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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jazzy88
03-04-2005

Rated 0 
i think this song is kind of three parts

the first part is thom commenting on how superficial everyone is, and how they get so tired of being fake.

then the second part is saying how his love for this girl is fake, even though it seems so real and intense. hes realizing that his most intense emotions are still superficial, and it "wears him out."

then the last part is simply "if i could be who you wanted, all the time." i think that line is kind of ironic, because throughout the whole song he was complaining about how fake everyone is. but in reality, he WANTS to be "fake" (ie not himself, but what she wants him to be) so she'll love him. Maybe thats the only unsuperficial thing, he just wants her to love him.

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talkischeap
03-12-2005

Rated 0 
i dont have anything to say that hasn't already been said about the song's meanings..but
i love this song, it's one of those songs you could just listen to over and over and over and never get tired of it....it's sad and kind of hopeless, but so beautiful

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Tyrant_19
03-16-2005

Rated 0 
the song is about fake boobs:

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.

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Geetar
03-17-2005

Rated 0 
I think it talks about how candycoated life is, its boring and pointless, but we all entertain ourselves with our television and video games; when really the world as we know it steadily dropping in values. These days everything is fake.

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Geetar
03-18-2005

Rated 0 
This is the type of song that your can start listening to happy and confident, and by the end of the song feel empty and lonley. This is song seems to have amazing effects on it's audience.

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FakeplasticSN
04-01-2005

Rated 0 
This song is the greatest song of all time! THOM IS A GENIOUS! but in my opinion i think this song is a song about a guy or anyone for that matter whos in love with a girl and cant handle to see him with someone else and his love is just to strong to handle and everyone just not being able to handle life because its so fake

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richeye
04-05-2005

Rated 0 
It says a lot for the power of this song that I can barely bring myself to listen to it because it makes me feel so down - and then I listen to it anyway! It's so beautiful and so tragic, it's literally a work of art. I can't offer anything besides that; it's amusing how many people (me included) haven't attempted to provide actual interpretations, but that's how good the song is!

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Fake Addict
04-11-2005

Rated 0 
I read that this song is about the reincarnation. but
is not that. Is about how the goverment makes us so fake . Goverment=trees. so they SUPPLY -FAKE- and we DEMAND it. The people just don`t have a clue of what`s is going on, and a lot of "Fake Stuff" is in "today`s music" like the shit that is in MTV.
The Fake shit is the -feeling that some people can`t help it- it`s like be HAPPY but just for a moment and then you fucking realize that all that HAPPY MOMENT WAS FUCKING FAKE

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Fake Addict
04-11-2005

Rated 0 
and by the way SHE is not literally a woman is -fake feeling-

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Jenezzy
07-02-2005

Rated 0 
I think the song is pretty straight forward. Everything is so fake and everyone troies so hard to maintain it and themselves. Defeating the purpose of life. And it ends up destroying them

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mental_copper
07-21-2005

Rated 0 
This song is absolutley brilliant. If I could write like thom yorke I'd be...............................................

Absolutley brilliant, LOL.

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keelyt
08-17-2005

Rated 0 
To me, this song is reaching that realization when you are with the person you love, and you figuire out that although you think you are the one for the person, in your heart, you know this person well enough that you aren't that special someone to them. And, as much as that realization sucks, you have to move on...otherwise you are wasting precious time...for you and that someone.

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neighbourhoodpower
10-03-2005

Rated 0 
Wow I never realised this song could be analysed in so many different ways. One of my favourite radiohead songs, it is sad yet so beautiful. It literally took my breath away the first time I heard it.

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Bamboo
12-12-2005

Rated 0 
This song is so depressing
but I can't stop listening to it

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lec7grs
12-13-2005

Rated 0 
I think Keelyt is pretty bang on in a way... the way I see it is a man talking about his partner - who is superficially perfect. He feels that he isn't good enough for her, and just gets more and more depressed - 'broken', 'cracked' and 'crumbles and burns' pretty much sum this up.

