The one Beatles song Noel Gallagher couldn’t live without
Noel Gallagher has always been open about the powerful influence of The Beatles on his work. Back in the Brit-pop outfit’s heyday, there was a sense that Oasis represented the rebirth of British musical exceptionalism. Noel and the band were keen to support this view by giving thanks to classic British Invasion groups like The Beatles and the Kinks during acceptance speeches.
During concerts, they also covered songs like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ and ‘I Am The Walrus’ and did their best to reconstruct the chart-topping success of the Fab Four. It’s unsurprising, then, that The Beatles made a significant appearance on Noel Gallagher’s Desert Island Discs selection when he appeared on the long-running BBC Radio 4 show in 2015.
After discussing tracks by the likes of David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, and other classic British acts, Gallagher revealed that the final song he would take with him to a desert island would be The Beatles’ ‘Ticket To Ride’. “I can’t really go through this without mentioning The Beatles,” he began. “The first guitar that I ever bought when I actually had some money was an Epiphone; it’s what they used to play. They mean a great deal to me musically. They’re just the greatest thing in music that ever was”.
Released in 1965, ‘Ticket to Ride’ was the first single released from the Beatles’ fifth studio effort, Help! It was also the first Beatles song to feature Paul McCartney on lead guitar. The track is one of the finest examples of Lennon and McCartney’s songwriting partnership during this period. Of course, it’s hard to say who had the most influence because, as always, the pair offered differing accounts of their contributions, with Lennon claiming it was almost entirely his own work in one of his final interviews.
On the other hand, Paul remembered ‘Ticket to Ride’ as being a little more collaborative. Talking to Barry Miles in Many Years From Now, McCartney recalled: “We wrote the melody together; you can hear on the record, John’s taking the melody, and I’m singing harmony with it. We’d often work those out as we wrote them. Because John sang it, you might have to give him 60 per cent of it. It was pretty much a work job that turned out quite well”.
He added: “John just didn’t take the time to explain that we sat down together and worked on that song for a full three-hour songwriting session, and at the end of it all we had all the words, we had the harmonies, and we had all the little bits.”
For Gallagher, ‘Ticket to Ride’ represents the very pinnacle of The Beatles’ songwriting – even when held up against the more experimental material in their later albums. Then again, I suppose that makes complete sense: Gallagher has always been a pop aficionado at heart.
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