creep

By Kenny Coughlan

To me, this song is when you're at a club or something, and you see a beautiful girl. The first verse describes her beauty, but then comes: "I'm a creep, I'm a wierdo, what the hell am I doing here", and that's when you think "Look at me! Why would she be interested in me?" and all the other things that you hate about yourself.

By Qwenchtherst@cs.com

This song is your usual (or not so usual since we are dealing with Radiohead-a very complex and ethereal band) song that explores everyone's occasional days when their self-esteem is down. At some point we all feel inferior, especially when we observe someone who we are infatuated with. This song describes a person's infatuation with someone whom he feels he can't compare with.
By BlueKaz000@aol.com

I relate creep to my current love life. There is this girl that I absolutely am enfatuated with (Liz), she is perfect in all ways. But I just can't seem to say anything to her or likewise even be near her, look at her,etc, she just makes me too nervous, you chicken out form all social situtations with her because you "don't belong here". The reason is that you feel your not worthy enough to talk to her. In conclusion you are left just apreciating seeing her face on a day to day distance (from a distance of course) and you know there is nothing more you can do about it.
By Wesley Van de Vyver

The reason that it is so popular besides the fact that it sounds so good is that every one no matter how cool they are can relate to it in some way. I am no exeption and neither are you. You so badly want to feel someones love that it causes you pain beyond belief. You want to be loved. But you ask yourself the question, "Why me?" or as Radiohead says it "But Im a Creep." You cannot fit, you are just too wierd/ different "Im a wierdo."

The song explains itself, It is absolutely pathetic, He goes into a high pitched winge "SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEES runing out agaaaaaaaaaain" He keeps on forcing it but he does not fit, he is not compatable and yet he keeps on forcing it, his absession, his total obsession is blinding him. He knows hes hurting himself but he just keeps on forcing and forcing.

How can he make her like him, "I want a perfect body I want a perfect soul." To him she is GOD "you float like a feather" and "I couldnt look you in the eyes." This shows shes too good to be true.

All he wants is her but he cant have her so what the hells is he going to do.

Another deep scar to his soal.
By Jeff

creep is a song about a man whose love for a girl is infinite, but a man who isn't loved back. creep is a song about a girl who is so perfect for that man in every way except that she doesnt love him. creep is a great attempt to put in words what no writer can truly express: the mixture between happiness and heartbreak; happiness simply at the sight of that girl, and heartbreak at the sight of her with someone else. but even though she doesnt love him and never will, he loves her now and forever. the contradiction that that is, is truly what makes creep great. i love you lindsay.
By ctn05975@centurytel.net

I heard that this song was about a drunk guy in a bar who sees this gorgeous woman, but he doesn't have the confidence to talk to her. I like that interpretation ok, but i like mine, because it's universal. I think it's about this guy who's head over feet in love with the most beautiful woman he's ever laid his eyes on. He may or may not be an outcast, but he has low self-esteem, and can't talk or even look at this girl. She gives him chills and he's all nervous around her.

He just admires her from a distance, putting her up high on a pedastal, and putting himself down. He's not worthy of her. She's so sweet and absolutely stunning. He wants to try to fit into her world, but he knows he feel stupid, and doesn't belong there. When he finally gathers enough confidence to talk to her, she ultimately rejects him. He's heartbroken, but he doesn't blame her. He's still in love with her, but he accepts that he can't live in her world, so he admires her yet again, from a distance, as he goes back to his depressed world, calling himself a creep and weirdo.
By Eoin

This song is apparently about Thom's infatuation with a girl he used to see regularly in the Oxford Cafe scene. Lyrics everyone can identify with... my personal favourite is "I want you to notice when I'm not around..." To me this describes the feeling you get when you know somebody but feel so much more for them than they seem to feel for you.
By Ted

