The song had it's live premiere when Thom and Jonny played it for a US radio station in Atlanta on july 21st 1995:

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 thought that it was one of the best songs they had ever written, and "it fits exactly where it is on the album". The band did try to remix the track for the third album but found they couldn't improve on it, therefore the versions on Help and OK Computer are identical.

Part of the performance of 'Lucky' from may 22nd 1997 in Barcelona can be seen in Meeting People Is Easy: