#39: "Fake Plastic Trees" - Radiohead

Sidenote: I had a dream last night that one of my favorite writers read this piece and gave it a B-, so keep your expectations low. Honestly, I’ve never fancied myself an A+ writer and would rate myself a ‘B’ but even in dreams, I guess I’m overly critical.

A lot of memories surround the songs of Radiohead. They are similar to Wilco in that regard to me. I don’t need to put on “Fake Plastic Trees” right now, it’s right there inside some crevice of my brain accessible at any time (which is why nothing scares me more than Alzheimer’s, imagine if I started to forget what my favorite songs sound like). Not only is the song itself available but the memory of hearing both this and “Creep” for the first time remain very strong. My first thoughts upon listening to each of these tracks were, “oh, well, this was made for me. Thank you, universe.”

I became a music snob in the mid-90s without a doubt. When everyone started to declare Radiohead the greatest band ever when OK Computer came out, I was one of those nerds that said, “well I’ve loved them since Pablo Honey and heard ‘Creep’ before anyone else. I bought copies of that CD for friends and told them this would become a new favorite.” Sandwiched in between Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins and later on, Jeff Buckley, there was Radiohead for me as a band that I knew was “so very special.”

There were a lot of crushes starting around the age of 15 in 1993. Two of which I spoke on the phone with constantly around the same time. I wanted to date both of them and luckily one of them did (kind of) date me as well. We were sitting on her lawn staring up at the stars when I played her a cassette, I made that contained the song “Creep.” Far from a romantic choice I realize, but I was like, “This band is one people will be talking about soon enough.” Perhaps I was clinging to the idea of finding another Nirvana or another “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Needless to say, for both crushes, I bought each of them a copy of Pablo Honey. One of them will likely be written about a lot especially since I still have a letter of hers quoting the lyrics of “Stop Whispering” to me. We wrote a lot of letters and spoke on the phone constantly.

A couple of years later, I see the world premiere music video to Radiohead’s first single off their upcoming record, The Bends. “Fake Plastic Trees” immediately became my favorite song by this band even with just one listen. I couldn’t tell you what the song was about, but this is also an early memory of a song giving me goosebumps and to this day, it still does every time. The moment comes when a distorted guitar and a drum fill come in. Thom Yorke sings, “I could blow through the ceiling,” and the song practically conveys that musically to the listener. The song can’t contain itself for the moment, it has to erupt before calming down again.

In 1995, I was crushing hard on someone a couple years younger on me (!) but she sang beautifully, had piercing blue eyes and smiled a lot. Little did I know at the time, she was going through a lot of horrific abuse that I won’t elaborate on here. I also had just gotten my driver’s license and my dad was kind enough to give me his Black 1984 Ford Thunderbird. That moment where the dynamics in this song pick up and get loud - I vividly remember driving down Indianapolis Blvd, accelerating ever so slightly because I knew what I had to do. I was going over to her house to tell her how I feel. We sat on her front porch steps, and I said that I was falling for her. Little did I know, she was falling for someone else.

So, it didn’t go well. I’m just grateful we remained friends and she sang backup on a silly song I wrote about a brown cow. High school was such a strange time to have feelings of love and longing because they were so messy and unfocused and unhinged. Sure, I was sad that this girl chose another guy over me, but my next feeling was, “I bet I will feel this way again about someone else pretty soon.” I’ll find something real eventually. To me, the first Pablo Honey crush I had two years later, felt like the greatest love I would ever experience in my life (up until I reached my early 20s). My love for her wouldn’t go away for a solid five years. Her and I never even kissed. I often wonder, was it because she was my first “serious crush,” that I couldn’t let go of it. Perhaps she was just everything I wanted to be at the time. I was also afraid of ruining the connection we had, and I knew it was never going to evolve.

We just talked a lot about “Stop Whispering,” passed letters, talked about crushes she was having and there was no moving away from the friend zone. What’s funny is that one of my first “girlfriends” that I had for only six weeks was her best friend at the time. We might’ve even dated because she also loved R.E.M but there wasn’t much there. Again, high school was a weird time to be in love with someone else especially when I couldn’t outwardly express it. Radiohead were doing it for me. This is why we made mixtapes or quoted song lyrics in the letters we wrote.

