As a teen I hadn’t even heard of Radiohead, let alone their song Creep. I was more into Indie music, as we called it – Oasis being the band that always held a place in my 3 disc CD player. Oasis were the band in those days and I would listen to them, sing along with them and study the lyrics of almost every song.

Then someone lent me two albums: The Bends and OK Computer by Radiohead. I was immediately impressed, especially with Fade Out on The Bends and Paranoid Android on OK Computer. I bought these two albums and listened to them for a couple of years, and it was only when I heard them playing live did I hear Creep.

As with my Oasis albums, I studied the lyrics to Radiohead’s song in great detail, and when I was learning the lyrics to Creep I read that it was actually their first song! I couldn’t quite believe this – it was so good and seemed so accomplished for a solo song.

So, as with a lot of things that I find interesting, I started doing some research on Creep. It was apparently written by the lead man, Thom Yorke after a girl came and watched them performing while he was doing a gig at the university he was at in Exeter. In fact, rumours are that Yorke started following this girl around campus, and this is where the inspiration for the song came from. Presumably this is where the lyrics “when you were here before couldn’t look you in the eye” come from.

Radiohead released Creep in 1992. However, it didn’t do well. Radio 1 removed it from the playlist because it was “too depressing”. In fact, Creep only sold several thousand copies. However, a radio station in San Fran, USA heard the song and it seems that they did like it, and started playing it. Soon, other stations in the US were getting requests for them to play it, and eventually it was getting requested a lot on MTV. After the success the song achieved in the US it was released again in Britain and the second time of asking it reached number sever in the charts.

Radiohead got fed up with Creep during the 90s though. Because of it’s success they felt that people were only turning up at their gigs to see this one song. Therefore, between 1998 and 2001 they removed it from their live performances. It is only recently that they have started to play it more regularly again.

All you need to know, including lyrics, videos and background about radiohead creep can be found on my website – just click the link!