The Bends (song)

"The Bends" is one of the earliest songs written by Radiohead,[1] and was originally titled "The Benz."[2][3] It was written primarily by singer Thom Yorke[4] and credited to all of the band's members,[1][5] prior to recording their 1993 debut album, Pablo Honey.[4] Yorke said in a 1995 interview: "["The Bends"] is 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."[6] Radiohead also performed "The Bends" live numerous times earlier.[7][8][9][10]

In mid-1992, Radiohead recorded a 4-track demo of "The Bends" during the Pablo Honey sessions.[11][6] Yorke played the demo to co-producer Paul Q. Kolderie at the end of the sessions,[12] but they kept it for the following album.[6] 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."[11][9] After the Pablo Honey tour, they sent the demo to producer John Leckie for their upcoming second album, The Bends.[13]

"The Bends" was one of the first songs to be nominated as a follow-up single to "Creep" during the first sessions of The Bends.[14][15][16] It was first recorded at RAK Studios in London and then re-recorded—as well as "Bones" recorded on the same day—at the Manor Studio in Oxfordshire,[17] where Radiohead took two-week sessions for The Bends in July 1994.[15] According to drummer Philip Selway, it 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."[7] However, Q reported that it was recorded in several takes.[18] The unreleased RAK version was mixed by Leckie at Abbey Road Studios in London.[19]

Leckie felt the guitars were too loud and that the song was "overblown," but Radiohead felt otherwise.[20] According to Leckie, the original version of "The Bends" was "more overpowering" than it is on the album, and Yorke's vocals were more screaming.[21] Trying to make the introduction less "bombastic," Radiohead added "tinkling" sound effects[18] recorded previously by Yorke on a cassette recorder through a hotel room window while touring in the United States.[22] 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."[23][24][25] "The Bends" was mixed by Sean Slade and Kolderie,[5] who produced Pablo Honey and mixed most of The Bends.[12]

"The Bends" has been described as an alternative rock,[26] hard rock,[27] Britpop,[28] grunge,[28] post-grunge,[29] and experimental rock song.[30] It begins with sampled sounds before moving to a chord sequence played in unison by the three guitarists, Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Ed O'Brien.[31] One of these sounds, a man shouting "Break It Up!" at 0:10, is sampled from the 1986 film No Retreat, No Surrender.[32] During the second verse, Greenwood briefly plays a counter-melody likened to the Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?"[22] and a minor third.[9] O'Brien described Greenwood's guitar playing as "abusive".[7][9] "The Bends" also features a multi-tracked recorder by Greenwood, low in the mix.[22]

"The Bends" contains classic rock guitar riffs,[33] "soaring" vocals,[34] and distortion effects,[31] with elements of arena rock,[25] and draws on Queen influences.[35] Bill Reed of The Gazette likened the song to the late music of the Beatles,[36] and Christopher Burns of the Arizona Daily Sun specifically referred to their 1967 song "I Am the Walrus" in style and lyrics in "The Bends" opening line: "Where do we go from here?".[37] Dw Dunphy of MusicTAB wrote that it sounds "more like Queen's Brian May than an alt-rock/Britpop upstart".[38] It contains five distinct sections, making it one of the most structurally complex songs on The Bends,[22] and this structure has a sound arrangement compared to the work of the Pixies.[39] It is played in the key of E minor in a ⁴
₄ time signature with a tempo of 90 BPM (beats per minute), while Yorke's vocals span a range of A₃ to G₅.[40] 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.[40]

The lyrics were inspired by Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel Generation X; Yorke was arguing against the generational classification, unlike in the novel.[41] The lyrics relate to many topics, such as insecurity, loss of identity,[22] social rejection, morbidity, indolence, faithlessness, and stasis.[25] Yorke said "The Bends" is addressed to all kinds of figures, particularly certain journalists who still cling to the Sixties trip.[42] 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."[24] However, writers linked the song's title—a term used in scuba diving to describe decompression sickness after divers float to the surface very quickly—and lyrics to the success of Radiohead's 1992 debut single, "Creep,"[43][44] which, despite achieving early success and fame for the band, has also caused them to be categorised as one-hit wonders by the music press.[45] The lyrical themes of "The Bends" also were compared to other songs, such as "So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star" by the Byrds, "Pump It Up" by Elvis Costello, and "Serve the Servants" by Nirvana.[4]

