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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Ryeter
10-21-2004

Rated 0 
Actually I lied. I think it means that he doesn't love her. He's realized he doesn't love her. That's why his love is fake plastic. He could "blow through the ceiling" running away from her. He wishes he could love her, because she loves him. He wishes he could be who she wants him to be, but he doesn't love her.

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nightowl3
10-26-2004

Rated 0 
I am listening to it right now on a dreary minnesota fall day, today it is calming to me, and other times i have driven around in my car with it on repeat just SOBBING...There isn't any particular thing about it that is so sad, just the combination of the words with the vocals and the guitar that grows...
Who hasn't felt that way....we are so thirsty for love we are willing to try what we know is fake, but we can't fool our hearts...
What an amazing song

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remember_her
11-02-2004

Rated 0 
(This might not make much sense, it was more well thought out in my head)

I think this song is about ENVY & REGRET...

There is always someone, real or not, who is what you want to be.
How things could be different if you more like that person. You make up stories and ideas that flow with the attraction of your envy. The feelings you and your lover will feel. They feel real, and it hurts to know that they are in your head. It won't happen. Never.
HENCE;
"
She Looks like the real thing.
She tastes like the real thing,
my fake plastic love. "

You want to become like the person, you feel the feelings your envy will feel..
HENCE;"...she bought from a rubber man in a town full of rubber plans
to get rid of itself,- it wears her out. "

No matter what you to to yourself, you cant become different.
HENCE; "He used to do surgery for girls in the eighties but GRAVITY always
wins and it wears him out."

You feel as if you more like this, you're lover will return the feelings you feel about them...
HENCE; "But I Can't Help The Feeling.
I Could Blow Through The Ceiling. "
&
"
If i could be who you wanted all the time.. "

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Splaire89
11-11-2004

Rated 0 
I agree with everyone's ideas about this song... it makes me cry everytime i hear it.
What i think of it: It's an extremely sad and true song cause it talks about how people go through life being something they are not, just to satisfy other people and how hard it is to go through ur entire life like this!

If i could be who you wanted all the time..

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patty*
11-13-2004

Rated 0 
Hey all, nothing new to say, I'm just one more person who life was touched by this song.

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dougievile
11-26-2004

Rated 0 
Dammit people!
It's just another break-up song.

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Bucko
12-03-2004

Rated 0 
The vocals were indeed recorded in two takes after Thom had attended a Jeff Buckley set, and he did indeed break down in tears.

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howz_g
12-08-2004

Rated 0 
this song makes me cry.. for me its about a break up, and this person is really missing the girl who broke up with him.

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Red_army
12-09-2004

Rated 0 
I belive its about a girl who's had a lot of plasic surgery, and obveriously ended up woith the surgen, its now the 90's and she no's she isn't what she really is, she is not herself, she wants to be herself again 'She Looks like the real thing.
She tastes like the real thing,
my fake plastic love.' this seems to me like she her self is plastic, fake.

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Red_army
12-09-2004

Rated 0 
this to me is a girl who has lots of plastic surgery during the 80's and is now regretting it, she has married her doctor, and no 1 uis ever perfect to him, she wants to be herself, she feels she is fake, its very sad song, i love it.

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em-ly
12-09-2004

Rated 0 
i absolutely love this song. It has this something about it that makes you feel like maybe its about you. And how you cant live your life being something that your not. It just doesnt work like that. Its just too hard and it hurts too much.

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shutdow
12-10-2004

Rated 0 
i dont know if this is right or wrong, in th lyrics using 2 negatives : fake, plastic.. makes it real.. dont u think? the fake plastic, implies that the plastic the tree is made out of is fake.. therefore its real.. well i dont know but there might be a postive side to this song as well

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Richie Tenenbaum
12-15-2004

Rated 0 
i think if thom yorke had his way he would of wished fake plastic would take creep spot ... but this song shows a true radiohead fan yeh creep is clever and well written but fake plastic is the artist showing raw emotions and feelings you can almost feel his voice crying out please stop the superficial world but then he realizes at the end the mass will always rule and hes apologetic nature for if he could be who everyone wanted but he cant ... thank you thom yorke for making the honest music that you make

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mattspencer
12-23-2004

Rated 0 
"the fake plastic, implies that the plastic the tree is made out of is fake.. therefore its real.."

no i dont think so. singing trees that are fake and made of plastic isnt as smooth as just saying fake, plastic trees. you can't sing a comma, so the song is how it is.

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lander_meeussen
01-29-2005

Rated 0 
This song is trying to change something in all of us. we are so focussed on our outside and we are completely forgot what's on the inside.

Inner beauty is still very important. don't forget that.

