The Oasis song that took Liam Gallagher “years to write”
Liam Gallagher has largely delegated songwriting duties to his collaborators throughout his career. While he possesses an iconic voice and exudes the aura of a true showman, songwriting has never been his forte. Fortunately, this was not a hindrance during his time with Oasis, as songwriting was Noel Gallagher’s primary strength. The duo complemented each other, compensating for each other’s weaknesses.
However, despite Noel writing the bulk of Oasis’ back catalogue, Liam occasionally dipped his toes into the water in this department, but it occurred intermittently. The first song written solely by Liam that appeared on an Oasis album is ‘Little James’, which featured on Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants in 2000, and as the years passed, he added it to his repertoire.
While ‘Little James’ didn’t express a natural gift for songwriting, as Liam put more time into developing his skillset, it became evident in the songs he produced. ‘Songbird‘, which appeared on Heathen Chemistry in 2002, marked a step-up in Liam’s output, stealing the show on the aforementioned album and proving he could hit impressive heights.
Even his brother, Noel, often Liam’s harshest critic, conceded that ‘Songbird’ is a “perfect” song during an appearance on the Matt Morgan Podcast in 2021.
On Oasis’ final album, 2008’s Dig Out Your Soul, Liam contributed two songs to the record, including ‘I’m Outta Time’, released as a single. The track had been mulling around in Liam’s mind for three years before he finally reached a stage where it was ready to be recorded, marking his progression as a songwriter.
During an interview with Rolling Stone, Liam explained the songwriting process of ‘I’m Outta Time’: “I got the verses and the music, the chorus took like years to write, I just couldn’t get anything. One day I was fucking about, and it just happened. I thought, ‘All right, that’s the song done. It’s fucking done’.”
He continued: “I was playing it, and the outro goes round and round. It needs something – obviously, I’m a big John Lennon fan, and it’s got a bit of a Lennon vibe, so I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got to find a bit of him speaking.’ So we went through all these old interviews, that’s the first one I found, and it just sort of worked. It’s not a tribute to John Lennon because if you sat down and tried to write a tribute to John Lennon, it’d be fucking rubbish, but it’s kind of a nod.”
Before this moment, Liam felt limited as a songwriter and unable to produce a track of anthemic magnitude before ‘I’m Outta Time’ instilled in him the belief that he could now explore new territories.
He explained to Q in 2011: “When I finished that, I thought, ‘yeah, man, there’s something in this writing business. I should keep it up and not throw in the towel.’ I think that was the one. Cos a lot of my songs, verses repeat and shit like that. And I don’t have the big anthem chords. But I pulled that one off. I’m proud of that.”
Although Liam still relies heavily on working with collaborators in his solo career, he has taken on more of a hands-on approach without Noel’s input. On his 2022 album, Liam was listed as a writer on every track, including two compositions solely penned by the former Oasis frontman.
Listen to ‘I’m Outta Time’ below.
