Now, I do know how Radiohead fans tend to feel about ‘Sulk’, which is that a large majority of them consider it to be one of the worst tracks on The Bends. Not because it’s bad. But when in an album including songs like ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, ‘Just’, ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)‘ and others that I would have covered on here, it seems to pale in comparison. A comment I can remember being agreed was that it sounded like a leftover from the band’s debut album Pablo Honey, or could have fit better on that album. It’s too normal. Sounds like any other ’90s alternative rock song that bands were making at the time. ‘Sulk’, in general, in my opinion, is much, much better than… probably 10 out of the 12 tracks that make up Pablo Honey, so I disagree with that particular take. And, yeah, it follows a pretty normal song structure for Radiohead song. Doesn’t stop it from being pretty darn good, I tell you.

I got The Bends as a Christmas gift in 2006, my request inspired by the number of times I’d seen Radiohead’s music videos on MTV2 up to that point. I might have said it was a birthday gift in a previous post, but my “xmas list” sent to my cousin in my Outlook email says otherwise. Back then I was 11 and merely asking for albums just for the singles, which is what I got from The Bends and sort of left it on the shelf. I may have listened through on my PlayStation 2 when I was 12 or something too. It wasn’t really until 2016 when a new Radiohead album was on the horizon, that I was at my desk at work and decided to listen through The Bends from front to back and really pay attention to it. It was honestly though that one playthrough that ‘Sulk’ seemed like an obvious track that I should have been liking for years up to that point. I extend that notion to fellow album tracks, ‘Bones’ and ‘Black Star’. If I could do all this again, they would have their own posts too.

‘Sulk’ was apparently written in response to the 1987 Hungerford massacre that happened in England. You never would have guessed it. I certainly didn’t. Listening to this earlier live version of the track does seem to reveal that origin of inspiration a lot more. The final lyric being “Just shoot your gun”. Clearly, some changes in the words happened along the way. In its final iteration, it seems to be about the universal feeling of depression, the hold it can have on a person and a wish for it to subside. Just so happens that the band provide a really upbeat performance behind it. There’s a key change and everything that occurs at the instrumental break and lasts through the final chorus, where Thom Yorke sings a high B note without falsetto. It’s a pretty magical moment. Unfortunately though, the song as a whole came to be the one the band themselves disliked the most. This probably also plays into fans’ opinions on the song as well. As a result, it hasn’t been played live since 1995. I’ll have a lot of love for it for a long time.