From Ed's sweet, tingling, opening riff, the rest of "Lucky" was generated. "I remember fiddling around in the sound check," he says. "[We] were in Japan- and putting together a different pedal order and actually hitting the strings above the nut on the headstock. The pedals that I did it with, and the delay that was going on. It was one of those moments -'Yeah, this is pretty cool'" From here, "Lucky" was made into what the band considers a "happy" song, or at least as happy a song as they are capable of creating.

This song was originally recorded in one day for inclusion on the Bosnian Warchild benefit LP, Help. Despite many other major British artists contributing to the album, this song was immediately recognised by the critics as the most outstanding track. For this reason, it was chosen to head the Help! EP that was released. However, due to Radio One denying the EP any airplay on the grounds that it was "listener unfriendly", it never reached any higher than 53 in the charts.

After much debate, the band chose to include the track on OK Computer, as they think that it is one of the best songs they have ever written, and "it fits exactly where it is on the album". The song started out life around the guitar 'scratching' from Ed at the beginning. The band planned to release it as a single in its own right, but only a French Single materialised.

An identical version, which can be found on both the Help! compilation and the Help! EP, also appears on OK Computer. This wasn't the plan: the band did try to remix the track for the third album but found they couldn't improve on it.

With a choir song backing the explosive chorus, and some superb and original guitar soloing, who could fail to love Lucky? Well, me actually. The first time I ever heard it [1995] I didn't like it at all! Don't worry, I've come to my senses since, and it's one of my favourite tracks of the album.

The lyric 'Kill me Sarah / Kill me again with love' provoked questions amongst fans. 'Who is Sarah?'. No one... It's just Thom's favourite name.

The band released this as a single for part of the Help! Warchild Benefit EP. It peaked in the charts at #53, which was quite horrific. The band wrote this song specifically for the Help EP, unlike any of the other artists who featured on that disc. But they later decided to include Lucky onto their 3rd album, because they all agreed it was their best song.