Watch Sam Fender cover Oasis classic ‘Morning Glory’
Since the release of his Brit-Award-winning debut album Hypersonic Missiles, Sam Fender has gone from strength to strength, establishing himself as one of the UK’s biggest stars. Here, the ‘Seventeen Going Under’ singer pays tribute to another of the nation’s most beloved musical exports, Oasis.
At a recent concert, Fender surprised fans with a rendition of Oasis’ 1995 track ‘Morning Glory’, taken from their classic album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? The track appears to paint a portrait of a methamphetamine or cocaine addict living their life at 100mph. Many have interpreted it as a call for drug users to “wake up” to the reality of their addiction, but any moralising on Gallagher’s part is buried well beneath the surface. The track’s lyrics are too vague to be considered didactic, and the only thing we can say with some confidence is that they are based on Gallagher’s own experience of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle.
‘Morning Glory’ was an interesting choice for Fender. The singer has previously discussed his relationship with drugs and the way they affected his local community. During a conversation with Hot Press in 2019, Fender opened up about his track ‘Spice’, the lyrics of which offer a pretty grim description of the titular ‘zombie’ drug’s effects: “Spice ravaged my hometown,” he began. “We all smoked it when we were 17. I tried it a couple of times, back when it was legal. It was the most gnarly drug I ever took. The whole world had just been flipped on its head, and I had no control over anything. You become a zombie. I had mates who smoked that every day for years, and it destroyed their lives.”
The sheer energy behind ‘Morning Glory’ reflects the intensity with which What’s The Story was made. The entire album was written in less than two weeks, and Oasis ended up using just three of the six weeks of studio time they’d booked at Rockfield Studios. “I remember it just being really really fucking fast,” Noel later told NME, “And half the songs hadn’t even been written when I got here. If you listen to the record, it’s split into two halves. Half of the songs have got a second verse, they were all written before I got here, and the rest of the songs are just the first verse twice, and then maybe a third time. That was me getting in here and going, ‘You know what? Fuck it.’”
Make sure you check out the fan footage of Fender’s Oasis cover if you haven’t already.
