Hey, you know Radiohead's 1995 single "High And Dry"? Good song! Very pretty! Very achy! You could certainly argue that it's one of the most conventional songs that Radiohed ever recorded, but that doesn't make it bad. Thom Yorke may feel differently, though. Radiohead haven't performed "High And Dry" since 1998, which would certainly imply that it's not one of their favorites. Also, Yorke straight-up told Harry Styles that he wishes he hadn't written the song at all.
Once a year, Rolling Stone does its "Musicians On Musicians" interview, where it puts together pairs of stars and gets them to talk to each other. The new issue has arrived, and its cover story is a meetup of Harry Styles and Thom Yorke, two people who seem to actively avoid the temptation to say anything too interesting or revealing in the interview format. But Yorke did basically grimace when Styles brought up "High And Dry," so that's something.
I guess the more accurate description would be to say that Yorke implied that he wishes he hadn't written "High And Dry." During their conversation, Styles mentioned something that he heard Yorke say on a podcast, about how Yorke likes to think of his vocal as just one of the instruments in a song. Styles asked Yorke, "Is that something you noticed, when that changed for you? Because you say you don’t so much sit and write a song, like, 'I’m going to sit here, and this is a song and this is how it goes' — you think of how it sits in the production. But obviously, if you go back to The Bends, for example, like 'High And Dry,' that is a song."
Styles pretty clearly meant that as a compliment, but Yorke responded, "Yeah, a guy with an acoustic guitar. Singing his song. That particular one I wish I hadn’t [winces in pain], but there’s nothing wrong with that."
Yorke continued:
I don’t listen to a lot of singer-songwriters. I listen to a lot of mad old folk music, or I listen to film music, or I listen to electronic music. The banging away on the guitar thing is sometimes when it really speaks to me, but not a lot. I’m not quite sure why that is — probably because we grew up when there was a real renaissance of that, and The Bends was that.
Earlier this year, Styles cited Radiohead's 2025 live shows as an inspiration for his new album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. Styles also made a speech honoring Yorke at this year's Ivor Novello Songwriter Awards, where he mentioned that he lost his virginity to Radiohead's "Talk Show Host." In the Rolling Stone story, Styles clarifies that it was actually "the intro of ‘Talk Show Host.'"
Styles also mentions that he met Yorke for the first time on the street, before going to see the Smile in Rome; the two of them were both just walking around unaccompanied. The interview has a lot of talk about how important it is to walk around like a regular person even if you're super-famous, something that Yorke says he learned from Michael Stipe, and then it goes into vague talk about imposter syndrome and the nature of creativity.
Yorke says how uncomfortable he feels at things like the Ivor Novello Awards, and he mentions that he loved playing the recent Radiohead shows but that "my response to it afterwards was to crash, like massively crash, in terms of self-confidence. It took me months… It took me starting on my own record again two months later to go, 'Oh, OK. I’m good now. I’m fine.' I just have a really odd relationship with it. And I’ve just grown used to that." You can read the full conversation here.
