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MUSIC FEATURE

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RADIOHEAD PABLO HONEY Happy 30th anniversary to the very first LP from cherished Oxfordshire rockers, Radiohead!We’re

giving you the expert’s cheatsheet for Pablo Honey, with five plum facts for your edification. Words Bryget Chrisfield

Radiohead L to R:ThomYorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway

Nods toThe Jerky Boys This album’s title comes from a skit by The Jerky Boys – a NewYork comedy duo comprising Johnny Brennan and Kamal Ahmedskit – during which a prank caller, posing as the target’s mother, says, “Pablo, honey?... Please come to Florida.” Of adapting this line for their album title, ThomYorke has joked, “ Pablo Honey was appropriate for us, being all mothers’ boys”. Radiohead also sample The Jerky Boys’ ‘Pablo Honey’ bit during the closing guitar section of track three, How Do You? . Sharing The Air That I Breathe Radiohead took elements of their transatlantic smash Creep from The Air That I Breathe . After the publishers of this song – most famously recorded by The Hollies – took legal action, Radiohead admitted the connection and settled Upon the release of Pablo Honey 30 years ago, UK ‘music bible’ NME dismissed Radiohead as “a pitiful, lily-livered excuse for a rock’n’roll group” – ouch. The band had signed a six-album deal with EMI two years prior to releasing their debut; one of the band’s three guitarists, Ed O’Brien, actually described Pablo Honey as “a collection of our greatest hits as an unsigned band”. Shortly following this album’s release, frontmanThomYorke was quoted as saying, “The second album [1995’s The Bends ] is going to be much better than the first. I like the first album, but we were very naïve.We didn’t really know how to use the studio.” Pablo Honey contains Radiohead’s poisoned-chalice hit Creep , which they quickly tired of playing live to the point where – it’s since been revealed – they almost disbanded.

Throwing shade at The Lizard King Anyone Can Play Guitar heaps scorn on rockstar wannabes, specifically throwing lyrical shade at Jim Morrison: “Grow my hair, I am Jim Morrison… I wanna be… Jim Morrison.” Check out Yorke’s rant during a 1993 MTV performance: “Maybe if I grow my hair I can become Jim Morrison.... Fat! Ugly! Dead!” And during an interview that same year, he spat: “Jim Morrison was a bimbo. He was great looking and stuff, and took loads of drugs, and girls loved him, but his poetry just f-cking sucked. The day they brought out a book of his poetry, it was all over. It’s not art; it’s pop music.” “Anybody can play guitar!” To create Anyone Can Play Guitar ’s opening sound collage, which literally demonstrates this song’s title, everyone who happened to be around at the time – including the studio’s cook, janitor and owner – was recorded having a crack on the instrument. Jonny Greenwood also played his Fender Telecaster with a paintbrush, to further illustrate this song’s anti-fretboard-showboating stance. “Anybody can play guitar,” Greenwood later clarified, “but writing songs is a far harder challenge.”

out of court, with songwriters Albert Hammond (father of The Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr) and Mike Hazlewood given co-writing credits and shared royalties. More recently, Radiohead sued Lana Del Rey after noticing similarities between Creep and Lana’s Get Free (from her 2017 Lust for Life album). However, Del Rey took to Twitter and immediately denied that she drew inspiration from Creep , after which her fans created the #RadioheadIsOverParty hashtag. The ‘ScottWalker song’ Although famously banned by BBC Radio 1 for being too depressing, Creep went on to become Radiohead’s most recognisable hit. But the album’s co-producers apparently took an in-joke – in which Yorke and co. dubbed Creep their ‘Scott Walker song’ – literally: “Too bad their best song is a cover,” Paul Kolderie reportedly told Sean Slade. Drummer Philip Selway has also claimed the band was unaware the tape was rolling when Creep was first captured during a warm-up session, after which – legend has it – everyone present broke into spontaneous applause.

78 APRIL 2023

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