Radiohead Songs - Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics

Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees

Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Bends
Released: 1995

Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics

Her green plastic watering can for
her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth

What she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber bands
to get rid of itself

It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyreneman
Who just crumbles and burns

He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins

And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him

She Looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love

But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run

And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out

If i could be who you wanted
If i could be who you wanted all the time, all the time

Writer/s: YORKE, THOMAS EDWARD/O'BRIEN, EDWARD JOHN/GREENWOOD, COLIN CHARLES/GREENWOOD, JONATHAN RICHARD GUY/SELWAY, PHILIP JAMES
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Fake Plastic Trees

According to Thom Yorke, this is a song about an area in east London called Canary Wharf, which was built on unused wasteland by the docks of the Thames. The area was supposed to be a major business district, but it was hurt by a market downturn in the '90s. Canary Wharf was landscaped with a lot of artificial plants, which is where the title came from.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Yorke said that this was the song where he found his lyrical voice. He cut the vocal, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, in one take, then the band filled in its parts around him. Yorke said the song began as "A very nice melody which I had no idea what to do with, then you wake up and find your head singing some words to it."

This was featured in the 1995 film Clueless.

The band were finding it difficult to nail this song and decided to take a break and catch a Jeff Buckley gig at Highbury. When they returned to the studio mesmerized by Buckley's set, Yorke sang the song twice before breaking down into tears.

According to Q magazine April 2008, Jonny Greenwood played on this an old Hammond organ, whose tone controls required resetting after every bar.