Yorke called "The Bends" Radiohead's "Bowie pastiche".[25][46] He said it was intended to be humorous,[46][47][48] pointing to lyrics such as "I want to be part of the human race"[47] and the recurring lines "I wish it was the Sixties / I wish I could be happy / I wish / I wish / I wish that something would happen."[48] Yorke was irritated that the humour in the song had apparently been overlooked; the lyrics "I wish it was the Sixties..." became a common point of discussion in interviews, with Yorke frequently being asked whether he had meant them earnestly.[46] Scott Wilson of Fact wrote that the Sixties lines "felt like a sarcastic dig" about other bands' "obsession with another era", such as Oasis' lyrics in "Live Forever" and "Rock 'n' Roll Star."[49] "The Bends" also contains lines about the CIA and the Marines,[24][44] and has a repeated "accusation" line: "Where are you now when I need you?".[44]

"The Bends" first appeared as a B-side live version, titled "The Benz," on the 1993 French release of "Creep," recorded at the Black Sessions in Paris on 23 February 1993.[50] "The Bends" was released as the second track on Radiohead's second album, The Bends,[51][52] released on 8 March 1995.[53] It was included as the second track on the 1995 French reissue of "Creep"[54] and the US 7-inch vinyl jukebox single of "Fake Plastic Trees."[55]

More than a year after the album's release, "The Bends" was released as a single by Parlophone in Ireland on 26 July 1996,[56] the same month when Radiohead began recording their third album, OK Computer.[57] The single was limited to only 2,000 copies[58] and included two live versions of "My Iron Lung" and "Bones," recorded at the London Forum on 24 March 1995.[50][59][lower-alpha 1] It was later included in online music stores, including Amazon[60] and eBay.[61] Its artwork features a graphic of an inhaler.[59]

"The Bends" was previously released as a CD promotional single in the US by Capitol in 1995 with the same live tracks,[62] and in Belgium by EMI Belgium in May 1996, included "Bones" as the second track.[63] The artwork of the Belgian promo is the same as the artwork of The Bends.[63] "The Bends" was included on the compilations Broken Dreams II (2006)[64] and Radiohead: The Best Of (2008).[65]

The original 4-track demo of "The Bends" was included on the compilation Long Live Tibet (1997),[55] a charity album organised by Tibet House Trust for Tibetan people[66] and featuring artists including David Bowie and Björk, and bands including Pulp, Blur, and Kula Shaker alongside Radiohead.[67] The demo contains loud guitars in the opening, played at a slower tempo than the album version, with "lifeless" vocals, "slightly" different lyrics, and lo-fi production.[24]

Reviewing The Bends in 1995, Hot Press described the title track as "roaring, soaring and tormented",[68] while People wrote that the song—along with "Planet Telex"—"toss and turn like the best of those big restless Pearl Jam and U2 arena-size anthems."[69] Clare Kleinedler of Santa Cruz Sentinel wrote that the song "reflects the band's reputation for being the gods of freaks and weirdos around the world with York[e] howling, "We don't have any real friends." The beauty of this seemingly self pitying line is that it isn't self pity at all; it is what defines Radiohead."[70] Kevin McKeough of Chicago Tribune indicated "The Bends"—as well as "Black Star"—"could have been catchy little rockers" if Radiohead had dispensed with their "grandiose dramatic effects".[71] The Boston Globe's Jim Sullivan wrote that the song "full of stops, starts and slides, and Yorke established his voice as one in the English glam tradition of Ian Hunter and David Bowie, keeping company today with Oasis and Suede."[72] CMJ New Music Monthly described "The Bends" as "a brilliant piece of raging guitar-driven pop".[73]

The Guardian critic Adam Sweeting called "The Bends" "a powerchord masterclass".[74] In 2007, Anthony Strain of Treble wrote that it was "the only song [on The Bends] that sounds remotely dated; its last moments are the last the record spends squarely in the present".[75] "The Bends" was included in the 2007 book, The Rough Guide Book of Playlists,[76] and Xfm's 2010 book, Top 1000 Songs of All Time.[8] In 2012, Mark Lepage of The Gazette likened "The Bends" to "seeing the sunrise from a new angle".[77] On the 20th anniversary of The Bends in 2015, Kenneth Partridge of Billboard wrote about the title track: "For the first 45 seconds, this could be an Oasis track. Then the vocals come in, and Yorke's piss-take on jaded rock-star behavior reveals a searing intelligence and contempt for the world that Noel Gallagher never gets at with his songwriting."[78] Dean Essner of Consequence wrote: "On "The Bends", Yorke tells us what it's like to swim with the sharks and then shortly after bake on a crowded beach with the rest of civilization, who are just waiting for something to happen, too."[79]

