Planet Telex / High and Dry

"High and Dry" and "Planet Telex" are songs by the English rock band Radiohead. They were released as a double-A side single from their second studio album, The Bends (1995), on 5 March 1995.

"High and Dry" redirects here. For other uses, see High and Dry (disambiguation).
"Planet Telex" redirects here. Not to be confused with Planet Tolex.

"High and Dry" / "Planet Telex"
Single by Radiohead
from the album The Bends
Released27 February 1995 (1995-02-27)[1]
Recorded1993
Studio
Genre
Length
  • 4:18 ("Planet Telex")
  • 4:17 ("High and Dry")
Label
Songwriter(s)Radiohead
Producer(s)
Radiohead singles chronology
"My Iron Lung"
(1994)		 "High and Dry" / "Planet Telex"
(1995)		 "Fake Plastic Trees"
(1995)
Audio sample
Sample of "High and Dry"
  • file
  • help
Music video
"High and Dry" on YouTube

"High and Dry" was recorded as a demo during the sessions of Radiohead's first album, Pablo Honey (1993), and remastered for inclusion on The Bends. "Planet Telex" developed from studio experimentation with drum loops. Two music videos were produced for "High and Dry".

Recording

The Radiohead songwriter, Thom Yorke, performed an early version of "High and Dry" with the band Headless Chickens while he was a student at the University of Exeter in the late 1980s.[4] He said the lyrics were about "some loony girl I was going out with", but became "mixed up with ideas about success and failure".[5] In 1993, Radiohead recorded a demo version with their live engineer, Jim Warren,[6] but dismissed it as "too Rod Stewart".[5] The demo was rediscovered and remastered for inclusion on their second album, The Bends (1995).[6] In 2006, Yorke said that Radiohead's record label, EMI, had pressured him to release it and that it was a "very bad" song.[7]

Radiohead wrote and recorded "Planet Telex" in a single session at RAK Studios while working on The Bends. It developed from experiments with a drum loop taken from another song, the B-side "Killer Cars", to which Radiohead added piano processed with multiple delay effects. The band had recently returned from a restaurant, and Yorke recorded the vocals drunk, slumped in a corner. According to the producer, John Leckie, "We had the whole thing down within a couple of hours, which was really refreshing and fun to do."[8] The original title was "Planet Xerox", but Radiohead were denied permission to use the Xerox trademark.[8]

Legacy

Pitchfork credited Bends songs as such as "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" for anticipating the "airbrushed" post-Britpop of Coldplay and Travis.[9] The Irish Times said that "High and Dry" had "essentially invented Coldplay".[10]

Music videos

Two music videos were created for "High and Dry": one for the British market, featuring Radiohead in a California desert, and one for the USA, set in a diner. Only the US version appears on the band's 1998 video compilation 7 Television Commercials. Both appear on the Radiohead: The Best Of DVD, released in 2008 by Parlophone.[11]

Track listing
CD1
No.TitleLength
1."High and Dry"4:17
2."Planet Telex"4:18
3."Maquiladora"3:27
4."Planet Telex" (Hexidecimal Mix)6:44
Total length:18:46
CD2
No.TitleLength
1."Planet Telex"4:18
2."High and Dry"4:17
3."Killer Cars"3:02
4."Planet Telex" (L.F.O. JD Mix)4:40
Total length:16:17
12" vinyl
No.TitleLength
1."Planet Telex" (Hexidecimal Mix)6:44
2."Planet Telex" (L.F.O. JD Mix)4:40
3."Planet Telex" (Hexidecimal Dub)7:32
4."High and Dry"4:17
Total length:22:14
1996 US release
No.TitleLength
1."High and Dry"4:16
2."India Rubber"3:26
3."Maquiladora"3:26
4."How Can You Be Sure?"4:21
5."Just" (live at the Forum)3:47
Total length:19:12

Personnel

Charts

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada)[23] 2× Platinum 160,000double-dagger
Italy (FIMI)[24]
sales since 2009 		Gold 35,000double-dagger
United Kingdom (BPI)[25] Gold 400,000double-dagger

double-dagger Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

References
  1. "New Releases: Singles" (PDF). Music Week. 25 February 1995. p. 43. Retrieved 27 June 2021.
  2. Partridge, Kenneth (13 March 2015). "Radiohead's 'The Bends' at 20: Classic Track-By-Track Review". Billboard. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  3. Barker, Emily (26 January 2015). "30 Albums That Made 1995 A Vintage Year For Music". NME. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  4. "Rare Footage Surfaces of Thom Yorke Performing "High and Dry" With Pre-Radiohead Band". Pitchfork. Retrieved 16 July 2015.
  5. Bambarger, Bradley (17 February 1996). "The Modern Age". Billboard.
  6. Randall, Mac (15 May 2015). "Radiohead's 'The Bends,' 20 Years Later: Reexamining a Modern Rock Masterpiece". Guitar World. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  7. Plagenhoef, Scott (16 August 2006). "Pitchfork: Interviews: Thom Yorke". Pitchfork. Retrieved 3 March 2010.
  8. Randall, Mac (1 February 2012). Exit Music: The Radiohead Story Updated Edition. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-4584-7147-5.
  9. "The 50 Best Britpop Albums". Pitchfork. 29 March 2017. Archived from the original on 2 June 2017. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  10. Power, Ed (12 March 2020). "Why Radiohead's The Bends is the worst great album of all time". The Irish Times. Retrieved 9 September 2020.
  11. Radiohead: The Best Of (Liner notes). Radiohead. Europe: Parlophone. 2008. 50999 242916 2 0.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  12. Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (PDF ed.). Mt Martha, Victoria, Australia: Moonlight Publishing. p. 228.
  13. "Top RPM Singles: Issue 2933." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  14. "Top RPM Rock/Alternative Tracks: Issue 9200." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  15. "Eurochart Hot 100 Singles" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 12, no. 11. 18 March 1995. p. 27. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  16. "Íslenski Listinn Topp 40 (15.4. '95 – 21.4. '95)". Dagblaðið Vísir (in Icelandic). 12 April 1995. p. 62. Retrieved 1 October 2019.
  17. "Radiohead – High and Dry". Top 40 Singles. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  18. "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  19. "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  20. "Radiohead Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  21. "Radiohead Chart History (Alternative Airplay)". Billboard. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  22. "Canada's Top 200 Singles of 2001". Jam!. Archived from the original on 26 July 2002. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  23. "Canadian single certifications – Radiohead – High and Dry". Music Canada. Retrieved 6 October 2022.
  24. "Italian single certifications – Radiohead – High and Dry" (in Italian). Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana. Retrieved 2 November 2021. Select "2021" in the "Anno" drop-down menu. Select "High and Dry" in the "Filtra" field. Select "Singoli" under "Sezione".
  25. "British single certifications – Radiohead – High & Dry". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
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