"High and Dry" was recorded as a demo during the sessions of Radiohead's first album, Pablo Honey (1993), and remastered for inclusion on The Bends.

The Radiohead songwriter, Thom Yorke, performed an early version of "High and Dry" with another band, Headless Chickens, while attending the University of Exeter in the late 1980s.

It developed from experiments with a drum loop taken from another song, the B-side "Killer Cars", to which Radiohead added piano processed with multiple delay effects.

[8] Pete Stanton from Smash Hits gave "High and Dry" four out of five, writing: "It has a Suede-ish vibe to it, minus the whining, and is a mellow-but-not-boring track.

"[9] In 2017, Pitchfork credited "High and Dry" and another Bends song, "Fake Plastic Trees", for influencing the "airbrushed" post-Britpop of Coldplay and Travis.