The Inspiration Behind Radiohead’s Creep (And How It Became A Hit)

As Thom Yorke told The Denver Post (via Citizen Insane) in 1995, the song almost broke up the band. “… It was frustrating, being judged on just that song when we felt we needed to move on,” he said. “We were forced on tour to support it, and it gagged us, really. We were on the verge of breaking up. It was a lesson. The way that modern music culture works is that bands get set in a period of time, and then they repeat that small moment of their lives forever more — that’s what everybody wants. And that’s just what we weren’t going to do.”

By the 2000s, the band still had a major dislike for “Creep,” or rather what it represented. In a 2001 interview with Uncut, Jonny Greenwood explained, “It was everything that went along with it rather than just the song. Thom (Yorke) just doesn’t like playing it — it’s his words, he can do what he wants with it. It’s like, he’s not in that emotional space anymore so he doesn’t like playing it.” This was a nicer way of putting it than Yorke’s own way, which consisted of him using expletives, saying he had become “unbearable,” due to feeling like their success was based on one song, and reiterating that the song’s success had put him in a bad headspace where he believed he had to suffer to make good music.