True Love Waits (song)

1995–1996: First performances Radiohead first performed "True Love Waits" in December 1995 in Brussels while touring for their second album, The Bends. The songwriter, Thom Yorke, performed it on acoustic guitar accompanied by an "airy" keyboard melody played by Jonny Greenwood. 1996–1997: OK Computer Yorke felt Radiohead had already recorded too many songs based on voice and acoustic guitar, and that recording "True Love Waits" this way would be "too easy". Their producer, Nigel Godrich, said: "To Thom's credit, he needs to feel a song has validation, that it has a reason to exist as a recording." Godrich said they were not interested in recording a version that sounded like John Mayer. Other work-in-progress versions were leaked in the 2019 compilation MiniDiscs [Hacked], including a version featuring "spacey" synthesisers and a wah-wah effect. NME described one version as "very 90s", with a strong bassline and progressive rock-style organ. 1999–2001: Kid A and Amnesiac Radiohead worked on "True Love Waits" again during the joint sessions for their albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001). Yorke said later: "We felt like 'True Love Waits' was this wholesome acoustic thing, and then suddenly putting this quite fierce thing... We weren't sure if it was the right thing, so it fell by the wayside." They repurposed this version as a new track, "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors", released on Amnesiac. Rolling Stone described it as "full-on electro-glitch", with "ominous" synthesisers and Rhodes piano. 2001–2016: Further performances During Radiohead's 2001 Amnesiac tour, Yorke performed "True Love Waits" solo several times on acoustic guitar, and a performance was included on I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (2001). Godrich later described the version on I Might Be Wrong as "shitty". From 2006, Radiohead began performing a slower version on Rhodes piano as an introduction to another song, "Everything in Its Right Place". Radiohead performed this new arrangement on the Moon Shaped Pool tour, until their 2018 leg in South America, when Yorke again performed "True Love Waits" solo on acoustic guitar. Yorke said in 2023: "One of my mistakes is dismissing things because they're simple ... 'True Love Waits' was a bit like that. It was one of those things where it was almost made to be at the end of a show. It wasn't even necessarily made to be recorded. It was made to say, 'OK, guys, goodnight. Thanks.'" == Composition ==

File:True Love Waits (MiniDiscs (Hacked)) clip.ogg|thumb|right|A clip of a work-in-progress version from the 1990s, released on MiniDiscs [Hacked] The live version of "True Love Waits" released on I Might Be Wrong has Yorke performing alone on acoustic guitar. The Phoenix New Times likened the "earnest" and "simple" arrangement to Radiohead songs written in the same era, such as "Fake Plastic Trees". and a "deconstructed ambient piano ballad". Instead of guitar, it uses a minimal piano figure, over which pianos are gradually overdubbed, According to Yorke, the first verse—"I'll drown my beliefs / To have your babies / I'll dress like your niece / And wash your swollen feet"—addresses the "difference between young and old", when people grow out of childish behaviour; the narrator is offering not to grow up to keep someone they love. The lines "And true love lives / On lollipops and crisps" were inspired by a story Yorke read about a child left alone by his parents for a week who survived by eating snacks. The song has a "pleading" refrain: "Don't leave, don't leave." ==Reception==

Early versions Reviewing I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings in 2001, Matt LeMay of Pitchfork wrote that Yorke's solo performance of "True Love Waits" was "absolutely gorgeous" and could "hold its own against any song on OK Computer". He felt it justified the release of the live album, alongside the performance of "Like Spinning Plates". Ted Kessler of NME praised Yorke's vocals as "clear and true". Randall felt the rendition on Might Be Wrong was inferior to those of widely shared bootlegs, which featured synthesiser arpeggios and "less whiny" vocals. He wrote: "One gets the feeling that this was a song Radiohead knew they liked and knew audiences liked but the band never came to grips with an arrangement for it; finally they threw up their hands, putting it out as it is." The New Republic writer Ryan Kearney was also critical of A Moon Shaped Pool, but wrote that it was "no coincidence that the only moving song on the album, 'True Love Waits', was written two decades ago". Steve Jozef of the Phoenix New Times felt the piano arrangement captured the best elements of Yorke's live performances, saving it from sentimentality, and was the album's "most straightforward, unpretentious and emotionally raw composition". In the Guardian, Jazz Monroe wrote: "Even when they’re not facing the abyss, Radiohead songs tend to operate in its general vicinity, albeit without revealing what led there. But 'True Love Waits' ... conceals nothing: the abyss, listener, is love." In The Arizona Republic, Ed Masley wrote that the new arrangement "heightens the sense of desperate yearning in Yorke's vocal as he begs his lover not to leave". The Vulture journalist Marc Hogan wrote that "the difference between the studio cut and its various predecessors floats over the proceedings like a ghost in the machine". In Pitchfork, Jillian Mapes wrote of the "sense that an older, wiser man" was singing, and that the lyrics were more heartfelt "now that he seems resigned to haunting the afterlife". Rolling Stone and Arizona Republic named the studio version of "True Love Waits" the best song of May 2016. Pitchfork named it the week's best new track In 2019, Vulture named it the greatest Radiohead song, In 2020, the Guardian named it the 17th-greatest Radiohead song. == Charts ==