“Fake Plastic Trees” by Radiohead

"Fake Plastic Trees" sits at the aching heart of Radiohead's second album, The Bends, and it went out as a single on both sides of the Atlantic: the album's third in Britain, its first in America. The band cut it at RAK Studios in London with John Leckie producing, and it didn't come easy. They wrestled with the arrangement and threw out one attempt as overblown and grandiose, settling instead on something far more fragile, with Jeff Buckley's influence running through it.

Thom Yorke wrote the words and sings them as if he's barely holding together, and the song builds around him in slow layers: Jonny Greenwood's organ, Caroline Lavelle's cello and John Matthias on viola and violin, with Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway easing in until the whole thing swells, then sinks back to a hush. Nigel Godrich was among the engineers.

It only reached the top 50 in the UK and on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, but its reputation kept growing. When Rolling Stone drew up the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2003, it slotted the song in at number 385, and Pitchfork credited it with helping shape post-Britpop bands like Coldplay and Travis.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.