I have to say, Creep helped me through a deep depression. There was this lovley woman named Kathy at work. For two years I would see her almost everyday. She was an angel. I wanted so badly just to speak words to her. I dreamed of being able to look in her eyes and not have to turn away.She left and I never got to speak to her. I left her a note telling her how inspiring and what a lady she was, just before she left. She never responded back. Cause I'm a crep. I'm a wierdo.
By Hipchic1994@aol.com

My favorite line of this song is also "I want you to notice when I'm not around".I thought it was about someone intimidated to approach his crush but I also kinda thought it was about a guy who cheated or screwed things up with his girlfriend who is beautiful and good to him.Loving someone who you feel you don't deserve.The reason I thought it might be about cheating were the lines "couldn't look you in the eye" like as if he were hiding something and couldn't stand to break her heart but "I don't care if it hurts I want to have control." is like trying to not feel guilty about it."I want you to notice when I'm not around" could also mean kinda like blaming her for trusting him too much to be away from her at times.When she finds out she leaves him.but that's just another way of looking at it.
By Felipe Angeles

This song is about a drunk in a disco or a bar os something laike that. He's so in himself and his wine or beer, maybe with some friends. But then love runs to him: that amazing girl that makes him have a very deep feeling. And he realizes that he's drunk, that he is nobody for her. As he says "i wanna have control..a perfect body..a prefect soul", he wouldn't like to be himself at that time. He can't look her in the eyes 'cause he's lost, he's drunk. He does not belog there.
By Simon

To me, Creep is a song about a man who is infactuated with a girl, but he knows she is out of his league. She means so much to him, it hurts him just to look at her, because he knows he cant ever have her. She is so perfect to him, even looking at her skin hurts him, makes him cry. But then he realises that he is out of his depth, that he doesnt belong there. He then analyses his imperfections, "i want a perfect body" etc. He feels so insignificant in comparision to her, all he wants is to be noticed by her "i want you to notice when im not around". He is willing to do anything for her "whatever makes you happy, whatever you want". But its not enough, hes a creep, a weirdo, out of his league. He doesnt belong with her.
By Chris

i think Creep is about a man who goes back to the place where he and his girlfriend broke up. the line 'when we were here before/couldnt look you in the eye' means that he was so saddened he couldnt look at her. the reason: 'your just like an angel/your skin makes me cry' if he looked up, he would be extremely sad. the 'i'm a creep/i'm a weirdo/what the hell am i doing here/ i dont belong here' is that he is asking himself why he came back to the place. 'i dont care if it hurts/i wanna have control' is saying he wants their relationship to come back together again. 'i want a perfect body/ i want a perfect soul' this line probably refers to the next one 'i want you to notice/that when i'm not around/you're so fucking special/i wish i was special' is that he wishes he was perfect so she would love him again. that is what i think.i think we can all relate to that. looking forward to 'Kid A'
By KellyAnn

I can definately relate CREEP to my past crush. I was the one who was so head over heels for this wonderful guy. I had finally let someone into my life and my thoughts and things seemed fairy tale-ish. He almost seemed so dreamy as if he was standing ghostlike in my dreams. "..floats like a feather" Nothing could make me see anything thing negative about him. And "I wanted him to notice when i wasn't around" just as much as i noticed when he wasn't around. I missed him that much. I find out after my eyes come to focus that the MAN i thought i liked, was just a little boy. He was not as mature as my mind had been led to believe and that was when I though "I dont belong here" I didnt belong near him, around him, or thinking of him. " I couldn't look him in the eyes". I had to get out! He was MY CREEP.
By marcus..w..

