Radiohead – The Bends

Song

"The Bends" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead from their second studio album The Bends (1995). In Ireland, the song was released by Parlophone on 26 July 1996 as the album's sixth and final single, and reached number 26 on the Irish Singles Chart.

"The Bends" was written in 1992, predating Radiohead's 1992 debut single "Creep" and debut studio album Pablo Honey (1993). Radiohead performed it numerous times over the next two years, before recording it at the Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, England, with producer John Leckie. It is one of Radiohead's most performed songs.

It has been compared to the work of bands such as Queen, the Beatles, Pixies and the Smiths; singer Thom Yorke described it as a "Bowie pastiche", contains five sections, making it one of the most complex tracks on The Bends. Several critics interpreted the lyrics as a comment on the success of "Creep", which had led the media to dub them a one-hit-wonder. Yorke said the lyrics were intended to be humorous and had been misinterpreted.

"The Bends" was included on the greatest hits album Radiohead: The Best Of (2008), and other versions have appeared on compilations by Radiohead and other artists. In 2017, Uncut ranked it as the third-greatest Radiohead song.

Writing

"The Bends" is one of the earliest songs written by Radiohead, originally going under the title "The Benz". It was written primarily by singer Thom Yorke, while credited to all of the band members, prior to recording their debut album Pablo Honey (1993). Yorke said in a 1995 interview:

"It's one of those songs I was rambling around and just poured all this rubbish out into the song. Then it all started happening, which was a bit odd. I was completely taking the piss when I wrote it. Then the joke started wearing a bit thin".

Radiohead also performed "The Bends" live numerous times prior to release. Bassist Colin Greenwood described the song as a "perennial hardy annual of a live favourite, faithfully committed live to tape".

 

In 1992, Radiohead recorded a 4-track demo for "The Bends" during the Pablo Honey sessions. Yorke introduced the demo to co-producer Paul Q. Kolderie at the end of the sessions, but kept it for their next album. In March 1993, Radiohead recorded another demo with their live sound engineer Jim Warren at Courtyard Studios in Oxfordshire, during the same session that produced "High and Dry".

After the Pablo Honey tour ended, they sent the demo to producer John Leckie for their then-upcoming second album The Bends.

Recording

"The Bends" was one of the songs selected as a potential follow-up single to "Creep" during the album recording. It was initially recorded at RAK Studios in London in sessions that took place from February to May 1994, and then re-recorded at the Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, where the band spent two weeks working on The Bends in July.

According to drummer Philip Selway, the song was recorded in a single take: "I wanted to get away from the studio to view a house for rent. Consequently, this was the first take". However, Q reported that the song was recorded in several takes. The unreleased RAK version was mixed by Leckie at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Leckie felt the guitars were too loud and that the song was "overblown", but the band members felt otherwise. According to Leckie, the original version of "The Bends" was "more overpowering" than it is on the album, and Yorke's vocals were more screamed. Trying to make the introduction less "bombastic", Radiohead added "tinkling" sound effects Yorke had recorded on a cassette recorder through a hotel room window while touring in the United States. He said:

"There was this guy training these eight-year-old kids, who were parading up and down with all these different instruments. The guy had this little microphone on his sweater and was going: 'Yeah, keep it up, keep it up.' So I ran out and taped it"

"The Bends" was mixed by Sean Slade and Kolderie, who produced Pablo Honey and mixed most of The Bends.

Music

"The Bends" has been described as an alternative rock, hard rock, Britpop, grunge and post-grunge song, with elements of arena rock and experimental rock. It contains classic rock guitar riffs, distortion effects and "soaring" vocals, and draws on Queen influences. Bill Reed of The Gazette likened the song to the late music of the Beatles, while Christopher Burns of the Arizona Daily Sun referred to the Beatles' 1967 song "I Am the Walrus" in style and lyrics when focusing on "The Bends" opening line: "Where do we go from here?"

It contains five sections, making it one of the most structurally complex songs on The Bends, and this structure has a sound arrangement that compared to the work of the Pixies. It's played in the key of E minor in a ⁴₄ time signature with a tempo of 90 beats per minute (BPM), while Yorke's vocals span a range of A₃ to G₅. The chord progression follows a sequence of D–C^add9–G/B–C^add9–G/B–C^add9, with a C chord following this sequence during the pre-verse.

"The Bends" begins with sampled sounds before moving to a chord sequence played in unison by the three guitarists: Yorke; Jonny Greenwood; and Ed O'Brien. During the second verse, Jonny briefly plays a counter-melody likened to the Smiths' 1984 song "How Soon Is Now?" and also plays a minor third. O'Brien described Jonny's guitar playing as "abusive". "The Bends" also features a multi-tracked recorder played by Jonny, appearing low in the mix.

