The Bends

The Bends by Radiohead

The Bends
  • Release
  • 8 March 1995
  • Genre
  • Alternative Rock, Britpop, Indie Rock
  • Studio
  • Rak, The Manor, Abbey Road
  • Label
  • Parlophone

The Bends received more acclaim than Pablo Honey, including a nomination for Best British Album at the 1996 Brit Awards; it elevated Radiohead from a one-hit-wonder to one of Britain's most recognizable bands. The album is credited with influencing a generation of post-Britpop acts and is often considered one of the best albums of all time. The Bends was voted #2 on Colin Larkins All-Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000) and #110 on the Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Planet Telex

You can force it but it will not come
You can taste it but it will not form
You can crush it but it's always here
You can crush it but it's always near
Chasing you home saying
Everything is broken
Everyone is broken

You can force it but it will stay stung
You can crush it as dry as a bone
You can walk it home straight from school
You can kiss it, you can break all the rules
But still...
Everything is broken
Everyone is broken

Everyone is, everyone is broken
Everyone is, everything is broken

Why can't you forget?
Why can't you forget?
Why can't you forget?

The Bends

Where do we go from here?
The words are coming out all weird
Where are you now, when I need you
Alone on an aeroplane
Fall asleep on against the window pane
My blood will thicken

I need to wash myself again to hide all the dirt and pain
'Cause I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath
But who are my real friends?
Have they all got the bends?
Am I really sinking this low?

My baby's got the bends, oh no
We don't have any real friends, no, no, no

Just lying in the bar with my drip feed on
Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen
I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen

Where do we go from here?
The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear
And where are you?
They brought in the CIA, the tanks and the whole marines
To blow me away, to blow me sky high

My baby's got the bends
We don't have any real friends

Just lying in the bar with my drip feed on
Talking to my girlfriend, waiting for something to happen
I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen

I wanna live, breathe
I wanna be part of the human race
I wanna live, breathe
I wanna be part of the human race, race, race, race

Where do we go from here?
The words are coming out all weird
Where are you now when I need you?

High and Dry

Two jumps in a week
I bet you think that's pretty clever, don't you boy?
Flying on your motorcycle,
Watching all the ground beneath you drop
You'd kill yourself for recognition,
Kill yourself to never ever stop
You broke another mirror,
You're turning into something you are not

Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry

Drying up in conversation,
You'll be the one who cannot talk
All your insides fall to pieces,
You just sit there wishing you could still make love
They're the ones who'll hate you
When you think you've got the world all sussed out
They're the ones who'll spit at you,
You'll be the one screaming out

Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry

It's the best thing that you ever had,
The best thing that you ever, ever had
It's the best thing that you ever had,
The best thing you have had has gone away

So, don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high,
Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry

Fake Plastic Trees

Her green plastic watering can
For her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
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 polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins

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

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
All the time

Bones

I don't want to be crippled cracked
Shoulders, wrists, knees and back
Ground to dust and ash
Crawling on all fours

When you've got to feel it in your bones
When you've got to feel it in your bones

Now I can't climb the stairs
Pieces missing everywhere
Prozak painkillers

When you've got to feel it in your bones
When you've got to feel it in your bones
And I used to fly like peter pan
All the children flew when I touched their hands

When you've got to feel it in your bones
When you've got to feel it in your bones

(Nice Dream)

They love me like I was a brother
They protect me, listen to me
They dug me my very own garden
Gave me sunshine, made me happy

Nice dream, nice dream, nice dream

I call up my friend, the good angel
But she's out with her answerphone
She says that she'd love to come help but
The sea would electrocute us all

Nice dream [7x]

If you think that you're strong enough
If you think you belong enough
If you think that you're strong enough
If you think you belong enough

Nice dream [4x]

Just

Can't get the stink off
He's been hanging round for days
Comes like a comet
Suckered you but not your friends
One day he'll get to you
And teach you how to be a holy cow

You do it to yourself, you do
And that's what really hurts
Is that you do it to yourself
Just you, you and no one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

Don't get my sympathy
Hanging out the 15th floor
Changed the locks three times
Still come reeling through the door

One day I'll get to you
And teach you how to get to purest hell

You do it to yourself, you do
And that's what really hurts
Is that you do it to yourself
Just you, you and no one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

You do it to yourself, you do
And that's what really hurts
Is that you do it to yourself
Just you, you and no one else
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself, yourself, yourself

You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself
You do it to yourself

My Iron Lung

Faith, you're driving me away
You do it everyday
You don't mean it
But it hurts like hell

My brain says I'm receiving pain
A lack of oxygen
From my life support
My iron lung

We're too young to fall asleep
Too cynical to speak
We are losing it
Can't you tell?

We scratch our eternal itch
A twentieth century bitch
And we are grateful for
Our iron lung

The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle Bill, my Belisha beacon
The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle Bill, my Belisha beacon

Suck, suck your teenage thumb
Toilet trained and dumb
When the power runs out
We'll just hum

This, this is our new song
Just like the last one
A total waste of time
My iron lung
The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle Bill, my Belisha beacon
The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle Bill, my Belisha beacon

And if you're frightened
You can be frightened
You can be, it's OK
And if you're frightened
You can be frightened
You can be, it's OK

The headshrinkers, they want everything
My uncle Bill, my Belisha beacon

Bullet Proof ... I Wish I Was

Limb by limb and tooth by tooth
Stirring up inside of me
Every day, every hour
Wish that I was bulletproof

Wax me, mould me
Heat the pins and stab them in
You have turned me into this
Just wish that it was bulletproof
Was bulletproof

So, pay me money and take a shot
Lead-fill the hole in me
I could burst a million bubbles
All surrogate and bulletproof

And bulletproof
And bulletproof
Bulletproof

Black Star

I get home from work and you're still standing in your dressing gown
Well what am I to do?
I know all the things around your head and what they do to you
What are we coming to?
What are we gonna do?

Blame it on the black star
Blame it on the falling sky
Blame it on the satellite that beams me home

The troubled words of a troubled mind I try to understand what is eating you
I try to stay awake but its 58 hours since that I last slept with you
What are we coming to?
I just don't know anymore

Blame it on the black star
Blame it on the falling sky
Blame it on the satellite that beams me home

I get on the train and I just stand about now that I don't think of you
I keep falling over I keep passing out when I see a face like you
What am I coming to?
I'm gonna melt down

Blame it on the black star
Blame it on the falling sky
Blame it on the satellite that beams me home
This is killing me
This is killing me

Sulk

You bite through the big wall, the big wall bites back
You just sit there and sulk, sit there and bawl
You are so pretty when you're on your knees
Disinfected, eager to please

Sometimes you sulk, sometimes you burn
God rest your soul
When the loving comes and we've already gone
Just like your dad, you'll never change

Each time it comes it eats me alive
I try to behave but it eats me alive
So I declare a holiday
Fall asleep, drift away

Sometimes you sulk, sometimes you burn
God rest your soul
When the loving comes and we've already gone
Just like your dad, you'll never change

Sometimes you sulk, sometimes you burn
God rest your soul
When the loving comes and we've already gone
Just like your dad, you'll never change

Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Rows of houses, all bearing down on me
I can feel their blue hands touching me
All these things into position
All these things we'll one day swallow whole

And fade out again and fade out

This machine will, will not communicate
These thoughts and the strain I am under
Be a world child, form a circle
Before we all go under

And fade out again and fade out again

Cracked eggs, dead birds
Scream as they fight for life
I can feel death, can see its beady eyes
All these things into position
All these things we'll one day swallow whole

And fade out again and fade out again

Immerse your soul in love
Immerse your soul in love