I belive that this song is a last attempt at a failing relationship. We all can relate and simpathize with the man in this song. I belive he was holding on to this woman so tight that he has pushed himself away,and he feels like shit and he just cant let her go. so he tries to be the man he was when they met but in all his efforts he tries to hard to be himself and ends up being a groveling idiot.
By Ryan

This song can be viewed on so many levels. First, it can be a simple love song about a guy who doesn't think he is worth the girl that he loves. On a higher level it could be about manic depression and the view of someone who has the disease. This person runs the gamut of emotions every time coming back to the feeling that he is a loser.
By Critic#1

This song seems to convey a bit of self-loathing I think. Picture this: a person standing in the middle of a dimly lit room full of laughing people, feeling so uncomfortable in his/her skin, and catching a glimpse of the love of their life, the one who openly loves them back... the laughing is muted, their is silence, only the beating of that person's heart. They begin to walk forward and then suddenly, one of their shoelaces trips them up and because of their self-hatred and feelings of inadequacy or even not having the ability to do anything right, they begin to push the other away not necessarily in a physical manner either. And they begin to break down... break down... break down... until they feel as though they are completely unnacceptable to society, an outcast surrounded by beautiful people who know who they are and where they belong in that society. It almost seems as if the song is portraying an image of the akwardness of youth.
By Colin

I was watching what I would consider to be the most unhyped and under-rated film of the nineties, called SFW. (so f---ing what). Creep appears in the movie as our young hero tries to comprehend the idiocy of an event that has turned him into a national hero, a symbol of frustration, when he knows he is just a victim of circumstance.The undue publicity and idolisation is frightening and he questions it's validity. As an art student I used this song to edit a series of photos and videography of fashion shows and rock 'n roll acts that I covered during the nineties. (it was a personal project and not used for financial gain, other than to get future work). I got a lot of strange reactions because people thought it was a song of unrequited love. I think it is a song that explains the untouchability of our fashion models, rock icons and sports stars. When joe public suddenly feels himself capable of becoming someone, he/she questions their mere mortalness and perhaps worthiness. We put our icons on pedastals and only feel safe looking up to them.
By Butterat

Creep is a satire. It is not meant to be taken seriously. Thom was in a bad relationship and he felt like making fun of the girl by pointing out to her that she seemed like she was infinitely better than everyone else. The fact that this song was a flop when it was released was kind of a negative thing for Thom, but it was all made up for when it became a hit th enext summer. It was used simply as a tool of spite, do not interpret it as anything deeper than that you silly little sheep.
By Starlight2098

Creep, I feel, is about the feeling of being socially awkward... that feeling of frustration and anger - especially towards yourself - about being unable to communicate with people... even people you genuinely want to meet...

And quickly being dismissed as a wierdo.

The radio edit, I thought, dissolved the strong feeling of anger that the songs shows... the frustration of inability makes you want to swear... a lot...
By NicoleTheStrange

This is a song about suicide. The narrator feels they're a "cronic misfit", that they don't fit in anywhere. And, because of society's expectations, thinks they're not "Good enough" ("I want a perfect body/ I want a perfect soul"). The narrator wishes he/she was special (a.k.a. normal) like everyone else. I think the line "Skin makes me cry" means he/she is not happy with themselves. They wonder, if they're not 'important', then why bother being alive?
Then the issue of suicide comes upin the line "I'm a widow". He/she is thinking about all the people they'll leave behind after they kill themself.
There's lot of interpretations to this song, but I can relate this one better, because I often feel like a "Cronic misfit".
By Jobbie

I think Butterat is nearer to the mark than the all the romantic self-loathers on this one.

The lyrics "You're so fucking special..." and even more so the sanitised daytime version "You're so very special...", "...I wish I was special" are dripping with sarcasm.

Seems to me the message is pretty simple - "I thought you were great, but not as much as you did you stuck-up cow".
Just more gracefully expressed!

Probably written in revengeful glee a la Carly Simon's "You're so vain".
By Dam-Dam

for me, this isn't that kind of fucking love pop song, this is life, the singer don't want to say that he's a creep, he wants to laught about the people who told him that someday or think that, this song is a crytical lyric of the society
By From a literary standpoint...

