Music
According to the band, The Bends marked the start of a gradual turn in Yorke's songwriting from personal angst to the more cryptic lyrics and social and global themes that would come to dominate the band's later work. Most of the album was seen to continue the lyrical concerns of Pablo Honey, although in more mature fashion. The songs "Fake Plastic Trees" and, in particular, "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" and its b-side "Talk Show Host", are often seen as a precursor to their next album OK Computer (1997). "Fake Plastic Trees" was partly inspired by the commercial development of Canary Wharf, while "Sulk" was written as a response to the Hungerford massacre. According to Yorke, "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" was inspired by the book The Famished Road by Ben Okri.
The lyrics to the songs on The Bends, particularly those of "My Iron Lung", were cited in the British music press as an example of Yorke's alleged depression. Melody Maker ran an article during The Bends period which suggested Yorke would be the next "rock 'n roll martyr" or suicide.
Read more about this topic: The Bends
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“We often feel sad in the presence of music without words; and often more than that in the presence of music without music.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“It is hard to describe the thrill of creative joy which the artist feels when the conviction seizes her that at last she has caught the very soul of the character she wishes to portray, in the music and action which reveal it.”
—Maria Jeritza (1887–1982)