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
On girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins
And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it 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
SONG INFORMATION
Released: March 1995
Found on: The Bends & Fake Plastic Trees single. Acoustic version found on Fake Plastic Trees CD2.
Thom: “Last night I was called by the American record company insisting, well almost insisting, that we used a Bob Clearmountain mix of Fake Plastic Trees. I said: ‘No way.’ All the ghost-like keyboard sounds and weird strings were completely gutted out of his mix, like he’d gone in with a razor blade and chopped it all up. It was horrible.”
The band had just been to see Jeff Buckley play a set, and when they got back into the studio, Thom recorded the vocals in two takes and broke down in tears.
According to Thom, this song is about Canary Warf in London.
This song is one of the band’s largest hits – played live often.
A song written for the world of mass marketing and mass consumption. Many versions of “Fake Plastic Trees” are available, including the single from The Bends and an acoustic version on the CD single part 2, which also appears on the Clueless soundtrack. This song was the band’s proudest moment, and it remains a live favorite for obvious reasons.
*Green Plastic gets its name from this song! 🙂