While the song has been partially explained by the band to be about a drunken student trying to approach a woman he is attracted to, I find the song particularly rich for the way it mirrors the lover and the beloved. Clearly the object of the singer's gaze, the woman also blurs into his insecurities becoming not only his object of desire external to himself, but also a projection of his own inferiority -- of everything within. Thus, her running away indicates a Lacanian rupture whereby the ideal image of perfection represented by the woman (which also represents an ideal self that has on some plane of existence the slightest chance of attaining her love), becomes recognized for what it truly is -- the singer's inability to possess her. Not because of any fault of the woman, but because he's the creep, the weirdo. However, this introspection is incited by sight of her, and by a subconscious propensity to measure his sense of self based on her sense of him -- in other words, her reaction to him becomes a reflection of what he considers to be his true self. The fantasy of the Ideal "I" crumbles on her departure, and he is left no longer singing to her his offers of devotion, but in the last stanza concludes by singing the same words into an introspective void as he tries to locate himself: "What the hell am I doing here? / I don't belong here." But the lonesome echoes of the song leave me with a sense that he continues spiralling downward into his own emptiness, fixated upon his loss, revealing an inability to find himself anywhere else except in his fantasies of perfection.
By Southern Cross

yes, i think this is the SONG that saves too many people from the depression. it did to me. i absolutely agree with the others interpretations. what else could i add? i just can say that never before this song is so appropriate to me until now... the one that "floats like a feather" "whose skin makes me cry" and "running again" (specially this one verse) is called Marjorie... sorry if i sound a little weirdo.
By Stanley-Plutonium

after being diagnosed with manic depression, this song took on a hole new meaning to me other than the whole "beautiful girl too good for the low self esteemed plagued guy" scenario...i see it as a song dedicated not to a person better than you,but to yourself. it's like looking in a mirror-and seeing the happy,friendly,outgoing person you used to be-but then watching that image morph into what you are now-the low self esteemed,hermit like,slob.the line-"when you were here before/couldn't look you in the eye"-to me means that when you were your former self, you never realised how lucky you were to be that person...and now you envy the person you used to be,which leads to you hating yourself more, and the line "you're so fucking specia/ i wish i was special" seems to point that out even more. the line-"what the hell am i doing here/i don't belong here" really reached out to me because i knew depression didn't seem like a thing i should have-i didn't belong in the situation where i was an outcast."i want a perfect body/i want a perfect soul" meant that i wanted to be back to my normal self. the line-i want you to notice when i'm not around- meant that i wanted myself to realise what was happening to me, and to make the effort to change it...even though i didn't seem to be making the effort... basically saying that i wanted myself to see what i was doing-and how messed up it was.then the dramatic"she's running out the door" sequence meant that maybe i did deserve to be depressed,and maybe it was better for me to give up and die, because in the state i was in i could see no way out. so it was like telling myself i was finally just giving up.then the end of the song- from "whatever makes you happy-" until the closing "i don't belong here" showed that i had a small bit of hope left in me,and that even though i didn't know how to get better, at least i finally realised that once you hit rock bottom , if you survive it, the only place to go is back up.
By kid A[li]

This song was written for me. The lyrics are a perfect example of how you feel out casted by media. Every morning I wake up, & I feel like killing myself because we live in a "Backstreer world" or a "Britney Spears world." Where we are all suppose to be a looker. And Britney's garbage, what is that bitch retarded give me back my $16. This song speaks out for people who THINKS that their a werido and they want to be/ be with a foxy lady/man. But is it all really worth it?
By Radiohead Fan

To me this song remeinds me of someone who comes back and every guy is head over heels for her. While another girl wants special attention from a guy who likes the perfect person. The "Creep"(the girl who likes the guy) figures she has to look perfect to be noticed by everyone. *I don't care if it hurts,i want to have control,i want a perfect body I want a perfect soul I want you to notice when i'm not around...* makes me think how the "Creep" goes thru anorexia or bulemia and gets terrible sick and begins to think they don't belong here in the end of the song. Its basicly describes how messed up the world is today with appearance.
By JP

