Radiohead » Tracks » Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Radiohead – Street Spirit (Fade Out) (4:14)

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About This Track

One of Radiohead’s most successful singles, yet also a fan favourite.

Noted by singer-songwriter and guitarist Thom Yorke as “one of saddest songs” and describing it as “the dark tunnel without the light at the end,” “Street Spirit” was released as the band’s ninth single and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, the highest chart position until Paranoid Android from OK Computer, which reached number three in 1997.

Radiohead attributes a great deal of depth to “Street Spirit”, beyond the level typically perceived by its audience. Lead singer Thom Yorke said,

“Street Spirit is our purest song, but I didn’t write it. It wrote itself. We were just its messengers; its biological catalysts. Its core is a complete mystery to me, and, you know, I wouldn’t ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve. Street Spirit has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song. It’s called detachment. Especially me; I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn’t play it. I’d crack. I’d break down on stage. That’s why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning. I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together. That’s what’s meant by ‘all these things you’ll one day swallow whole’. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn’t have it in me to articulate the emotion. I’d crack…
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Albums featuring this track

  • The Bends
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  • The Best Of
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  • DeLuxe Collection
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  • Album Box Set
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  • viva_republic

    The tragic loop of existence, represented in one song. A masterpiece

    Monday morning

  • Spunky_Backpack

    Still sounds extraordinary.

    Thursday evening

  • Spoike

    This is not the song that made me a radiohead fan, but it's one of their songs that I love the most. [2] But Planet Telex was the song that made me a Radiohead. And that and this are still my favourite opener/closer combo of any album.

    last week

  • BuddyDawg1

    Great track

    12 days ago

  • requiemref

    ''It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you're going to have your dog put down and it's wagging its tail on the way there. That's what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn't picked us as its catalysts, and so I don't claim it. It asks too much. I didn't write that song.''

    13 days ago

  • ahundredegrees

    This is not the song that made me a radiohead fan, but it's one of their songs that I love the most.

    16 days ago

  • passport90

    This song made me a Radiohead fan [15]

    16 days ago

  • V4run

    The feel.

    22 days ago

  • M_Def

    This song made me a Radiohead fan [14]

    last month

  • drvence

    This song made me a Radiohead fan [13]

    last month

  • closertotheear

    STRAAAIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNN I AM UNDER

    last month

  • CrissCrossKing

    This song made me a Radiohead fan [12]

    last month

  • Sapochka

    This song made me a Radiohead fan [11]

    last month

  • eliinnn

    this song made me a music freak a long long time ago, and I still think this is one of the best songs ever :)

    last month

  • suburbjorn

    masterpiece

    last month

  • bruno_avilar

    D:

    last month

  • Pluskfa

    the cure for every disease.

    last month

  • closertotheear

    This song made me a Radiohead fan [10]

    last month

  • KrioMaster

    This song made me a Radiohead fan [9]

    last month

  • Strikerpro

    <3

    last month
See all 773 shouts

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