"The Bends" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead from their second studio album, The Bends (1995). In Ireland, it was released by Parlophone on 26 July 1996 as the album's sixth and final single, and reached number 26 on the Irish Singles Chart.
"The Bends" was written in 1992, predating Radiohead's 1992 debut single, "Creep", and debut studio album, Pablo Honey (1993). Radiohead performed it numerous times over the next two years, before recording it at the Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, England, with producer John Leckie. It is one of Radiohead's most performed songs.
"The Bends" has been compared to the work of bands such as Queen, the Beatles, Pixies, the Smiths, and Oasis; the Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, described it as a "Bowie pastiche". It contains five sections, making it one of the most complex tracks on The Bends. Several critics interpreted the lyrics as a comment on the success of "Creep", which had led the media to dub them a one-hit-wonder. Yorke said the lyrics were intended to be humorous and had been misinterpreted.
"The Bends" was included on the greatest hits album, Radiohead: The Best Of (2008), and other versions have appeared on compilations by Radiohead and other artists. In 2017, Uncut ranked it as the third-greatest Radiohead song. NME ranked the guitar solo as the seventh-greatest in music history.
Writing
"The Bends" is one of the earliest songs written by Radiohead, originally going under the title "The Benz". It was written primarily by singer Thom Yorke, while credited to all of the band members, prior to recording their debut album, Pablo Honey (1993). Yorke said in a 1995 interview: "['The Bends'] is one of those songs I was rambling around and just poured all this rubbish out into the song. Then it all started happening, which was a bit odd. I was completely taking the piss when I wrote it. Then the joke started wearing a bit thin." Radiohead also performed "The Bends" live numerous times prior to release. Bassist Colin Greenwood described the song as a "perennial hardy annual of a live favourite, faithfully committed live to tape."
In 1992, Radiohead recorded a 4-track demo for "The Bends" during the Pablo Honey sessions. Yorke introduced the demo to co-producer Paul Q. Kolderie at the end of the sessions, but kept it for their next album. In March 1993, Radiohead recorded another demo with their live sound engineer, Jim Warren, at Courtyard Studios in Oxfordshire, during the same session that produced "High and Dry". After the Pablo Honey tour ended, they sent the demo to producer John Leckie in order to work on their then-upcoming second album, The Bends.
Recording
"The Bends" was one of the songs selected as a potential follow-up single to "Creep" during the album recording. It was initially recorded at RAK Studios in London in sessions that took place from February to May 1994, and then re-recorded at the Manor Studio in Oxfordshire, where the band spent two weeks working on The Bends in July. According to drummer Philip Selway, the song was recorded in a single take: "I wanted to get away from the studio to view a house for rent. Consequently, this was the first take." However, Q reported that the song was recorded in several takes. The unreleased RAK version was mixed by Leckie at Abbey Road Studios in London.
Leckie felt the guitars were too loud and that the song was "overblown", but the band members felt otherwise. According to Leckie, the original version of "The Bends" was "more overpowering" than it is on the album, and Yorke's vocals were more screamed. Trying to make the introduction less "bombastic", Radiohead added "tinkling" sound effects Yorke had recorded on a cassette recorder through a hotel room window while touring in the United States. He said: "There was this guy training these eight-year-old kids, who were parading up and down with all these different instruments. The guy had this little microphone on his sweater and was going: 'Yeah, keep it up, keep it up.' So I ran out and taped it." "The Bends" was mixed by Sean Slade and Kolderie, who produced Pablo Honey and mixed most of The Bends, with additional mixing by Leckie.