Street Spirit (Fade Out)

"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" is a song by the English alternative rock band Radiohead. It is the final track on their second studio album, "The Bends", released in 1995. It was released as a single on 22 January 1996 and reached number five on the UK Singles Chart, Radiohead's highest chart position up to that point. It has been covered by Peter Gabriel and the Darkness. In 2008, the song was featured on "".
Composition.
Songwriter Thom Yorke said "Street Spirit" was inspired by the American band R.E.M. and the 1991 novel "The Famished Road" by Ben Okri. The song is in A minor with an arpeggiated guitar part. It had the working title "Three-Headed Street Spirit".
Music video.
The music video for "Street Spirit" was filmed over two nights in a desert outside Los Angeles. It was directed by Jonathan Glazer, who said: "That was definitely a turning point in my own work. I knew when I finished that, because [Radiohead] found their own voices as an artist, at that point, I felt like I got close to whatever mine was, and I felt confident that I could do things that emoted, that had some kind of poetic as well as prosaic value. That for me was a key moment."
Reception.
In 2018, "Pitchfork" wrote that the song "channels a sense of capitalist dread that even class-conscious Britpop artists repressed".
Covers.
Peter Gabriel recorded a cover of "Street Spirit" for his "Scratch My Back" project in 2010, hoping that Radiohead would return the compliment by recording a version of his 1982 song "Wallflower" for his album "And I'll Scratch Yours". According to Gabriel, Radiohead ceased communication after he sent it and backed out of the project. Gabriel said his rendition was "pretty extreme", and had since heard that the band did not like it.
In 2012, the Darkness released a cover of "Street Spirit" on their album "Hot Cakes". In 2020, System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan released a cover with M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine as a part of his covers project These Grey Men.