The iconic debut album from Oasis was released 23 years ago today.
Rock and Roll Star
“The first line of that song is what my life plan was. I can’t wait to get out of this shithole and make some fucking money.” – Noel Gallagher
Recording at the Sawmill
“I remember getting on a boat and going to the studio. I don’t remember anything else. I don’t even remember coming back” – Liam
First impressions of meeting the band
“I met Noel about a year before we started recording, I was working for Johnny Marr. I just thought that he was some scrawny fucking drunk drug dealer. And we also heard about some cocky fucking young kid that thought he could sing like John Lennon and John Lydon, turns out to be Liam – Owen Morris (Producer)
Mani’s midnight visit
On one occasion, having consumed a shit load of drink and magic mushrooms, Stone Roses bass player Mani managed to start a tractor and make his way to where Oasis were recording the album because he wanted to see if they had any more booze and drugs.
In his own words “I went skulking around their rooms.”
The scrapped first version
“I’ll always respect (Alan) McGee for doing that. He just said ‘fucking go and do it again because you’ve got to get it right,’ – Noel
Live Forever
“It seems to me that here was a guy [Cobain] who had everything, and was miserable about it. And we had fuck all, and I still thought that getting up in the morning was the greatest fucking thing ever.” – Noel Gallagher
“It’s actually one of my favourites actually. Don’t know what it means to me though” – Liam Gallagher
“Noel’s arrangements and structures are fucking pop-tastic. It’s like ABBA or something” – Owen Morris.
Digsy’s Dinner
“I’ll sing anything fucking live at anytime…except for Digsy’s Dinner,” – Liam
Shakermaker
“Me and Liam were driving in the back of some fucking Cortina or something like that, on the way to the studio and Liam says ‘have you got a last verse?’ I didn’t have anything, not one fucking word. He says ‘what are going to sing about then?’ and I go ‘don’t worry about it man.’ We passed Sifters and we stopped at the traffic lights outside, and I just sat in the back and I wrote it in my head. Liam goes to Johnny Marr’s studio and records it in 10 minutes. That was that,” – Noel
Inspired by the famous Coca-Cola song, a shaker maker is actually a toy from the ’70s that Noel used to have. When asked about how similar it is to the Coca-Cola song, here’s what Noel said: ‘This is a piss take, surely?’ Someone said in one of the music magazines, of which of course it was!”
Coca-Cola successfully sued Oasis for $500,000
Noel’s talent
“I think he had 50 songs when he met me, and he used to lie and tell me that he just wrote one on the train! He had about 50 songs and probably the first two albums,” – Alan McGee
Columbia
“It was always my favourite song to play live. Always. It just keeps going and going. Three chords, just grooving along. When I heard Liam’s first vocal take, if I had any hair, it would have touched the roof – Bonehead
Originally planned to be an instrumental song, the band rehearsed it after taking acid.
“He (Noel) was just playing all the way fucking through, just riffing without any sense of arrangements or constructions” – Owen Morris
On recording the demo, Noel said that the band were all off their heads on drugs. “We ended up making the demo and it got 50 plays on Radio 1, we were all cabbaged beyond fucking belief,” he said.
Lyrics
“I wasn’t trying to impress anyone with my lyrical prowess. I couldn’t give a fuck about any of that. I was writing things that were true to me. It’s about shagging, drinking and taking drugs” -Noel .
Inspiration
“You could probably take the most original bands of all time, but they’re only playing what they’ve heard in their record collections. My record collection consisted of The Beatles, The Stones, David Bowie and T-Rex. I’m not fucking arsed about extra tracks from a Pink Floyd bootleg from 1971. I couldn’t give a shit man. I’d rather listen to ‘I Am The Walrus’ twenty times again.” – Noel
Supersonic
“We left here that night and listened to it in the car on the way home about 20 times. we thought ‘fucking hell man, that sounds mega!’ – Noel
What England was like at the time of recording the album
“England was a fucking toilet. It was a horrible place to be,” – Noel
If you need a reminder of its brilliance then this superb documentary should do it.