In 2016, Fact named "The Bends" the 26th-greatest Radiohead song,[49] while BuzzFeed named it the 31st best Radiohead song.[80] In 2017, Pitchfork wrote that it "mopes in the mid-'90s zeitgeist's shadow, mooring Britpop's social theatricality in grunge's grandiose alienation".[81] Radio Hauraki named "The Bends" the 19th best song of the 1990s.[82] Consequence named it the 50th best Radiohead song,[83] while Uncut named it the third-greatest Radiohead song, behind "Creep" and "Planet Telex."[84] In 2019, Vulture named it the 76th best song by Radiohead, writing: "This wiry, hard-charging song, in hindsight a clear iteration between Pablo Honey and OK Computer, was a solid answer, complete with military-industrial-complex imagery that still seems more playfully absurd than the deadly serious."[85] In 2020, Billboard ranked "The Bends" as the seventh best song on The Bends.[86]

"The Bends" is one of Radiohead's most performed songs,[87] and was described as a fan favourite by New York.[88] It was the first song Radiohead performed from The Bends.[89] They performed it on their early tours,[89] including a performance at Roxane in Tel Aviv, Israel in April 1993,[90] Cabaret Metro in Chicago, Illinois in June,[91] and the Garage in Highbury, London in September.[3] "The Bends" was included in the setlists of Radiohead's tour with Belly.[92]

In May 1994, Radiohead performed "The Bends" at the London Astoria in London;[93] this performance was included on Live at the Astoria (1995),[94] and the 2009 reissue of The Bends "Special Collectors Edition" on DVD.[95] On 26 June, they performed it in their performance at the 1994 Glastonbury Festival.[96] In March 1995, they performed "The Bends" at the London Forum.[97] On 27 May,[98] Radiohead performed it on the TV show Later... with Jools Holland; this performance was included on the compilation ...Later Volume One: Brit Beat, released in September 1996.[99][100] It was also included on the 2009 reissue of The Bends "Special Collectors Edition" on DVD.[95] In 2017, The Telegraph named the performance the sixth-greatest in the history of the show.[101] Radiohead also performed "The Bends" on MTV's program 120 Minutes in March 1996.[102]

"The Bends" was included in the setlists of the OK Computer tour,[92] including the televised performance at the 1997 Glastonbury Festival in June,[96][103] the 1997 festival Les Eurockéennes de Belfort in France in July,[104] and the London Astoria performance in September 1997.[105] Radiohead performed "The Bends" on their tours for Kid A,[106] Amnesiac,[107][108] Hail to the Thief,[109] and In Rainbows.[110] In January 2010, they performed it at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles;[111] this performance was included on Radiohead for Haiti (2010).[112] After six years of not performing "The Bends," Radiohead performed it at some shows on the tour for their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016).[113][114][115]

• American heavy metal band Anthrax covered "The Bends" on their 1998 single "Inside Out."[116] Drummer Charlie Benante wrote on the single notes: "We chose to do this song cause Radiohead are like the Pink Floyd of this era."[117] It was included as a bonus track on the 2003 reissue of their eighth album, Volume 8: The Threat Is Real, originally released in 1998.[118][119] In 2003, Aaron Small of Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles wrote: "Covering Radiohead is unexpected to say the least. "That was in '97/'98 and Radiohead were a different band. I'm not saying they were extreme metal back then but nowadays they're more experimental. [...] We just wanted to do it as a B-side.""[118] In 2013, Ryan Smith of Whatzup described it as "a passable but unremarkable cover and was quickly forgotten."[120]

• American jam band Joe Russo's Almost Dead performed a cover of the song at The Ritz in Raleigh, North Carolina on 31 October 2015.[121] They performed it in other live performances in 2017[122] and 2018.[123]

• In December 2020, Irish singer Rosie Carney covered the song on her full cover album of The Bends.[124]

All tracks are written by Radiohead (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Philip Selway).

All credits adapted from the CD single liner notes,[5] except where noted.

Radiohead[lower-alpha 2]

• Thom Yorke – vocals, rhythm guitar, tape effects
• Jonny Greenwood – lead guitar, recorder, piano
• Ed O'Brien – rhythm guitar
• Colin Greenwood – bass guitar
• Philip Selway – drums

Production

• John Leckie – production (track 1)
• Sean Slade – mixing (tracks 1–3)
• Paul Q. Kolderie – mixing (tracks 1–3)

Artwork

• Stanley Donwood – fine art
• The White Chocolate Farm – fine art
• Binge – design
• The Whole Hog – pasting

• Decompression sickness

• "The Bends" at Discogs (list of releases)
• "The Bends" at MusicBrainz (list of releases)