My Iron Lung is the third EP by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released on 26 September 1994 by Parlophone Records in the United Kingdom and by Capitol Records in the United States. The title track later appeared on the band's second studio albumThe Bends. The EP also contains outtakes from then-ongoing recording sessions for The Bends, compiling songs that were issued as B-sides on two separate "My Iron Lung" CD singles in the UK and other markets. My Iron Lung was originally released as an EP with all eight songs only in Australia, but it is currently in print worldwide. It is seen as a bridge between the relative simplicity of their debut studio album Pablo Honey and the greater sonic depth of Radiohead's later work beginning with The Bends. The title track charted at number 24 in the UK, but received little radio attention in the United States.
Recording
"My Iron Lung" was Radiohead's reaction to "Creep", their successful debut single. The caustic, self-reflexive lyrics use the iron lung as a metaphor for the way "Creep" had both sustained the band's life and constrained them. Songwriter Thom Yorke said in 1995: "People have defined our emotional range with that one song, 'Creep'. I saw reviews of "My Iron Lung' that said it was just like 'Creep'. When you're up against things like that, it's like: 'Fuck you.' These people are never going to listen." Radiohead recorded versions of "My Iron Lung" at RAK Studios, but were not satisfied with the results. Instead, they used a performance recorded in May 1994 at the London Astoria, with Yorke's vocals replaced and the audience removed. According to producer John Leckie, "Considering it was recorded in the back of a truck outside the hall - not the best sound to get something from - we did quite well." Nigel Godrich first worked with Radiohead on this recording, going on to engineer The Bends and to produce their later work. An acoustic version of "Creep" appears at the end of the EP.
Release
Other songs on the EP charted a course away from the emotional grunge-pop of Pablo Honey, toward more layered sounds and more inventive guitar parts from Jonny Greenwood, especially evidenced in the ethereal "Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong" and the Sonic Youth homage "Permanent Daylight", whose vocals hide in a wall of noise. "The Trickster", like the title track, approaches heavy metal. "Lewis" is musically a punky sequel to Pablo Honey's "How Do You?" but the lyrics may point to "Just" from The Bends, both serving as a warning to seemingly oblivious friends on the verge of breakdown. The acoustic "Lozenge of Love" uses unusual tonality and is titled after a line from Philip Larkin's poem "Sad Steps", while "You Never Wash Up After Yourself" is a quiet, desolate song for guitar and voice. In Britain and most of the world, this EP was initially available instead as two singles: the first, with a blue-tinted cover, featured the title track backed by "The Trickster", "Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong", and "Lozenge of Love"; the second, with a red-tinted cover, had "Lewis ", "Permanent Daylight", and "You Never Wash Up After Yourself" as B-sides. "Creep " only appears on the EP release. The "My Iron Lung" single was released only to US college radio stations, where it fared poorly. According to Jonny Greenwood, "It was released to colleges, and suddenly it was being played by some other stations, but there was no real release planned, but oh never mind, we'll just see what happens... It's like you don't have to play it, that's all right. What? This is strange. I don't think any harm would be done by people hearing it outside of colleges."
Critical reception
critic Greg Prato described the tracks as "great outtakes from the sessions for their classic 1995 full-length release The Bends" and stated: "Because of the tracks' consistency and sequencing, it plays like a real album rather than a collection of B-sides and outtakes thrown together haphazardly." Entertainment.ie wrote: "While these off-cuts are inevitably more low-key and experimental than the classics we're all familiar with, the same spirit of anguish and fragility is still thrillingly familiar."
"My Iron Lung", along with an acoustic version of "Fake Plastic Trees", is featured in the 1995 film Clueless. It is featured as a downloadable song for Rock Band.