How did Radiohead go from that “Creep” band to the group often hailed as the saviors of rock and roll? If you’re looking for one key song, it could be “Fake Plastic Trees,” a majestic, yearning ballad found on a nearly flawless record called The Bends. The song, which was chosen for the first US single, proved that this band were far more than one-hit wonders. I knew it, my friends knew it and we were all overjoyed with collectively falling in love with the same band. Girls I adored, sensitive guy-friends and even my dad were all like, “hey this Radiohead band, they’re pretty good!”

I went for a walk and started to admire all the surrounding trees in the midst of an urban environment. Too many cars, too many businesses, too many people. But after living in the suburbs for most of my life and during high school, I think I wanted the city life even if it comes with many challenges including an increased cost of living. I just kept thinking about the synthetic vs. the authentic - the mere fact that I was walking instead of driving, admiring the outside world while still engrossed in the technological advances of ear buds and podcasts, how it all sort of has blended together. At the same time, I think much like the central figure in the song, I feel like society has gone astray. We’re so focused on connections from afar (thanks to social media) and we’ve neglected what the earth (and the trees) need. They’re no longer being nurtured, they’re being ignored and forgotten. Maybe they should get revenge on us like they did in The Happening.

What about the love that is felt during the duration of “Fake Plastic Trees.” The yearning for it to be real. The desire for something imperfect yet fully ours. I’m not sure if any thing I’d describe as love now is applicable to the kind of love I felt in high school. Practical love mixed with passionate love is what I aim for these days. Something real, something pragmatic - less idealized and triumphant, unlike the moment where my foot hit the gas pedal during the louder moments where Thom Yorke declares: She looks like the real thingShe tastes like the real thingMy fake plastic loveBut I can’t help the feelingI could blow through the ceilingIf I just turn and run

I give myself credit for turning around and going home. Running away from possibility. Running away from rejection. That time I sat with her on the porch - was a bit rare. I didn’t repress, I just expressed that I felt something. I probably didn’t even know what it was love but maybe “Fake Plastic Trees” was singing to me that it was something real, only because it was something I craved at the time. High school hormones don’t always mean, “I need to get laid,” it could also mean, “I need to connect, and I need to be held.” I too, couldn’t help the feeling when I drove over there. After our conversation, I did feel worn out. But once again, months later, I ended up focusing on a new crush and accepting friendship as being better than nothing at all.

To this day, I think we can all relate to the final lines sung by Thom Yorke. I could write about a dozen Radiohead songs I’m sure and there a couple of others on my list. But this was truly the first one that I felt an unreal connection to, mostly based on what’s said late before the drums kick back in: “If I could be / who you wanted / all the time.” The simplicity of that, the fact that Yorke’s voice waits just a hiccup, a fraction of a second before singing the word “be,” there’s something truly magical there. It’s something that only music can capture - that place and time. A song can make you cry, and a song can make you accelerate towards someone because you feel what the singer is feeling. Oh and once again, I love songs in the key of Amajor. Don’t ask why. Also, I could write about how much I love some of the B-sides from this era of Radiohead almost every bit as much as the chosen tracks from The Bends. I won’t be writing about “Permanent Daylight,” but it represents what I loved about the guitar-driven Sonic Youth-inspired era of this band before Yorke discovered Aphex Twin.

Can we truly be in touch with the outside world all of the time? Making sure it’s being taken care of when we truly have to focus on our internal worlds (or even the islands we built that we call home). The trees outside are aching to be healed and I think we as a species feel the same. Whether we’ve found true love or not. “Fake Plastic Trees” is a perfect song, one that changed my life at the time, and I knew it was doing just that. Each chord strummed, capturing the dehumanizing effects of modern living even as it tells a very human story of unrequited love. I feel like we’re always going to be living inside something fake and plastic or technological, whether it’s capitalism or various forms that can take. The real blessing in this life is finding something real. Like the moments captured in a song, in an embrace, in each other. We can try to float into our true feelings. But let’s face it - gravity always wins. Radiohead is a band I will continue to appreciate and have found many songs over the years to become favorites. “Fake Plastic Trees” is where it all began.