She looks like the real thing/
She tastes like the real thing/
My fake plastic love.
In Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees” we meet the old doctor who performed plastic surgery in the eighties. He’s tired and worn out now. It’s easy to notice and critique the fake lifestyles of others but isn’t it a little similar to our own lives? We meet his wife. Even her garden is fake. It’s easy to notice how lifeless and soul-sucking that is, how does she not notice it?
Then we meet the narrator of “Fake Plastic Trees”. He notices that just like the husband and wife create these fake realities that look like the real thing, he is in a relationship that looks like love and tastes like love—but it is clearly fake. Just like he is revolted by “viewing” the fake life of the husband and wife he has a similar feeling about the woman that he is with. Will he break up with her now that he has come to this realization?
Radiohead’s vocal’s in “Fake Plastic Trees” is outstanding. Specifically, how Yorke jumps to falsetto at the end of each line sounds great. The use of organ to capture that surreal vibe really works. The song does a great job of transitioning from a ballad-y type song in the verses to a hard rock song in the later choruses. That transition is hard to pull off without feeling like a power-ballad.
Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics
A green plastic watering can
For a fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself
It wears her out
It wears her out
It wears her out
It wears her out
She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins
And it wears him out
It wears him out
It wears him out
Wears him out
She looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love
But I can’t help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run
And it wears me out
It wears me out
It wears me out
It wears me out
And if I could be who you wanted
If I could be who you wanted
All the time
All the time
written by Radiohead: Songwriters: Colin Charles Greenwood / Edward John O’brien / Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood / Philip James Selway / Thomas Edward Yorke