Fake Plastic Trees

According to Thom Yorke, this is a song about an area in east London called Canary Wharf, which was built on unused wasteland by the docks of the Thames. The area was supposed to be a major business district, but it was hurt by a market downturn in the '90s. Canary Wharf was landscaped with a lot of artificial plants, which is where the title came from.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Yorke said that this was the song where he found his lyrical voice. He cut the vocal, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, in one take, then the band filled in its parts around him. Yorke said the song began as "A very nice melody which I had no idea what to do with, then you wake up and find your head singing some words to it."

An acoustic version was featured in the 1995 film Clueless and its accompanying soundtrack. In the movie, Cher (Alicia Silverstone) criticizes her stepbrother's taste in music when she overhears him listening to the tune, calling it "crybaby music." When asked by Vox if he minded the insult, Yorke replied: "I mean, I suppose it does piss me off, but I am a moaning crybaby from Hell, really. Besides, the characters in that film aren't the kind of people I'd want to like Radiohead. They're just average, two dimensional Beverly Hills kids, and the person who is actually listening to them to us in the film is the only three dimensional character. So the answer is: 'F--k you, we're for 3D people!'" Karyn Rachtman, the movie's music supervisor, admitted Cher was reflecting her own opinion of the band at the time. "I looked at them as 'the whiny band,' and I was very, 'Whatever' on them," she explained to Flavorwire. "I became a Radiohead fan later on, but I remember hearing at the time that they were assholes. I had to go to England to show them Clueless, and Thom Yorke was such a great guy. I may have really played up how shallow Cher was, like, 'Of course she's going to call you whiny, it's a compliment, get it?' They were fine with it."