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Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics

Her green plastic watering can for
her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth

What she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber bands
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 polystyreneman
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, it wears him

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

If i could be who you wanted
If i could be who you wanted all the time, all the time
Song Info
Copyright
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Writer
Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood, Colin Charles Greenwood, Edward John O'brien, Philip James Selway, Thomas Edward Yorke
Producer
John Leckie
Release date
1995-05-15t00:00:00
Sentiment
Negative
Submitted by
piesupreme On Apr 17, 2001
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395 Meanings

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Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

Come on we've all been there right? In our fake plastic love? You know? That person that you knew deep deep down would never work out, but you thought they were beautiful or special, and thereby you were being fake pretending to be something you were not with that person.

Trying to make that person happy by being fake. It wears you out. Somehow though you keep hanging on for along time because he or she tastes and looks like the real thing....you think if this relationship ends you might blow through the ceiling; you can't help the feelings you still have for the person...but the relationship wears you out and you are living on borrowed time as you know in the long run it could never work...it's fake and plastic.

Add: In the end you know if you could be who your partner wanted it would work..but you can't, you can only be yourself in the end because gravity wins.

Not Valid

adn - you completely changed my entire concept of what this song meant, completely nailed it

thats what I'm going through, i know there was a reason i drifted to this song

A++ on that write-up.

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

I think it's about wanting something you can't have, but even that thing you desire so much isn't what you need. "She tastes like the real thing." in a world full of fakeness, he wants desperatly to believe that this one is "the real thing." He's willing to be fake himself. Have you ever seen the shel silverstein poem about the woodpecker and the rubber tree? it just keeps pecking anyway. it's absolute desperation.

"The saddest thing I ever did see Was a woodpecker peckin' at a plastic tree. He looks at me, and 'Friend,' says he, 'Things ain't as sweet as they used to be.'" -Shel Silverstein

Not Valid

Close. It's about desiring to be something more for someone else. If I could be all you wanted. It's the desperation of not being enough for someone whom you wish would feel that you were enough.

Not Valid
Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

And it wears me out, it wears me out It wears me out, it wears me out

If i could be who you wanted If i could be who you wanted all the time, all the time

I played this song while I was contemplating suicide. I was (still) facing a lot of heartache: my asperger's is a significant obstacle to my social life, my dad physically and verbally abuses me, and the women i love are nice but are shallow, materialistic and don't love me back. By august 26, these things wore me out and i finally tried to kill myself because i felt like no one will ever love me enough to stop hurting me like my dad or love me for who i am. If i could be who she wanted me to be, i feel that women would finally accept me. this shallowness of our society just destroys good hearted people who may not be gorgeous but have a lot to offer. this song is easily one of my favorite songs but it is also one of the saddest songs for this reason.

Memory

It is unfortunate that such great deep songs always make some people think (more) of suicide. I think the fact that they impact someone so drastically clearly indicates the songs' brilliance despite the potentially negative side effect.

@buggy1984 I was at that point too. But believe me you will find love man. We all do. But in the mean time do what makes you happy. (Unless that's skinning people and making them into lamps) ((if you watch American horror story you know what I mean)) You seem pretty awesome actually! The way you an push through all that you've been through. You're stronger than you realize.

@buggy1984 I can't be sure if you are still alive, who knows maybe you actually did it. I can say that when I heard this song a couple of months after I tried for my fifth and final time to kill myself, that if I had heard this song I might of actually gone through with it. All my attempts were very bad ones, but I just wanted to see if I could feel anything, or if there was still something inside me that made me human. I remember that when I used to cut myself that...

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

There are 3 stories: a woman wrapped in fake happiness, a man creating fake realities and who is eventually owned by it, and the speaker's own love.

For me the first two serve as a backdrop for the third story. The third story is actually where the music picks up. Simliar to what has been posted, it's about loving someone so much that you are forced to be someone you are not. The song laments on how difficult it is, but he has no choice. Love makes you do crazy stuff. It makes you endure things you don't want to endure.

But it's wearing him out.

How it ends is really up to you.

My Interpretation

@migmol this is the interpretation that may best reflect the intent of the composer, IMHO.

