Street Spirit (Fade Out)

## Description

Over their thirty-year-plus career, Radiohead has had many iconic songs. Few, however, have achieved that special apex of both widespread popularity and hardcore fan support in the same way that Street Spirit (Fade Out) had. A simple song in conception - the whole thing is anchored around a single guitar arpeggio performed by Ed - Street Spirit shows Radiohead at their most emotionally raw and existentially troubled. Simultaneously gorgeous and deeply depressing, this song has an otherworldly power to it, which explains why it has gone on to become perhaps one of the band's three or four most iconic tracks. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Radiohead fan who does not at least appreciate the hell out of Street Spirit - it is truly special.

## Live history

This section is going to be very long, for one simple reason - Street Spirit is the most-played song in the band's history. Since its one-off performance in 1993, Street Spirit has appeared as a setlist regular in every major tour by the band. Although some years (1994-1998, 2000-2003) have received far more performances of this song than others (2012 namely), a Radiohead tour would simply not be complete without this song being played regularly. It has appeared as a full-band rendition, a Thom solo song, a Thom and Jonny workout - name a configuration of band members, and they've probably played this song at least once. It is that ubiquitous.

Yet despite its ubiquity, a surprising fact about Street Spirit is that most of its performances - especially the full band ones - are pretty similar in sound and arrangement. The song differs from similarly ubiquitous ones in their history, like Creep, in that the band clearly still love and relish the chance to play it, so there are few truly *bad* takes of this song. It really just depends on one's individual tastes.

### 1993

For such a major song, Street Spirit (Fade Out) - or, rather, Three-Headed Street Spirit, as it was then known - had a reasonably inconspicuous start. Out of nowhere, Thom performed Street Spirit acoustically while it was still brand new for the 1993-11-02 Musique Plus session. This is a lovely early performance, too. While the lyrics are still very different to the ones that would eventually find their home on the album version, the rest of the arrangement sounds pretty spot-on to the one that would appear on The Bends. It's a shame that the video quality here hampers it a fair bit; it's an important part of Radiohead history and a truly fascinating one.

### 1994

Street Spirit finally saw its first full-band performances in 1994. Surprisingly, however, it never really became a setlist regular that year, only played at a handful of shows (plus a good few Thom and Jonny renditions.) It's surprising to think that perhaps the band weren't all that confident about the song in 1994, seeing as it would go on to become one of the band's most beloved and popular songs. Admittedly, although performances from 1994 are generally strong, its best renditions would come later. Notable and/or recommended performances include:

* 1994-05-20, Festival Balélec, Lausanne, Switzerland - amazingly, the first-ever full-band Street Spirit was only discovered early in 2020, and it's a brilliant soundboard of a sublime performance (despite some mistakes from Jonny.)
* 1994-09-14 BBC Radio 1 'Evening Session' - predictably strong take for the BBC.
* 1994-0X-XX GLR Session - Thom and Jonny performances of this song are almost always great, and this is no exception - the interlocking guitars here are brilliant.
* 1994-11-01, MTV Latino, Miami, FL, USA - another knockout Thom and Jonny take for American TV. This one is urgent and brilliant.

## List of recordings

See Street Spirit (Fade Out)/Recordings for the (colossal) full list.