Lyrics

"The Bends" lyrics relate to topics including insecurity, loss of identity, social rejection, morbidity, indolence, faithlessness and stasis. Yorke said "The Bends" is addressed to all kinds of figures, particularly certain journalists who still cling to the Sixties trip, referring to the Britpop movement in the mid-1990s, which he described as "backwards-looking".

According to writer Jonathan Hale, the song was initially introduced as being about "knowing who your real friends are and when they're going to come to your gigs"; Yorke later simplified this to "knowing who your friends are".

Yorke said "The Bends" was a "Bowie pastiche". He said it was intended to be humorous, with lyrics such as "I want to be part of the human race" and the recurring lines "I wish it was the Sixties / I wish I could be happy". Yorke was irritated that the humour was overlooked; he was repeatedly asked in interviews if he really wished it was the 1960s.

Scott Wilson of Fact interpreted the line as a "sarcastic dig" at other bands' "obsession with another era", such as the lyrics of Oasis's 1994 songs "Live Forever" and "Rock 'n' Roll Star". "The Bends" also contains lines about the CIA and the Marines, and has a repeated line: "Where are you now when I need you?"

Title

The title "The Bends" references a term used in scuba diving to describe decompression sickness after divers return to the surface quickly. Though Radiohead wrote "The Bends" in 1992, before their debut single "Creep" was released in September of that year, commentators interpreted the title as a comment on the success of "Creep".

Though "Creep" brought Radiohead early success, it caused some critics to label them as one-hit wonders. The lyrical themes of "The Bends" were also compared to songs such as "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" (1967) by the Byrds, "Pump It Up" (1978) by Elvis Costello and "Serve the Servants" (1993) by Nirvana.

Release and packaging

"The Bends" first appeared as a B-side live version, titled "The Benz", on the 1993 French release of "Creep", recorded for the French radio show Black Sessions on 23 February. The studio version was released as the second track on Radiohead's second album The Bends, released on 8 March 1995. It was included as the second track on the 1995 French reissue of "Creep" and the 1995 US 7-inch vinyl jukebox release of "Fake Plastic Trees".

More than a year after the release of The Bends, the title track was released as a single by Parlophone in Ireland on 26 July 1996, the same month when Radiohead began recording their third album OK Computer (1997). The single was limited to only 2,000 copies and included two live versions of "My Iron Lung" and "Bones", both recorded at the London Forum on 24 March 1995.

It was later included on Amazon. The accompanying artwork features a graphic of an inhaler created by Stanley Donwood and Yorke and the latter is credited under the pseudonym "The White Chocolate Farm". The graphic also appeared on occasion in other works by Donwood. Written on the back of the CD single:

Assemble all the facts about your anticipated achievement. See yourself in the posture of success. Rule over your troublesome imagination.

Single

"The Bends" was previously released as a CD promotional single in the US by Capitol in 1995 with the same live tracks, while issued in Belgium by EMI Belgium in May 1996, included "Bones" as the second track. The artwork of the Belgian promo is the same as the artwork of The Bends. 

Original 4-track demo of "The Bends" was included on the compilation Long Live Tibet (1997), a charity album organised by Tibet House Trust for Tibetan people and featuring artists including David Bowie and Björk, and bands such as Pulp, Blur and Kula Shaker alongside Radiohead. It is also featured on the compilation MiniDiscs [Hacked]  (2019).

The demo features loud guitars in the opening, played at a slower tempo than the final studio version, as well as "lifeless" vocals, "slightly" different lyrics and lo-fi production. Also unlike the studio version, Jonny's recorder sound is clearer in the demo.

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Album

The Bends è il secondo album dei Radiohead, pubblicato il 13 marzo 1995 dalla Parlophone.

La rivista statunitense Rolling Stone ha incluso The Bends nella sua lista dei 500 migliori album alla posizione n. 111 Mentre Q Magazine l'ha inserito alla 2^a posizione.

Assieme a Kid A del 2000, The Bends è uno dei due album in studio dei Radiohead ad avere per titolo quello di una delle sue canzoni.

Il disco

L'album presenta un cambio di rotta dei Radiohead alla ricerca di sonorità maggiormente introverse e a tratti psichedeliche. La voce di Thom Yorke, pur se dotata di una certa personalità, viene associata a quella di Bono Vox.

