Ecriture des paroles / Enregistrement studio : 1993
Premier live : 21 février 1994 (Reading, au Royal Berks Social Club)
Version acoustique : 1994
Sortie sur album : 13 mars 1995 (The Bends)
Clip : août 1995
Singles : Just CD1 et Just CD2, 7 août 1995

Il s’agit de la chanson préférée de Phil sur cet album.

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 1993  [/button]

Voici un artwork qui a du traîner sur le site officiel du groupe, probablement un scan d’une page de carnet de Thom Yorke, rédigeant les paroles de Just :

Concernant l’enregistrement de la chanson, on apprendra par la suite plusieurs éléments intéressants :

– D’après Thom, sur cette chanson, Jonny et lui rivalisent pour savoir qui mettra le plus d’accord en une seule chanson… C’est bien sûr Jonny qui gagne..

[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / Guitar world, april 1998″]The music to the propulsive ‘Just’ was largely written by Greenwood, who Yorke says “was trying to get as many chords as he could into a song. It was like writing a medley.[/quote]

–  C’est une des premières chansons que le groupe a réussi à enregistrer. C’était l’hiver, ils étaient au Studio Fruit Farm. D’après Ed, la chanson aurait pu durer quelques sept minutes, comme elle le faisait au départ, quand ils n’en étaient qu’au stade de la répétition :

[quote cite=”Answerphone 1995”]Thom : « A competition by me and Jonny to get as many chords as possible into a song. »
Jonny : « Am G# Eflat F Am G# G F# F C F# F F C F# F F. »
Ed : « This could have been about seven minutes long, as it was in rehearsal before the album. That whole rehearsal period stuck on a fruit farm in the middle of winter was amazing, just the five of us playing new songs. I think Phil’s drumming on this is exquisite. »
Phil  : « My favourite drum take on the album. Combination of sound rock and sassy grooves… well, I can dream, anyway. »
Colin : « First track we put down properly at RAK. »[/quote]

John Leckie, le producteur de l’époque, ne perd pas le sens du commerce (citation source inconnue). Il lui faut un tube pour succéder à Creep, et Just pourrait faire l’affaire, enfin, parmi d’autres….
[quote ]It was either going to be Sulk, The Bends, Nice Dream or Just. We had to give those absolute “attention, make the amazing, instant smash hits number 1 in America”. Everyone was pulling their hair and saying, “It’s not good enough! We were trying too hard”.[/quote]
 

– You do it to yourself’ d’après Thom :
[quote ]« (we) … went to a party on the 15th floor of a block of flats, passed out at 3am, and woke up an hour later – there was a guy hanging – off his head – out the window saying »i’m gonna do it« took us half an hour to get him back.. »[/quote]
Voilà ce qui l’aurait inspiré pour l’écriture de la chanson.

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 21 février 1994 [/button]

La chanson est jouée en live pour la première fois à Reading, au Royal Berks Social Club.

La chanson est adaptée en version acoustique pour un passage radio en 1994 :

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 13 mars 1995 [/button]

La chanson sort sur l’album The Bends.

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 31 août  1995 [/button]

Un clip est tournée pour promouvoir Just.

Thom raconte les coulisses du tournage dans le journal de bord qu’il tient pour le magazine Q. Le synopsis leur a été envoyé sur une simple feuille A4, le groupe ne sait donc pas grand chose, il est juste venu poser pour quelques prises. Le tournage se fera sur trois jours, donc un seul où la présence du groupe est requise…

[quote cite=”Thom Yorke / Q, 31 août 1995″]Video shoot for ‘Just’. It’s being directed by a guy called Jamie Thraves. He’s just sent us this idea on an A4 piece of paper. It’s about a character who collapses in the street and then all these captions appear on the screen as if the song’s been translated. Apparently. But, there are three days of shooting and we’re only here for one so it’s pretty much out of our hands. That’s cool. Go stand on film set. Strut around like a peacock making faces. Not a pig in sight. Good therapy.[/quote]

Même si le groupe n’est pas très “concerné”, le clip sera un succès, car l’idée de départ est génialement intrigante pour les spectateurs :

Billboard donnera beaucoup de détails en octobre 1995 :

[quote cite=”Billboard octobre 1995″]

