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

When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
How does it feel?

“Like a Rolling Stone” is the riches-to-rags story of a woman who had it all. Bob Dylan seems to take some delight in her fall from grace but also spends some time pointing out some things that might be useful to her now. Things that she ignored while she was a princess on top of the world. Perhaps there is some empathy in that. Probably not.

This woman was horrible to people when she had the world in her hand and there is a certain satisfaction when someone receives their comeuppance. Dylan was certainly not one to be ashamed of his petty nature.

One of the reasons Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” is so popular is because everyone universally despises this type of person. This person who has it all but looks down on others who are “beneath them”. Their fall from grace is cathartic. Another reason the song is successful is because the lyrics are just so damn good. There are so many precious lines, and although the language is slightly difficult, it paints a perfect picture of the woman.

It is crazy to think what this song was competing against at the time.  In 1965 when it was released, The Beatles were singing Help, and Unchained Melody and Wolly Bully charted. This was altogether different. It still sounds fresh today.

“Like a Rolling Stone” is the song that officially led Dylan away from a full-fledged folk artist and he transitioned to rock artist. The sound he created on this record—with the electric guitars and the organ is not folk music. At the time folk purists despised him; his sound was simply evolving.

Like A Rolling Stone Lyrics

Once upon a time you dressed so fine,
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People call say ‘beware doll, you’re bound to fall’,
You thought they were all kidding you.
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out.
Now you don’t talk so loud.
Now you don’t seem so proud,
About having to be scrounging your next meal.

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home?
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.

Ahh you’ve gone to the finest schools, alright Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it.
Nobody’s ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you’re gonna have to get used to it.
You say you never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize:
He’s not selling any alibis,
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes:
And say “do you want to make a deal”?

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home?
A complete unknown, like a rolling stone.

Ah you never turned around to see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you.
You never understood that it ain’t no good,
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you.
You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat.
Ain’t it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn’t where it’s at,
After he took from you everything he could steal?

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To have on your own, with no direction home?
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.

Ahh princess on a steeple and all the pretty people
They’re all drinking, thinking that they’ve got it made;
Exchanging all precious gifts,
But you better take your diamond ring, you better pawn it babe.
You used to be so amused,
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used.
Go to him he calls you, you can’t refuse.
When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
You’re invisible now, you’ve got no secrets to conceal.

How does it feel, ah how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home?
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.