Saturday, November 12, 2005

"Creep"

This is another blog about a moment, a precious instant when a song rises out of the category of "very special" and into something akin to "immortal". "Creep" is already a fantastic song; the jagged shards of guitar that lead into the chorus are just...perfect, while the lyrics are a painful trip back to the days of youth and awkwardness and self-loathing.
But when Thom Yorke's voice rises away from his falsetto "She's running out again" and grows, stretches and reaches into a gaping, howling scream of pain, the song has suddenly burst the banks of earthbound majesty and headed into the ethereal. That moment, that fraction of all the pain we're ever going to feel, is so perfectly-expressed that we're left open-mouthed, willing the moment to repeat itself.
I know it's a sin to try to boil down a band's entire work into one song, or even one moment of one song, but if Radiohead are ever remembered, then they'll surely be remembered for the moment Thom Yorke unzipped his innermost agony and scattered it over this song like solar dust.

No comments: