Since their alt-rock debut album "Pablo Honey" and it's mega-hit single "Creep" in 1993, the English band Radiohead has been active for over two decades. That's not to say they've been coasting on their early successes, either - their 1997 album "Ok Computer" is widely ranked as one of the greatest albums of the decade. According to frontman Thom Yorke, the band created their experimental 2000 album "Kid A" out of the weariness towards mainstream fame - ironically, "Kid A" was later named by "Rolling Stones" as the 'greatest album of the 2000s'.
The story of Radiohead is a parable of transition. Their most acclaimed works occupied a transitional period between their alt-rock roots and the experimental moodiness they grew into. In considering Radiohead's development, one interesting metric is the song "True Love Waits", performed live by Thom Yorke on an acoustic guitar from 1995 onwards. This version was included as the closing track in their 2001 live-collection I Might Be Wrong. More recently, a studio remake closed out the band's 2016 album "A Moon Shaped Pool."
The acoustic version, which often closed out live shows, is carried by the vocals of Yorke, to whom this song seems to hold an infinite significance. His voice crackles from line to line, as if pressed on by the edge of painful memories. The guitar is a constant, and provides a sense of space within which the ghosts of this song can dance. As the melody accelerates, the desperation within Yorke's voice deepens, yet it feels as if the entire story is being relayed through soft admittances, and when he grows too emotional he cuts out and allows the guitar to conclude things for him.
The studio version utilizes a piano as it's core instrument, with soft electronic tones cushioning an already billowy sound. Thom Yorke's vocals substitute desperate intimacy with a ghostly omnipresence. As if he is not the subject of the story, but an impartial narrator, he relays the same lyrics with a sense of tenderness. The sadness and longing persists in both versions, but it is undeniable that the newer rendition has itself become a product, or perhaps even an expression, of distance.
"True Love Waits" began as a stumbling, personal expression of one's infatuation and grew into a quiet, understanding statement for another's. Radiohead has matured with it - from their early days as pain-ridden rockers to their current days as knowing elders in a youth-mad genre, their music has never strayed far from self-reflection.
