Noel Gallagher on his “favourite song I have ever written”
You would have thought that for an artist, picking a favourite song would be like picking a favourite child. Each one is carefully crafted and raised up to greatness through nurture, time, and effort before being released out into the world. Musicians, in many ways, are like guardians to their material, birthing the thing and then working to shape it into something great. But for Noel Gallagher, the answer is easy.
It’s surprising, of course. Both in Oasis and as a solo musician since the split, Gallagher has created more than his fair share of hits. In the band, he was the principal songwriter, crafting tracks that have become timeless, enduring anthems. He gave the world ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Supersonic’, ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ and the long tracklist of songs that grace their ‘best of’ compilations time and time again.
Even if any average music fan was asked, they might struggle to pick a favourite track. Oasis, especially, left fans spoilt for choice when it comes to attempting to choose the best of the best. But Gallagher himself seems to have one clear answer, able to be decisive even when it comes to the fruits of his own labour.
He picked out ‘The Masterplan’, the 1995 track released only as a B-side to ‘Wonderwall’. “That’s my favourite song I have ever written, I think,” Gallagher told Melody Maker. But the origin of the song is humble and almost thoughtless, written on a whim when the band needed a track for the second side. “I wrote that one in a hotel room in Japan, and again, it was that we needed some more songs for B-sides,” he said.
But while the track wasn’t penned in a blaze of glory during one of their epic recording sessions, and despite the fact that it never got its own moment, it’s always stood out to the singer. “I was really fucking proud of it and I still am,” he told NME, “It’s everybody’s favourite B-side. I think it’s the best song I’ve ever written.”
Naturally, the B-side has forever been overlooked. There’s always been a strange phenomenon in music, with artists commonly ending up placing some of their favourite or best songs in the shadowed spot on the second side, but this might be one of the worst cases. With the massive, no, bigger than massive anthem ‘Wonderwall’ as the A-side, ‘The Masterplan’ stood no chance of getting the attention or praise it deserved.
Or at least the praise that the band themselves thought it deserved. From the second it was written, they knew they’d essentially doomed themselves, with the track creating a rare moment of agreement between the brothers. “I was gutted because our kid – who loves it, it’s one of his favourites – but he was just walking around going, ‘You fucking knobhead! Why did you write that now? Why couldn’t you have waited for a year so it could go on the next album? Or why didn’t you write it for the last album, you fucking dick!’” Gallagher remembered.
“He works himself up into a frenzy where he hates me for writing this great song at that particular point,” he continued, but really it was all just a twisted kind of praise, “I’m going, ‘So basically what you’re saying is you love me and it’s a great song?’ ‘Yeah! You fucking knobhead!’”
But Noel Gallagher is still out to make sure ‘The Masterplan’ gets the reception it deserves. It remains a key part of his live set as one of the Oasis tracks he always plays, getting to give his favourite song an outing each gig.
