"Fake Plastic Trees" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, released on their second album, The Bends (1995). It was the third single from The Bends in the UK, and the first in the US. It reached the top 50 on the UK Singles Chart, the New Zealand Singles Chart, the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and the Canadian Rock/Alternative chart.

Writing

Thom Yorke, Radiohead's songwriter, said "Fake Plastic Trees" was "the product of a joke that wasn't really a joke, a very lonely, drunken evening and, well, a breakdown of sorts". He said the song arose from a melody he had "no idea what to do with". He did not take his usual approach of keeping note "of whatever my head's singing at the particular moment" or forcing "some nifty phrases" he devised onto the melody, and instead "just recorded whatever was going on in my head". He said: "I wrote those words and laughed. I thought they were really funny, especially that bit about polystyrene."

Recording

Radiohead recorded "Fake Plastic Trees" in 1994 at RAK Studios, London, with the producer John Leckie. The sessions were strained, as Radiohead were under pressure from their record label, EMI, to record a single to match the success of their debut, "Creep". The guitarist Ed O'Brien likened one early version of "Fake Plastic Trees" to the Guns N' Roses song "November Rain", saying it was "pompous and bombastic ... just the worst". One evening, Radiohead attended a concert by the American singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley at the Garage, London. Yorke later said that Buckley gave him the confidence to sing in falsetto, and Leckie said: "It made [Thom] realise you could sing in a falsetto without sounding dripping." Inspired by Buckley, Yorke recorded a solo take of "Fake Plastic Trees" on acoustic guitar. According to the bassist, Colin Greenwood, Yorke played three takes, then burst into tears. Radiohead created the final version of "Fake Plastic Trees" by overdubbing their parts onto Yorke's performance. The drummer, Philip Selway, described following Yorke's fluctuating tempo: "Part of the beauty was the way it would actually slip in and out, but trying to follow it was a nightmare."

Reception

Writing for NME in May 1995, John Mulvey felt that "Fake Plastic Trees" lacked substance, and drew comparisons with the stadium rock of U2. It placed at number 385 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and at number 28 on Triple J Radio's Hottest 100 of All Time countdown. The acoustic version of "Fake Plastic Trees" was used in the 1995 film Clueless and is credited for introducing Radiohead to a larger American audience. In 2017, Pitchfork credited "Fake Plastic Trees" and another Bends song, "High and Dry", for influencing the "airbrushed" post-Britpop of Coldplay and Travis.

Track listings

All tracks are written by Radiohead (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Philip Selway).

Personnel

Radiohead Additional performers

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Footnotes

Citations