Radiohead spent years trying to get away from Creep, and it still works. The verse is almost nothing: four chords, a quiet voice, someone standing at the back of the room. Then Jonny Greenwood's guitar hits like a door slamming and the chorus says out loud what most people keep to themselves. The chord loop is not new. It sits close to the Hollies' The Air That I Breathe, which is why Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood are on the credits. That costs it less than you would think. The Hollies wrote a love song about needing nothing. Radiohead took the same shape and made it about never feeling good enough, and that is the version people still shout along to.
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