It is very interesting though, to see how everyone gives it a different interpretation based on the filter of their own personal context they see it through.

With that in mind, I take and own the part where he says:

It wears me out. It wears me out...

@migmol Really good interpretation. Your explanation resonates with me.

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

There's something so piercing about this song and its utter sense of hopelessness, yet it ultimately makes it so comforting

So true...

Not Valid

I love this song, but afraid to hear it

@MercurySmile words cant describe the feeling. That's the beauty of this song. It has a common feeling in all meanings. And it's comforting.

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

He's talking about the American lifestyle. We don't care about how something really is, as long as it looks good and gives a good impression to those whose opinions mean something to us. The girl married the guy, because her family would be happy she married a successful guy who probably did plastic surgery which is faker than fake. Everyone is just living in a house of cards, no one knows who anyone really is anymore because society dictates what we should be.

@apk1550 Yes, or maybe modern/Western life. We\'ve given up the rigid dogma of religion and moral codes for a soft \'figure it out as go go\' lifestyle. Which does indeed wear us out. Extremely technical jobs that require heavy education but serve very little. Women trying to match the online ideal and men crushed by the guilt of their intersectional oppression. It\'s all postmodern malaise. And yet the song inspires deeply.

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

Wow, great and sad song, Thom is a genius...

this song quite describes my life right now ):

In a world that people and feelings are shallow and fake, I found a different and sensitive girl, a girl who sees the things as I do...and soon i was madly in love with her

"She looks like the real thing She tastes like the real thing"

And yeah, after a long time gathering courage, and that feeling burning me inside, i told her how much i love her, how much i care and want to stay with her...

but she just don't care about me and my feelings. I don't make any difference in her life...

"It wears me out"...

Even thought, i still love her, but i can't do anything about it, she doesn't want me...

"If I could be who you wanted all the time"

shit, i want you so much. can't stop crying listening to this :'(

It's incredible how close your tale is to mine. I am plagued by my infatuation with this girl, but unlike your tale, she is no different to the plastic people I see daily. She ignores me and just doesn't even want to have anything to do with me. Oh how I wish I could be who she wanted.

Not Valid

can i join the club?? But I might win with my history. Is quite simple, this girl was everything I wanted, she was more than perfect, utterly beautiful and deeply interesting, we shared a vision you could say and the best part: she was in love with me, just like i was in love with her. We had a long realtionship like for a year, half our senior year and first semester in college. Then things started to turn bad. Then I realized that it was because she started change with college, he started to be like everybody else, kindda shallow,...

Not Valid

Damn to nrs182`s story! I know you feeling bro. I Its remind me to my brake up just 3 weeks ago.

It is so close to my story. Only, i feel more lucky because i just date this girl just for 2 months. Short story, Similar as yours, she started to like everybody else. In just 2 month we are so close,, one of my most intimate relationship. But after she meeting that bastard, who is more likely to be her father, it completely different. When we broke up, she said that she never went to serious relationship with me,...

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

To me this song is all about artificial societal conformity. The goal to be what the world deems is 'perfect' is a constant challenge because of aging and 'gravity' as mentioned in the song. It speaks of a man who was a plastic surgeon who once thought looks were everything, that's where he first fell in love and that's where his money came from, but eventually he realized that there is no authenticity in pretending to be something else. The perpetual struggle to remain perfect actually causes imperfection, and in conclusion, 'it wore him out', like it wears all of us out. Perfection is nonexistent, and we're all living in a fake plastic world trying to be something we're not.

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

My take. This is a song about a woman who married a rich plastic surgeon and had the perfect live living in the suburbs. Years later, neither were happy. He was a depressed plastic surgeon and she realized the material things didn't make her happy anymore. She was stuck in the the suburbs acting like she was happy with her fake smile, fake watering can, watering her flowers, which she didn't give a shit about, while here she still lived with her miserable, depressed husband. WOuld make a rather good fictional book.

Cover art for Fake Plastic Trees lyrics by Radiohead

this is my favorite song... whenever i cant sleep, i put on this song and im out like a light. his voice is just so soothing, ya know? i think this song is about how everything in the world is so corrupt and... fake? even the trees... and its like not even love can be real anymore..