Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke created a parody cover of Oasis song ‘Wonderwall’
There’s nothing better than a little bit of gentle piss-taking in rock and roll. The emergence of Britpop and the somewhat incorrect categorisation of Radiohead landed the group alongside Blur and Oasis for a strange period of time, but they soon broke free. However, while they may have taken a new path of their own making, the band weren’t able to escape a public war of words with Manchester’s prolifically outspoken brothers. While Radiohead rarely indulges in the fine art of the piss-take, when Thom Yorke decided to put his own spin on the Oasis song ‘Wonderwall’, he really broke the mould.
It goes without saying that Oasis’ reckless Gallagher brothers find it all too easy to dish out some high-profile ear bashings. In fact, you only need to look back as early as 2015 for Noel Gallagher’s take on Radiohead’s consistently impressive reviews: “I’m aware that Radiohead have never had a fucking bad review,” he said in a conversation with Esquire. “I reckon if Thom Yorke fucking shit into a light bulb and started blowing it like an empty beer bottle it’d probably get 9 out of 10 in fucking Mojo. I’m aware of that”.
Shortly after, Gallagher took another shot at the Radiohead frontman while discussing the backstory of the Oasis song ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ and its impact on contemporary music. “Technically, there’s better songwriters than I am,” he said. Guardian writers will tell you that. Have other people’s songs ever really touched a generation, though? Radiohead? When do people listen to them? Is it when they go out, or is it when they come in? Because I’m struggling to think.”
He continued: “Look, as soon as Thom Yorke writes a song as good as fucking ‘Mony Mony’, give us a fucking shout. Me and my missus, we were at the Coachella festival a couple of years ago and Radiohead were headlining. We were like, ‘Right, let’s give them one more chance. Let’s go and see them.’ Beautiful, sunny night. We walked out through the crowd as they came on, and they were playing this post-techno: ‘de-de de de.’ We were a bit pissed. Fucking great. And then he started singing. No. Not for us. We’re party people.”
Years later, with the bee still firmly in his bonnet, Gallagher took aim once more: “Thom Yorke sat at a piano singing, ‘This is fucked up’, for half an hour. We all know that, Mr. Yorke. Who wants to sing the news? No matter how much you sit their twiddling, going, ‘We’re all doomed,’ at the end of the day people will always want to hear you play Creep. Get over it. I never went to fucking university. I don’t know what a paint brush is; I never went to art school.”
Thom Yorke, ever the professional, replied in succinct fashion: “I did. It taught me to respect other artists.”
However, the story isn’t that straightforward. It turns out Yorke had actually attempted to blow his own shit through a lightbulb once before, during a radio session for CBC in Canada in 1996 alongside American power pop group The Posies. I joke, of course.
While tinkering around on his acoustic guitar, Yorke romps into a rendition of Oasis’ 1995 song ‘Wonderwall’, seemingly attempting to make his vocals sound as nasally as possible akin to Liam Gallagher’s almost parody approach. Quite cheekily, Yorke then plays around with the lyrics as he sings: “There are many ways that I would like to sing to you, but I don’t know how.”
Towards the end of this rare recording, a member of the Posies can be heard saying: “Is this abysmal or what?” to which Yorke replies: “Yep,” before promptly adding: “It’s always good to make fun of Oasis, though.”
The Radiohead frontman then adds: “They don’t mind, actually.”
Excellent stuff, absolutely excellent.
Have a listen below.