In the clip, members of Radiohead perform in a high-rise apartment complex. Singer Thom Yorke is drawn to the window when he hears a commotion on the street below, and he sees a well-dressed, middle-aged businessman lying on the sidewalk. A pedestrian stumbles over the man and asks him (via subtitles) if he has fallen. The man replies that he has not fallen, but that he simply has decided to lie down on the sidewalk.
A curious crowd forms around the man and makes many inquiries about his physical and mental health. The man requests that the people disperse, but they refuse to leave him alone. As the crowd grows, the inquiries shift from concern to extreme curiosity as to why a man would deliberately lie down in the middle of the sidewalk. Even a police officer cannot solicit a reasonable answer from the man, who only responds, ‘You don’t want to know, please believe me’.
It’s as if the man knows something that the rest of the world does not. Finally, at the end of the video, he agrees to reveal the reason for his seemingly insane action. However, as he begins to explain, the subtitles disappear.
The viewer does not discover his secret, which has made an incredible impact on the crowd in the clip. As the camera pulls back from the man on the sidewalk, it reveals that the people surrounding the man have also fallen to the ground.

In the clip’s original edit, performance footage of the band is interspersed throughout the theatrical sequences. However, there are two additional edits of the video, which separate the performance and movie-like sequences.
“The original works best because it builds an incredible tension that is never resolved,” says Yorke. “We all decided that we would never tell anybody about the ‘meaning’ of the end of the clip.”

Capitol video VP of visual promotion Linda Ingrisano says that the man’s response is not even written in the script for the video, which is a production of Oil Factory.
“I’ve had more inquiries about this clip than any other in my entire career,” says Ingrisano. “It’s almost as if the clip touches on the secret to life in the universe.”
MTV began playing the clip Oct. 10 and designated it as a Breakthrough Video because of its “strong technical or visual effects or creative vision,” says MTV senior VP of programming and music Andy Schuon.
“This could get people excited about the album again,” says Schuon. “It certainly isn’t a run-of-the-mill video.”
Radiohead entrusted new video director Jamie Thraves to the task of creating the clip, despite his relative inexperience in the genre.
Before this project, Thraves had directed only a handful of short films, but no major-label music videos. The risk has paid off, according to Yorke.

“We left the song in very capable hands,” he says. “Jamie was free of the constraints of the typical video formula. He shot the video the way he wanted to.”
Thraves says that he had envisaged the clip as a short film, rather than a conventional music video.
“I felt like the visuals had to stand on their own,” says Thraves, who also shot the forthcoming clip for ‘Toes Across The Floor’ by Blind Melon. “It was always my ambition to shoot something as narrative as possible within the context of a music video. Using subtitles seemed like a natural way to achieve this, since the words do not compete with the actual vocals of the song.”
Thraves says he is realizing the impact of the clip, as more people ask him why the man is lying down in the street.
His only reply: “You don’t want to know, please believe me.”

[/quote]

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 7 août 1995 [/button]

2 single sortent pour promouvoir Just.

CD1 :

1. Just
2. Planet Telex (Karma Sunra Mix)
3. Killer Cars (Mogadon Version)

CD2 :

1. Just
2. Bones (24 mars 1995, Kentish Town Forum, Londres)
3. Planet Telex (idem)
4. Anyone Can Play Guitar (idem)

La pochette du single représente le nom du groupe écrit avec des lettres qui ont chacune été photographiées sur des vitrines et des panneaux de signification de la ville de Plymouth

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 2 septembre 1995  [/button]

Parce qu’ils jugeaient qu’elle ressemblait trop à Shot By Both Sides de Magazine, les critiques n’ont pas trop bien accueilli la chanson, ce qui ne l’a pas empêché de se classer 19 ème dans les charts :  Le single « Just » (Parlophone CDR 6415) atteint  ce classement la semaine du 2/09/1995

source : http://www.officialcharts.com/

[button icon=’iconic-cd’ fullwidth=’true’] 18 mai 1996 [/button]

En 1996, devant le succès de The Bends, Radiohead fait une tournée de promotion dans les émissions musciales… Pour la France, ça sera le “Hit machine”, émission de Charly et Lulu destinée à un public très adolescent. Creep triomphe alors chez nous, et Radiohead n’a pas encore donné de concert depuis leur « succès » hexagonal. Contre toute attente, ils jouent Just… et, ayant capté l’ambiance « Charly et Lulu » de l’émission, ils font ce qu’ils ont fait dans plusieurs émissions à cette époque : n’importe quoi ! Jonny joue de la guitare de la main gauche et du coup Ed et lui fait des effets de style. De plus, Jonny chante sur le refrain. Il faut noter d’ailleurs qu’ils ont joué en play back.