The Oasis music video Liam Gallagher refused to show up for: “Couldn’t be bothered”
Oasis were never ones to play the pin-up pop stars in videos. It was well-known that both the Gallagher brothers hated being in music videos and would gladly do anything to avoid playing into whatever storyline the joker behind the camera thought they should be doing at every turn. Even when the band reached their first major heights, Liam Gallagher couldn’t be bothered to even show up when it came time to film the video for ‘Some Might Say’.
Then again, it’s not like the band was known to be the most engaging presence when they finally made it to set. Take the video for one of their biggest hits from that period, ‘Live Forever’. While the video got two separate versions released both in England and overseas, Liam hardly moves an inch whenever he’s singing, usually just giving his usual dead stare into the camera.
They may not have been Madonna in front of the camera, but that didn’t matter as long as the songs were good. In fact, once the band started making music videos for the tracks on What’s the Story Morning Glory, they figured they let their music do the talking half the time, with ‘Roll With It’ just being a promotional video of them performing the piece live.
Even when the music video showed them in lush locations like ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, the band were normally just getting up to their usual hijinx, either playing the song or walking around, no doubt wondering if they could find a way to get out of the frame as quickly as possible. When it came time for ‘Some Might Say’ to come out, though, Liam wouldn’t spend another day just standing in front of a camera.
As Noel recalled in the Time Flies DVD, his brother wasn’t thrilled with what the director initially wanted, saying, “You’ll notice this video is an amalgam of other videos because ‘Elvis’ couldn’t be bothered turning up to the video shoot. We had all driven out to some motorway service station at eight in the morning to be met by someone saying, ‘Liam’s not coming because he doesn’t like the script.’”
This would become the band’s first number-one in England, so the video director couldn’t leave the record company hanging without a video. It was time to get creative, and what he eventually came up with was actually fairly clever.
Whereas the original music video had a clear storyline, this features bits and pieces from their previous music videos up until that point. Looking through the archival footage, there are different shots taken from the US music video for ‘Supersonic’ and the black-and-white footage of them playing in concert in the ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ video.
While this would be considered one of the laziest ways to cover up a music video, it actually plays pretty well with the rest of the song. Outside of the group not playing the tune in any of the shots, the way that the track syncs up with the band is actually quite seamless, with the title fitting perfectly with Liam singing the line “for what you want to say” on ‘Supersonic’.
If anything, it’s actually better that they made this kind of video to illustrate where they were going. Since this was the start of their takeover and the last tune to feature original drummer Tony McCarroll behind the kit, the video feels like the band looking back on their salad days before becoming musical juggernauts. They were always looking to find that brighter day, and right after this single was released, those musical dreams were about to come true.
