‘Go Let It Out’: The song Liam Gallagher said was marked the Oasis comeback
The biggest hurdle that any group has to get over is being on the comeback trail. Every band has a slim chance of making it to the big time once, so asking for the whole thing again feels downright impossible, but by the time that Oasis came up for air in the 2000s, Liam Gallagher knew that the band would be okay as long as they had the right songs behind them.
Because as much as the band liked to talk themselves up in the press as one of the biggest bands in the world, it’s the power of the songs that kept them hanging around for so long. Their performances at Knebworth were a sight to behold back in the day, but none of that came from the Gallaghers hyping themselves to the moon. Of course, that’s exactly what they did, but the important part was getting thousands of people in that open field singing along to ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ and ‘Champagne Supernova’.
So when Be Here Now happened, it was almost inevitable that the bubble was going to burst. The album itself does sound a lot like the Oasis everyone knew and loved, but hearing the layers of guitars and the overproduction of everything made everyone turn their back on them when the 1990s wrapped up.
Noel knew that they were clicking being passed by in favour of people like Radiohead and Travis on the radio, but he was not going to go quietly. The band itself was fracturing by the minute once Bonehead and Guigsy left the fold, but Standing on the Shoulder of Giants is the view from within the eye of the storm. ‘The Chief’ was on the road to recovery after ditching the drugs, and when he finally had ‘Go Let It Out’ under his belt, he had a concept for what the record was going to be.
And when talking about the record, Noel mentioned that Liam finally had hope for the new album once he heard the tune, saying, “‘Go Let It Out’ it started out as this slow Beta Band thing, then it speeded up and became a psychedelic pop song. When I played the first two new songs – they’re B-sides now – to my manager and Liam they said, ‘Hmm, they’re all right, I suppose.’ But when that one came on, Liam sat up on the sofa, held up his bottle of Jack Daniel’s and said, ‘Yes! It’s good to be back!'”
While it wasn’t the version of Oasis that everyone was looking for, ‘Go Let It Out’ has a lot going for it as well. This was the band slowly rebuilding themselves from the ground up, but from the first listen, Noel seemed to have a handle on what made for a good hook again and was willing to throw in a few Beatles Easter Eggs as well, with a mellotron that sounds like it could have come off of Magical Mystery Tour.
It’s not like he was struggling to write with those B-sides, either. Compared to every one of their 2000s albums, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants has some of the greatest B-sides of that era, whether that’s the moody sounds of something like ‘Full On’ or ‘Let’s All Make Believe’ sounding like the long-lost cousin of a tune like ‘The Masterplan’.
More than anything, though, ‘Go Let It Out’ was a comforting sign that the band weren’t even close to running out of ideas. The 1990s would always be remembered as a glorious time for everyone in the band, but even for a group at half-capacity, they still sounded like they were hungry for more.
