‘I Hope I Think I Know’: The Oasis song Noel Gallagher thought sounded “too pop”
When you’ve written a number of classic tracks, there will always be those few that don’t measure up. One can only sit down with their guitar and walk away with brilliance so many times before they hit a dry spell, and it’s usually just a matter of time before that magic starts to show itself again once you give it some space. Noel Gallagher didn’t have time to worry about whether or not he had the best songs on Be Here Now, but even he admitted upon release that ‘I Hope I Think I Know’ was a bit too mainstream for Oasis.
Despite every hit that they put on the charts, Oasis was always a rock band. They had pop songs in their arsenal, like ‘Wonderwall’, but their heart was in making tracks that made arenas full of people bounce, like the electrifying riff in ‘Morning Glory’ or the simple bluesy flair of ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’.
If What’s the Story Morning Glory was where they ascended to rock and roll gods, Noel envisioned Be Here Now as the album that would take everything further. He had already become a superstar, but he wanted his name up there with artists like Mick Jagger and John Lennon when writing songs like ‘My Big Mouth’ and ‘All Around the World’.
Although most of the album resulted in a bloated track listing that can get a bit too meandering to the uninitiated, ‘I Hope I Think I Know’ was the moment where Noel thought he didn’t go as far, telling Q Magazine, “I liked the demo, but it’s too pop for me now. I’m slowing down. It reminds me of the Buzzcocks, but I think it’s going to be like ‘Hey Now’ on Morning Glory — the one that nobody mentions.”
This is strange because out of all the songs on Be Here Now, this is as close to perfect as they ever got on the album. Is the song a bit overly long at almost five minutes? Maybe, but even if you trim some of the fat off it, this is still one of the most underrated pop songs of the entire 1990s, featuring the kind of bulletproof chorus that Noel was always great at making.
And at the risk of garnering ridicule from Oasis fans the world over, Liam’s performance on here might be better than the vocals on ‘Slide Away’. The signature ballad on Definitely Maybe has definitely earned a spot in fans’ hearts for a reason, but when it comes to tone, performance, and overall attitude, ‘I Hope I Think I Know’ can hang with the best of them, featuring Liam snarling with just the right amount of grit.
On a lyrical front, the song is actually one of the most prophetic songs that Noel Gallagher would ever write. Considering most of his material was about keeping that optimistic attitude on tracks like ‘Live Forever,’ this feels like he’s looking ahead at when the initial afterglow fades on the band, as he asks his lover to catch him whenever he falls.
Noel can’t help but bring it back to optimism, though, and ending a chorus with a line like “you’ll never forget my name” is pretty bold coming from a band that was still wet behind the ears by rock-star standards. Then again, since we’re still talking about them years 30 years after their debut, it seems like the Gallagher name was something worth remembering.
