Noel Gallagher’s big problem with Nirvana
To be clear, Noel Gallagher didn’t have a problem with Nirvana’s sound. In fact, there were a lot of similarities between Oasis and Nirvana, given that both bands were titans of 1990s alternative with a cult following. But the thing that drew fans to Kurt Cobain’s unique brand of emotive songwriting was Gallagher’s one bone of contention. The brilliance of Cobain’s lyrics was in their visceral look at misery and malaise, which Gallagher sensed glamourised self-pity.
While a lot of listeners took Cobain’s writing as purely anecdotal, Gallagher wasn’t a fan of ‘I Hate Myself and Want to Die’. The song was meant to act as the B-side to Nirvana’s ‘Pennyroyal Tea’ single, which was wisely cancelled after Cobain’s suicide. “I was like ‘Well, I’m not fucking having that,'” he later said. “As much as I fucking like him and all that shit, I’m not having that.”
Almost as a cultural counterpoint, Gallagher had written ‘Live Forever’ around the same time, saying that younger listeners needed something more positive, whereas Cobain’s position was: “Let’s just scream negative lyrics, and as long as they’re not sexist and don’t get too embarrassing, it’ll be okay.” Often nihilistic and charged with painful emotional honesty, it had a natural appeal to the ’90s grunge set, who couldn’t easily be accused of having a sunny outlook.
Despite the lyrics having no overt reference to suicide, Gallagher maintained the song was “fucking rubbish” that “kids don’t need to be hearing”. It might sound at odds with his obvious love for Nirvana, but it’s a criticism that was often level at the band. While Gallagher told the NME he’d have loved to have spent time with him, calling Nevermind “the future of rock”, he was frank about the one element he didn’t like.
“Seems to me,” he mused, “That there was a guy 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 fuckin’ thing ever, ’cause you didn’t know where you’d end up at night. And we didn’t have a pot to piss in, but it was fucking great, man,” he recalled fondly. Cobain, however, didn’t take to commercial success as well, becoming increasingly isolated and depressed as Nirvana’s fame grew.
Gallagher has often mentioned how much he loved Cobain’s music, but at the same time could be practical about its content. Having had his own experience being a relative demi-God of youth subculture, he more than anyone can appreciate the sense of responsibility that came with it. While Cobain often declared he didn’t know how to tackle it, once saying: “If there was a Rock Star 101, I would have liked to take it.”
