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

Interaction
Mail to a friend Send Lyrics to a Friend
Share on Facebook

Stumble It
Add to Del.icio.us Add to Del.icio.us




  • 273 Comments
  • Printer Friendly Lyrics
oldest first     Expand All
Nickyorke
01-29-2006

Rated 0 
What this song means is that we can either be real and not be excepted by society, or we can be fake but atleast then we will be excepted, and although its easy to say its better to be real, we all want to be excepted. sorry if i spelt any words wrong

Log in to reply
ilikestuffandyou
01-30-2006

Rated 0 
From Wikipedia:

"Fake Plastic Trees" is a song by Radiohead, from their second album The Bends. It was also the third single to be released from that album. A song written for the world of mass marketing and mass consumption. The band had just been to see Jeff Buckley play a set, and when they got back into the studio, Thom Yorke recorded the vocals in two takes and broke down in tears after that. In fact, the vocals heard on the song were originally meant to be a guide vocal, meaning that they would eventually be re-done after the rest of the band recorded their instruments. However, Thom's performance was flawless, so they kept it. This song is one of the band's finest of their early catalogue and is considered one of their largest hits among Creep. The song rarely miss the live spot of their set-lists, as the band are considered great live band. According to Thom this song is about Canary Wharf in London.

Log in to reply
division2ronin
01-31-2006

Rated 0 
How about we all read some Douglas Adams? Specifically, "Life, the Universe, and Everything".

Log in to reply
!&?
02-02-2006

Rated 0 
This song seems to be about how people are so cheap and insincere.

Log in to reply
winkyone
02-03-2006

Rated 0 
Maybe it's just me but doesn't everyone feel this way at some time? I mean, even if not often or not long don't we all, at some point, feel like everything is just fake, ourselves included?
Yeah, sure, we live in a materialistic society in a materialistic age. Even without all that, though, I, for one, still feel, at times, like it's all somehow unreal, a show we all put on and, somehow, manage to unite in.

Log in to reply
indiegirl516
02-03-2006

Rated 0 
this song has really impacted me, since the first time i heard it... it's just amazing, i love radiohead.

anyway, what i've seen looking into in this song is pretty much along the lines of what most of you have had to say... and i don't know if anyone has also mentioned something like this, but for me it reminds me of the futuristic books i have read in the past (Anthem, Fahrenheight 451, The Giver) ... and this is the society that we ourselves have created, and its like the outcome of a previous "utopian-like" one that had came previously, where everyone is in a state of misery, numb and burnt out from creating such idealistic lifestyles and expectations, and they have all forgotten what is real because they are no longer real. they are all like robots in a sense. so i see this guy looking in on a world from the outside, at this girl he loves who has fallen into the pragmatic traps of the society, and he wishes he could save her, but he also feels that it's too late, because she too shares the extreme expectations of everyone else in her world and he could never be up to par with that... and so he just falls into a state of hopelessness and despair.

Log in to reply
Radioactivedecay
02-04-2006

Rated 0 
This song always reminds me of a doll, all look, even touch, but then again your always reminded that it's fake, and nature is doomed never to make somnething so perfect.

Log in to reply
mwalte2
02-10-2006

Rated 0 
I saw radiohead play in chicago on august 1, 2001 at hutchison field. this song was the finale. i was 19 at the time. my college girlfriend was visiting me from the east coast. i completely fell in love with her when i heard this song. i think this song has so much love in it, it might just be a little too much. maybe that's why it makes you sad. it's just bursting with love.

Log in to reply
marigold16
02-13-2006

Rated 0 
when i hear this song i think of barbie dolls, and suburbs and green rubber gardening boots. why?
well, the barbie dolls, because, isn't it obvious? they're the poster children for fake plastic-ness. the suburbs because i hate the suburbs. they're all the same. all the families are the same, all the people are the same: the stay at home moms with the working dads and the hockey-playing kids. and the gardening boots because of the fake rubber plants.

i love this song

Log in to reply
XianSnake
02-14-2006

Rated 0 
First of all this song is very beautiful, for the music alone, but mainly for Thom's voice.

I think it's about a girl who he loves but either she doesn't return the feelings or they both know "they" could never be, for whatever reason. So the ideology that he has for his "fake plastic love" is still inside him and he loves her so he says "If i could be who you wanted..." because he wants so badly for these fake trees and plants and earth to be real.

Log in to reply
Pope1342
02-14-2006

Rated 0 
why do all of you seem to think you are so different than everyone. we are all the same, trying to answer the same questions, trying to be happy, and until we figure that out, nothing can be changed. this song is great

Log in to reply
lvfixx
02-15-2006

Rated 0 
i was introduced to this song by an exboyfriend who was struggling to admit to himself and i, that he was an alcoholic. i had more of an understanding when he underlined the last verse. but for me the last line if i could be who you wanted all the time was the most powerfull line and the way thom sings is it so haunting. makes my heart ache everytime i here it, conjures up so many emotions i've had in my life yet not one of my favourite tracks off all time as it reminds me of so much heartache more than anything else.

