There is a lot of self-loathing in this song, where Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke sings, "But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo." When asked about the song in 1993, Yorke said, "I have a real problem being a man in the '90s... Any man with any sensitivity or conscience toward the opposite sex would have a problem. To actually assert yourself in a masculine way without looking like you're in a hard-rock band is a very difficult thing to do... It comes back to the music we write, which is not effeminate, but it's not brutal in its arrogance. It is one of the things I'm always trying: To assert a sexual persona and on the other hand trying desperately to negate it." On the other hand, guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood said the song was in fact a happy song about "recognizing what you are."

Yorke says this is about being in love with someone, but not feeling good enough. He describes the feeling as, "There's the beautiful people and then there's the rest of us."

Yorke wrote this in 1987 while he was a student at Exeter University in England. He first recorded it acoustic.