Lyrics for Fake Plastic Trees as interpreted by piesupreme

Fake Plastic Trees Lyrics
Her green plastic watering-can
For her 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

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery for girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins and 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

If I could be who you wanted all the time

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DammitSteve
07-09-2002

Rated 0 
This is one of the standard message of unhappiness to to false comforts. The line "but GRAVITY always
wins and it wears him out." Is a great and clever description of it. Superb lyrics as always, and I agree that Thom does a great job with the lyrics here.

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Curator
07-10-2002

Rated 0 
Fake plastica... everywhere you look... yuppies in coffee shops talking overly loud to gain attention to their pathetic existences... 1st class passengers making the most of their limited so-called upper echelon time frame... pretty material goods surrounding the ugliness within...

I see it every day.

If I were Hitler, they would be the ones targeted for genocide.

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Stu62_uk
07-24-2002

Rated 0 
apparntly Thom recorded the song and then broke down in tears, the mans a genious

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lucyinthesky
07-27-2002

Rated 0 
if i could be who you wanted all the time - feeling completely drained and desperately besotted with someone who doesnt care the same way about you. feeling like you're losing part of yourself in a futile effort to please them. thats what this song means to me.

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georgy
08-05-2002

Rated 0 
this song was written in 1987, when thom was on holiday in berlin. It shows how big cities can make you feel sad, and inadiquette. Berlin was half destroyed in the war and has lots of modern plastics in it too.

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Shezzie
08-05-2002

Rated 0 
Wow I never new that. Georgy must be a really big Radiohead fan to know stuff like that. All hail Georgy. If you know any more interesting facts like that email me them.

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georgy
08-06-2002

Rated 0 
Too Shezzie: Interesting factamundos?!! Here we go:
.Phil Selway (The bassist) records all his bits for the songs separately because he gets bad gas.
. Tom Yhorke was once on blockbusters, teamed up with? none other than mister bonkers himself, Paul Martin! (It was never shown due to a dispute.)
. Radiohead used to be called: "Up A Friday" I've loads more. Jubbo ,Jubbo, mibba, Babes!!!!

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deathbear
08-06-2002

Rated 0 
i seriously hope that was a joke georgy lol

phil selway is the drummer of course

uh i have a feelin the 2nd one probably didnt happen

and radiohead was called ON a Friday because they practice on fridays

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deathbear
08-06-2002

Rated 0 
practiced*

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lifessweetlemon
08-17-2002

Rated 0 
I got the impression that the song is about him having an affair with a woman who is married to the "Cracked polystyreneman" and all the sneaking around "wears hims out" and her. So the relationship is fake as they can't let anybody know about it and he wishes he could turn and run but he can't...
Well thats my thoughts.

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JohnnyBlueJeans
08-17-2002

Rated 0 
I know this is a lyirc site, but this song is a musical masterpiece as well as a lyrical one. The structure of the song is quite simple, but it is the crescendo of the piece that makes it outstanding. It start so gently as Thom sings about the woman, and starts to build at "She looks like the real thing..." to its amazing climax right before the line "But I can't help the feeling...", expressing the songwriters melancholy frustration. The ending collapses back to the original tempo and tone, betraying the hopeless left in its wake. There are a few songs better than this in the world, but not many.

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JohnnyBlueJeans
08-17-2002

Rated 0 
I know this is a lyirc site, but this song is a musical masterpiece as well as a lyrical one. The structure of the song is quite simple, but it is the crescendo of the piece that makes it outstanding. It start so gently as Thom sings about the woman, and starts to build at "She looks like the real thing..." to its amazing climax right before the line "But I can't help the feeling...", expressing the songwriters melancholy frustration. The ending collapses back to the original tempo and tone, betraying the hopeless left in its wake. There are a few songs better than this in the world, but not many.

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dylmeister
09-03-2002

Rated 0 
i've heard many different meanings to this song which, in a sense, all are right and all are wrong... when analyzing poetry and symbolism, there is never a right or wrong answer...

all in all, this is my favourite radiohead song and i can understand why Thom broke down in tears after recording this song, it makes me want to cry every time i hear it....

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BigKaboshProductions
09-16-2002

Rated 0 
This is by far my favorite radiohead song, actually its one of my favorite songs period. Apparently, they did this song right after going to a jeff buckley show that night. This song is a masterpiece. "If i could be who you wanted all the time..."

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givmezen
09-28-2002

Rated 0 
This is about FAKING everyting & how it leads to DEHUMANIZATION! A good theme for the new millennium!

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DancingMelly
10-05-2002

Rated 0 
Oh, man. I was on my way to bed when this song came on, and now I can't help but think this is going to be a long and sleepless night.

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KidAmnesiac
10-07-2002

Rated 0 
This song is actually for the mass marketing and mass consumption. It has nothing to do with fake love. Thom yorke isn't that shallow to tell everybody that love is fake. Read Radiohead From A Great Height and you will understand why I say this is what it is about.

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xScOttSaDoRkx
10-10-2002

Rated 0 
All of Radiohead's videos are.. excellent. And Thom's voice is superb. This is one of my favorite songs by them, either this or Knives Out (with another amazing video).

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colinos
03-07-2003

Rated 0 
When I saw them live, Tom said this song was about the London Docklands Development in London. The docklands was regenrated into a false environment that meant the original residents of the area moved away and "yuppies" moved in. The environment is totally false and put on there, and is a metaphor for how the world is becoming. It has notrhing to do with love as such.

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TheartsTBS
03-13-2003

Rated 0 
Just because Thom saw it as that doesnt mean that other people can interpret it as being about love. That is what is great about Radiohead you can look at it from so many different angles.

Personally I got that he sees this person and she is everything that society would expect her to be, perfect in everyway. He is saying that it is not possible, she has to have her own personality, her own identity- not just societal values.

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jhienkleson
03-16-2003

Rated 0 
The way I see it, is the singer is watching the new life of a woman he once loved. She was fake, as in she preteneded to be someone she wasn't. The singer wasn't like that, and she left him for a guy who was fake and who makes others fake.

The last part of the song is his frustration that she threw herself into this fake world, even though he knows she would be better off if she was real.

In the last line, he is wishing that he could be what she wanted all of the time, so she would be with him, but he refuses to because he doesn't want to be fake like everyone else.

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operative11
03-18-2003

Rated 0 
I still remember a dream I had when I was about 13, about a girl... It was just a scene of her, we didnt even speak, just a look she gave me from a distance, of hope, as if saying I'm fine, but please, i need your help... She looks like the real thing, my fake plastic love. I woke up and never seen her again, but naive as I am, I still love her at 16.

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colinos
03-25-2003

Rated 0 
Ok, interpret it how you like. It doesn't mean it's the right way does it?

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Crapy91
04-08-2003

Rated 0 
marijuana + fake plastic trees = WOW!!!!

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youneverknow
04-09-2003

Rated 0 
According to Thom, this song is about Canary Warf in London. A song written for the world of mass marketing and mass consumption.

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