Creep – Radiohead

Welcome to Tune Talk!

When Radiohead released “Creep” as a single, it originally flopped. Radio stations actually refused to play it, calling the track “too depressing.” Even the band’s own guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, hated the slow direction of the song. That famous, loud, crunching guitar noise right before the chorus hits is actually him hitting his guitar as hard as he could in an attempt to ruin the recording. Ironically, the producers loved the explosive sound so much they kept it, and it became the song’s most iconic hook.

To help get the song on the air, the line “you’re so f***ing special” was changed to “you’re so very special.” Again, as I said with last week’s song “Payphone,” I would rather the clean version have simply bleeped out the word to preserve the true vibe of the song!

But the real reason this song means so much to me goes back to Thanksgiving of 2012—ironically, the exact same year “Payphone” came out. While preparing dinner, a group of five of us (myself, my sister-in-law, two nieces, and one nephew) decided it would be hilarious to put on a random performance. We jokingly called ourselves the “Inner Inner Circle.”

Our big plan was to stand up one by one right in the middle of dinner and belt out “Creep” for absolutely no reason at all. We rehearsed and laughed about it all afternoon, but when dinner actually rolled around, we let the moment pass us by and the performance never happened.

Fast forward less than a year to my wedding. I dedicated “Creep” to the Inner Inner Circle – quite a bit different from Lori’s dedication of “Payphone!” Because it is a decidedly slow, low-key song, the dance floor completely cleared out after the opening notes. But from all around the room, the Inner Inner Circle instinctively knew to run to the empty dance floor. We stood in a line and finally delivered that Thanksgiving performance out loud! As the song went on, more people stopped to watch the spectacle, and the videographer caught the whole spontaneous, magical, and hilarious moment on tape.

The best part is that a tradition was born. A few years later, one of my nieces from our little group got married, and she carried the tradition to her wedding. Then my nephew got married, and we had our third public performance. I can’t wait to see if my other niece decides to carry on the tradition for the final member of the group if she chooses to get married one day! If she does, I have no doubt that the Inner Inner Circle will be right there for her, willing and ready to put on one more show.

While this one didn’t score a solid 10 across the board, it still received a solid rating. I was actually surprised to see Max give it a 9, since I wasn’t sure if the song would be a little too slow and dark for him. I might have given it a 9 myself because of that darkness factor, but because of the amazing wedding memory, I just had to give it a 10. I suspect Lori’s rating went up by one for the same reason! How would you rate this song?