In the end he realises that he doesn't want someone like that (i.e. looks etc aren't everything) and decides that he could be so much bigger and better if he left her - 'I could blow through the ceiling If I just turn and run'...however I get the feeling that it would never happen and he's just dreaming.

A great song, one i'd never really thought about all that much until today.

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freezegelman
12-17-2005

Rated 0 
This song hits home and makes me cry because my relationship is like this.


:(

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TheSink
12-29-2005

Rated 0 
I apologize as I haven't read all of the posts for Fake Plastic Trees before posting, so if I sound like an already broken record, I apologize.

I really enjoy this song despite its dreary message: Life is full of falsities. Things like fake plants look pretty at first glance, but their missing the other beautiful characteristics of a flower (aromatic, soft to the touch, feed the earth oxygen, etc). Faces and bodies altered to look more like how society measures beauty are pleasing to the eye, but upon further examination, the people masked by these aesthetically pleasing faces and bodies are ugly and fragile. And in all cases, relationships predicated on the physical rather than emotional, spiritual or something deeper than outward appearances, are as fake and fragile.

The last line fits this song so perfectly: "If I could be who you wanted all the time." In the pursuit of meaning in the world, too often people focus on what others what them to be rather than who they already are. Nobody is satisfied with who they are, and in turn, they're never satisfied with who anybody else is either.

I think what Yorke is conveying is his own frustration in the masks people wear (and that he himself likely wears) to please others. "It wears him out..." "It wears me out...." and so on. Being something that someone else wants you to be is draining mentally AND physically, and is not worth it. Yorke's frustration over this is beautifully conveyed with those four words "It wears her/him/me out..." But I don't see the entire song as an anthem for the disgruntled outcasts of society. I think by singing about the recognization of the falseness in this world, Yorke actually conveys a message of understanding that people will be one way, and if he's not that way (or we're not that way), that life will be okay. It'll drag on a person, either one faking their way through life or cast aside for being who they are, but understanding goes both ways.

Just my two cents.

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otnemem
12-30-2005

Rated 0 
i still cant believe Thom did this beautiful song in one take, and without the other instruments.

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barret
01-01-2006

Rated 0 
I think its preety clear that the song is about a woman whos wastign her life away pretending to be someone she's not. Amazing sogn tho prolly my fav on the bends

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orangebeaker
01-03-2006

Rated 0 
It's a good song, quite depressing though. I find a lot of Radiohead is depressing to the point where I really would rather not listen to it.

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gingerhorsie
01-08-2006

Rated 0 
I know this interpretation has been touched upon a couple of times, and i'm surprised few people have considered it but the second verse is definately about breast implants.

"gravity always wins" is obviously the struggle for perfection that is ultimately fruitless as boobs will sag.

whenever i hear "cracked polystyrene man" i think of someone wearing casts. Maybe an accident. It does remind me a hell of a lot of the film 'Breast Men'

But in the end it's all a tad pedantic. The meaning of the song is pretty clear. Struggling to feel adequete in a fake world.

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Kid_B
01-14-2006

Rated 0 
on the live at the astoria dvd he says its about canary wharf

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ripelivejam
01-15-2006

Rated 0 
Immortality

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emilyc27
01-21-2006

Rated 0 
this is my favorite radiohead song :]

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TheVadakin
01-26-2006

Rated 0 
This song is really about our modern society. The main character sees that this girl lives a terribly phony life with a ridiculously fake guy who has no clue of how bad his situation is. At one time she tried to get ahead by starting off down this path, but now desperately tries shock herself back to life. The main character can't help but love this girl even though he knows what's going on, and he's willing to sacrifice his humanity and become totally fake for her.
Its really about what sorts of terrible things love(people's strongest and most alive emotion) can do to you. In this situation, love is "killing" the main character, and has already "killed" the woman he desires.

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