“Creep” is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, written by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway, with Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood credited as co-writers after legal action by Rondor Music over the progression it shares with the 1972 song “The Air That I Breathe”. Yorke wrote it at the University of Exeter in the late 1980s. The band recorded it in 1992 at Chipping Norton Recording Studios with producers Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie, and released it as its debut single on 21 September 1992; it reached number 78 in the UK. After US radio airplay, it was reissued in the UK in September 1993, reaching number 7, and it also reached number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 2 on Alternative Songs. It later appeared on Pablo Honey (1993).
The song rests on a G-B-C-Cm ostinato progression in a 32-bar form with a middle eight. The verses are arpeggiated, the first choruses use distorted power chords, and Jonny Greenwood's three “dead note” guitar blasts come before the chorus. Its style is alternative rock and grunge, and it has been covered by The Pretenders, Alanis Morissette and Prince, among others.