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azure2148
01-29-2005

Rated 0 
this song sends chills up my spine. i dont know what this is about, but i'm at boarding school and this is what i put on in my room when i feel like i'm in a pressure cooker. i love it here, but sometimes i feel like im in a school to breed trophy wives and stupid doctors and i hate finding myself acting like a clone of the people i am surrounded by, shortchanging who i am. but then when i try to be myself, i get so worn down, feeling like i always have to be something spectacular in order to justify my difference. this song is like coming home, letting it wash over me and its like being recharged. when it says If I could be who you wanted all the time...I feel like its me talking to myself, telling myself to chill out and not forcing myself to be any cookie cutter of anything. I dont have to be a rebel, but i dont have to be all pink and polka dots all the time (though sometimes its fun!)

PS, that was such a vent. Its amazing what putting that into words can do.

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thetaste_ofink
02-03-2005

Rated 0 
pretty self explanatory. what's left to define?

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Metallic Pigeon
02-07-2005

Rated 0 
One of my very favorite Radiohead songs. Say what you want about its meaning, it's a powerful and raw song and it's unforgettable

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DM2K
02-08-2005

Rated 0 
I agree with most of the comments made, but something just gave me the urge to express what i think a certain verse means;
".....used to do surgery for girls in the eighties, but gravity always wins".
Now you may call me a perv, but when i hear that i get the impression that he is talking about breats implants, and the man did the surgery. The lyric "gravity always wins" means no matter if you get a breast implant, gravity always pulls them down, i.e. they're still going to be saggy in the end.

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Sapo
02-09-2005

Rated 0 
So sweet and so much sad too..

I just love it...

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thehiredgun
02-16-2005

Rated 0 
This song to me represented Thom's growing dark vision of the commercial Utopia that eventually became OK Computer. I've always felt this was Thom's cry against a world that he viewed as demanding false outward representations of ourselves, yet inwardly we are all tired and lonely and just wanting to be accepted.

If you take this song in context of OK Computer, then you can relate the song to a world filled with rubber plans to get rid of itself - or in other words a world where we replace the real with fake replicas. An orwellian world that is Fitter Happier... more productive... filled with tansports, motor ways and tramlines... a world where ambition makes you look pretty ugly ... with kicking sqealing gucci little piggies.

That world really did wear Thom out... he felt like a sardine in a limousine can and one of the reasons why Kid A stands as his breaking point.

The reason why he cried the first time he heard the album all the way through - sitting in the backseat of a car.

"I will see you, in the next life..."

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kaleidoscopeeyes8
02-16-2005

Rated 0 
Okay - someone needs to correct the typos on those song lyrics, badly.

I read this on greenplastic.com and found it interesting:

According to Thom, this song is about Canary Warf in London.

This song is one of the band's largest hits - always played live.

A song written for the world of mass marketing and mass consumption. Many versions of "Fake Plastic Trees" are available, including the single from The Bends and an acoustic version on the CD single part 2, which also appears on the Clueless soundtrack. This song was the band's proudest moment, and it remains a live favorite for obvious reasons.

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nonnycries
02-20-2005

Rated 0 
o man. this song is so amazing. many of you are not giving it the credit it deserves. I think the Bends album is overlooked far to much.

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Radiogod
02-24-2005

Rated 0 
Ah yes, this song is simply scrumptualescent!! So good I can barely mooove............................................................

Thom Yorke is obviously the greatest lyricist to ever inhabit this sad excuse of a habitat that we call "Earth"....

According to Radiohead, this song is sung for the world of mass marketing and mass consumption. It seems as though Thom is tired of society being so materialistic, resulting in a society with no depth or sincerity. I also concur with the comments above on how society, the people, are so superficial, and attitudes and personalities have become a tool to be used to get ahead in life. Simply genius.

Oh, and erasethesun, if you think this song puts you to sleep, you should listen to No Surprises. Another masterpiece.

Speaking of masterpieces, the greatest of all masterpieces - Paranoid Android

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kentboi
02-24-2005

Rated 0 
So very true. Just how does these means of expression do justice for the mastermind behind the lyrics?? Definitley the best lyrical, meaningful song by Radiohead.

He is wanting to love the girl and wanting to see through her materialistic self, but "gravity always wins" and his attempts to do so "wears him out". He tries to convince himself that she is infact from the heart and real "she looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing" but he simply cant comprehend his deeper feelings of angst for her. In the end he tells her that they are simply too incompatible "if i could be who you wanted". He "turns and runs" in order to give himself relief.

And in the end, there is no point in trying to love someone who you know is not right, whether they be "fake" or "plastic" in putting up a facade for the world, you know that love is not really there, and that by kidding yourself that there is love, is just futile and can only end in tears.

How truely moving.

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