Oh c'mon. This can't be about love. It's about being yourself and suffering for it in todays "Fit in and be cool" society. Thom's too smart to dilute into a "she loves me not" babble song.
By Roxanna

I don't think "Creep" is some sappy love song...no offense to anyone. I think that the "she" Thom is referring to is society and how he wants to fit in but he's insecure. He wants to be "perfect" and have people notice that he's not around. It reminds me of the T.S. Eliot poem, "the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? .....Do I dare disturb the universe?" That's just my opinion though.
By Noel

This song explores the mind of the average guy which I can be enlisted as one. Its as if everone has at at least once become come totally engulfed by the thought of having this one special girl whos beauty is in your eyes uncomparable to any other but this is the very irony of the song, the beauty which attracted you to her in the first place is the very thing that is keeping you from even taking a chance to walk over and tell her how you feel you want to take that chance but even though its tearing you apart from the inside you'd rather feel this kind of pain rather than the pain that comes with rejection I should know its happend to me but that probably what makes this song stand out its a situation thats probably happened to every guy no matter how great you think you are your still human.
By Edd

I think that if the song did not have the word "fucking" in it then it should have been used in the Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast" as that is what it is about. Being eternally attracted to someone you think you can't have because you think you are an ogre in comparison. Sad.
By anonymous

"Creep" is the song of my "love life" at the moment.
"You float like a feather in a beautiful world"--He is so graceful, he carries himself so beautifully...
The situation is, from my point of view, he (the "she" in this song) has a girlfriend, but he likes another girl. He doesn't like this other girl quite enough to do anything about it, and he stays with his girlfriend. That's where "what the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here." comes in. I think that exact thing. He can't possibly really want me like he says, so I should just get out of his life.
"Whatever makes you happy, whatever you want." I say that to him. He can stay with his girlfriend until kingdom come, because I'm just not worth it. He doesn't see that I would make him so much happier than he is now, but for the time being he's satisfied with his mediocre relationship. And he can have it.
I'm a creep.
I'm a weirdo.
Everyone is SCARED of me. Sure, I work fine as a friend, but once I get somewhere more serious with a guy, he says it just doesn't feel right or something.
"Sheeee's ruunnnning out agaaaaaiiiiinnnnn..." That's me. Running from my stupid problems, running from everything.
By Paul

I discovered this song at a very weak point in my life, and it fitted - or at least I wanted it to, and that's exactly what it's all about - craving sympathy, wanting a loving arm, and not really caring about anything else, it's very selfish.
It's about living a life that seems to be not worth living, it's about fear or rejection that might have stemmed from childhood, it's about missing out on something in your life that would of made it ordinary, it's about all of these things.
Sometimes things happen for a reason, this song made Radiohead, and yet it's about something so terrible, so maybe if you understand it, then you might make it too. Good luck to you.
By Jonny EOL

I think we've all undergone the feelings contained within 'Creep' at some point in our lives. It's one of the few easily interpreted Radiohead songs (many can't be interpreted at all). My personal experience relates however, no just to one girl, but to a whole group of people - I'm speaking about my first year at uni, where my semi-gothic alt-rocker ways were totally alien to the broadly middle-class, attached-at-the-waist couples I came across. I seriously thought 'What the hell am I doing here?' - and the line 'I don't care if it hurts - I wanna have control' speaks of the easy way out I ended up falling for - alcohol, and lots of it. I didn't think of radically changing my life, I just didn't feel up to it. And the 'I wish I was special' - I definetly felt unimportant, ignored by my cold-shouldered contemporaries. But what would I care? They can rot in hell, I've left 'em far behind now.
By Ece

i have never loved a song except creep:) I rather believe it must be my story... i do want him to notice when i am not around too. i don't certainly belong here and i wish i was special but i am a creep also you are so fucking special too what else can i say???