Radiohead's EP My Iron Lung (1994) . Other artists such as KoRn , The Pretenders and Prince have also covered it at concerts. In 2010 Gunter Gabriel published a German version of the song entitled Ich bin ein Nothing . In June 2011 the Australian synth-pop band Parralox covered the title. The Glee cast member Lea Michele and Dean Geyer have the song in the broadcast in the US on March 21, Glee episode Guilty Pleasures gecovert. There is also a cover version of Solar Fake on their Broken Grid album . The song was also successfully covered by the Belgian women's choir Scala & Kolacny Brothers . In 2015, Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox released a jazz version of the song with Haley Reinhart as the singer.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
- ↑ Extract from Albert Hammond's homepage ( Memento from September 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ "Get off Coldplay's case - similar songs can co-exist peacefully" - Article in The Guardian, May 12, 2009; last accessed on November 27, 2010
- ↑ Jennings, Dave. "Creepshow". Melody Maker. September 25, 1993 (according to en.wiki)
- ↑ Radiohead Creeped Out by Prince - Yahoo article on May 30, 2008; last accessed on November 27, 2010
- ↑ Tobi Biendl: Scala & Kolacny Brother - Creep (HD). January 17, 2011, accessed April 13, 2019 .
- ↑ Creep - Vintage Postmodern Jukebox Radiohead Cover ft. Haley Reinhart. Retrieved April 22, 2020 .