Log in to reply
luckey_shirt
02-15-2006

Rated 0 
reminds me of a trophey wife, that loves her man but theyre all just fake and plastic. shes struggling

Log in to reply
otnemem
03-15-2006

Rated 0 
i still cannot believe Thom Yorke did this song in one take. I think this song is about two things...one how fake our world can be, and two someone's love for a person whom they cant have, but want so they use something fake, not the real thing...I.E. She looks like the real thing, She Tastes like the real thing.

Log in to reply
floydmaster
03-30-2006

Rated 0 
well, Thom always introduces the song saying it's about Canary Wharf...but how?

Log in to reply
Fake Addict
04-06-2006

Rated 0 
Its about how people change for "following their heart" and that now all the people is lead by their sensibility and not by their intellgence.
And thats how some persons persuade you to do things or change in what you belive. They just tell you "follow your heart" or "follow your fealings"
Death to Romance- Life to the Love (that almost doesnt exist)

Log in to reply
RottenCorpse
04-14-2006

Rated 0 
"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."


the part I love the most, this song is amazing, great vocals, and touching lyrics

Log in to reply
winkyone
04-28-2006

Rated 0 
We can never really be completely honest about ourselves. There are the extremes like people going under the knife to satisfy what they think society demands of them. Still, there are other, more subtle ways in which we all, every one of us, hide and pretend. It's exhausting and depressing for all of us, in our own ways.
To me this song represents the futility of it all.
We all seek out some sort of ideal for ourselves and society but we all have to compromise.
It does wear me out. I envy those for whom it seems to come so easily. Then again I'm not so naive as to believe that it is any less exhausting to be the status quo as it is to fight against it.
This is, quite possibly, my all time favourite song.

Log in to reply
Ailuj
05-15-2006

Rated 0 
This song is what made me really fall in love (and I mean love) with Radiohead.
Fakes fakes fakes.
They're all around us.
The truth really does come out in this song.
Everyone and everything is fake.
NOTHING is real.
No one's happy just being themselves.
They just want to please everyone.
The gravity line is tad bit for comic relief.
As soon as the, "My fake plastic love" comes up, I cry.
(Just like Thom Yorke did when he finished singing this song for the first time)
But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling...
Wow.
It's powerful.
And of course the last line.
I've never heard anything like this song.
Ever.
Yorke is pure brilliance.

Log in to reply
Hydro Snail
05-22-2006

Rated 0 
I believe the melody is just as simple as the song, easy, yet amazing.

V1.The woman longs for a change in the way she looks at the world. She tries so hard to make a difference it wears her out.

V2.Her husband didn't want to change the world, just the people that live in it, he didn't have the same views as her. He changed the people on the outside, but through time the truth came through, and in the end we all look the same.

V3.The foridden fruite is assembled, and you can only see what you will never be, can feel what you can never taste.

V4.After excepting the facts, to know that you can never change, he conformed to society, and decided to be himself.


V5.And yourself is exactly what she wants, to be unitedd with society, is to be suseptible to individuality and in the end, become unique, but lost without hope.

This is all my opinion, you don't have to agree with me.

R.P.Green

Log in to reply
cabbagesoup
06-02-2006

Rated 0 
It's true that the song was originated at the idea of a man in love with his blow-up doll, as Yorke has accepted, but he also says that although the song was originated at a joke, when he'd finished writing the song, it was no more a joke.

Log in to reply
MJLozen
06-08-2006

Rated 0 
haha after reading all of these I feel really shallow.
To me the song is by far one of my favorites. But I always thought it was pretty self expanatory, what I got out of it,

He's having an affair with a woman in Los Angeles, ( a town full of rubber plans to get rid of itself). She's not satisfied at all with the way she looks so she has plastic surgery, surgically enhanced. I guess a big part of what made me think this way,
is because "she lives with a broken man" perhaps her older husband who
"used to do surgery for girls in the 80's" but "gravity always wins", I cant figure out any other way that to interpret some of these lyrics. Under her pretty posterior, she's very very sad, in her situation. The end could be contributed to how it's not real, he knows it, but it feels like it . Just a real desperate song all together.

Log in to reply
Gallant86
06-09-2006

Rated 0 
A watering can for a fake plant to make it grow into a full tree, and the trees are some of our interpersonal relationships.

Log in to reply
apcross
06-19-2006

Rated 0 
I'm sorry if anyone already has said this, but I didn't feel like reading through all that text. I agree with those people stating that this song is referring to an unrequited love, and I agree with the blow-up doll theory. But I'm more concerned with the music video. I believe in my interpretation of the lyrics because of the way Thom is depicted in the music video. He is portrayed as a little boy in a shopping cart that can't get what he wants (we've all seen this scenario in our trips to the grocery) -- what he wants being the girl he has been pursuing.

Log in to reply
reidbottorff
06-26-2006

Rated 0 
We are allowed to be fake I guess, if we become that way to make someone else feel real. He seems to have been the victim of the situation. Someone may have been fake for him, and he feels fucked over because of it. So he knows what he believes in is fake, he just needs some kind of evidence that love is a thing that hasn't become that way too.

Log in to reply




  • Add Your Comments
What does this song mean to you?

You must be logged in to post your comments.

Feel free to create an account with us, or log in with your existing account, to start adding your comments to songs.





Popular
Top:   Lyrics, Artists, Albums
Random:   Lyric, Artist, Album

Your Ad Here