"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, released on their second studio album, The Bends (1995). It was released as a single on 22 January 1996 and reached number five on the UK singles chart, Radiohead's highest position up to that point. Radiohead considered it a breakthrough in their songwriting. It was accompanied by a music video by Jonathan Glazer, and has been covered by acts including Peter Gabriel and the Darkness.
Radiohead's songwriter, Thom Yorke, said "Street Spirit" was inspired by the American band R.E.M. and the 1991 novel The Famished RoadbyBen Okri.[3] It features a guitar arpeggio written by Yorke and played by Ed O'Brien.[4] In 2018, Pitchfork wrote that the song "channels a sense of capitalist dread that even class-conscious Britpop artists repressed".[5]
Radiohead recorded several versions of "Street Spirit" before settling on the final version. The members felt it was a breakthrough in their songwriting.[6] Yorke said later: "If I ever forget why I started this as a career, then ['Street Spirit'] is why I started ... We spent a day going round in circles until I was thinking, 'This is never going to happen.' Then suddenly something happened and I was transported to a place that I'd been willing myself to be in for months on end."[6]
The music video for "Street Spirit" was directed by Jonathan Glazer and filmed over two nights in a desert outside Los Angeles. Glazer described it as a "turning point" for his work. He felt that Radiohead had "found their own voices as an artist" and that "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".[7]
"Street Spirit" was released as the fifth single from Radiohead's second album, The Bends (1995), on 22 January 1996. It reached number five on the UK singles chart, Radiohead’s highest position up to that point.[8] After Radiohead's previous singles had failed to match the success of their 1992 debut, "Creep", "Street Spirit" demonstrated that they were not one-hit wonders.[9] In 2008, "Street Spirit" was included on Radiohead: The Best Of.[10] In 2020, the Guardian named "Street Spirit" the 12th-greatest Radiohead song, writing that it "makes for a spectacular showdown – a grand, doomed surrender".[11]
Peter Gabriel recorded a cover of "Street Spirit" for his album Scratch My Back (2010). Gabriel described his version as an "existential cry of mortality".[12] He hoped that, in return, Radiohead would record a version of his 1982 song "Wallflower" for his album And I'll Scratch Yours (2013).[13] According to Gabriel, Radiohead ceased communication after he sent them his version of "Street Spirit".[14] Gabriel said his rendition was "pretty extreme" and had since heard that Radiohead did not like it.[12]