Preceduto da un singolo come Just, canzone irruente e aspra nei suoni che anticipa molte tematiche dell'album, il secondo lavoro della band presenta una sua unitarietà sonora e compositiva. Il sound si caratterizza discostandosi dai dettami del britpop che impazza in quegli anni, l'album presenta una trama unitaria eccezion fatta per High and Dry, che un po' si discosta da un album tanto omogeneo.

Tra i brani spiccano Fake Plastic Trees, la title-track The Bends e l'allucinato lamento di Street Spirit (Fade Out), accompagnata da un video che sottolinea l'atmosfera del brano.

The Bends è considerato un pilastro degli anni novanta, pietra miliare del rock-pop inglese, che ha influenzato il sound di quegli anni, come dimostrano i riconoscimenti delle classifiche di Rolling Stone e Q Magazine. Il disco è dedicato alla memoria di Bill Hicks, comico e pensatore statunitense.

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Artist

I Radiohead sono un gruppo musicale alternative rock inglese proveniente dall'Oxfordshire e formatosi nel 1985. Fino al 1992, quando cambiarono nome, erano noti come On a Friday. Hanno venduto più di 30 milioni di dischi in tutto il mondo.

La band è formata da Thom Yorke (voce, chitarra, pianoforte), Jonny Greenwood (chitarra solista, tastiere, sintetizzatore, onde Martenot), Ed O'Brien (chitarra, voce di supporto), Colin Greenwood (basso elettrico, sintetizzatori) e Philip Selway (percussioni).

I Radiohead pubblicarono il loro primo singolo, Creep, nel 1992. La canzone fu inizialmente un insuccesso, ma dopo la pubblicazione dell'album di debutto Pablo Honey, il singolo ebbe un inaspettato successo mondiale. L'album, seppur ben accolto negli Stati Uniti, passò quasi inosservato in Inghilterra.

Il successo in patria arrivò solo con il secondo album, The Bends (1995), che fece guadagnare al gruppo numerosi fan. La loro reputazione crebbe ancor di più con l'uscita del terzo album; caratterizzato da un suono più esteso e dal tema ricorrente dell'alienazione moderna, OK Computer (1997) è riconosciuto da diversi critici come una pietra miliare della musica rock degli anni novanta.

Where do we go from here?
the words are coming out all wierd
where are you now when i need you?
alone on an aeroplane
falling asleep beside the window pane
my blood will THICKEN.

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

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

I'm just lying in a bar
with my drip feed on
talking to my girlfriend
waiting for something to happen
and i wish it was the sixties
i wish we could be happy
i wish i iwsh i wish that something would happen

Where do we go from here?
The planet is a gun-boat in a sea of fear
the words are coming out all wierd
where are you now when i need 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

I'm just lyng in a bar
with my drip feed on
talking to my girlfriend
waiting for something to happen

And i wish it was the sixties
i wish we could be happy
i wish i wish i wish that something would happen
i want to live and breathe
i want to be part of the human race.

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

Cosa facciamo adesso?
Le parole escono strane
dove sei ora che ho bisogno di te?
sola su un aeroplano
ti addormenti vicino al finestrino
mi faccio sangue marcio

Devo lavarmi di nuovo per nascondere
tutto lo sporco e il dolore
avrei paura che sotto non ci fosse niente
e chi sono i miei veri amici?
Hanno tutti l'embolia gassosa?
Sto davvero cadendo così in basso?

Il mio amore ha l'embolia gassosa
non abbiamo dei veri amici

Sono semplicemente sdraiato in un bar
con la macchina del caffè accesa
a parlare con la mia fidanzata
aspettiamo che succeda qualcosa
e vorrei che fossimo negli anni '60
vorrei che fossimo felici
vorrei vorrei vorrei che succedesse qualcosa

Cosa facciamo adesso?
Questo pianeta è una nave da guerra in un mare di paura
le parole escono strane
dove sei ora che ho bisogno di te?
hanno fatto intervenire la CIA
i carri armati e i marines
per farmi fuori per farmi saltare

E in più il mio amore ha l'embolia gassosa
non abbiamo dei veri amici

Sono semplicemente sdraiato in un bar
con la macchina del caffè accesa
a parlare con la mia fidanzata
aspettiamo che succeda qualcosa

E vorrei che fossimo negli anni '60
vorrei che fossimo felici
vorrei vorrei vorrei che succedesse qualcosa
voglio vivere e respirare
voglio sentirmi parte della razza umana.

Cosa facciamo adesso?
le parole escono strane
dove sei ora che ho bisogno di te?