“If I had my way”: The song Noel Gallagher wanted to record again
Writing and recording an album isn’t an easy task. It takes time to write and rewrite songs, to run through endless takes in the studio, and to work out the best production choices to bring the song into its final form. Ensuring that a song is perfect before it’s pressed onto vinyl can be a painstaking process, but one that is entirely worth it in order to reduce the chance of regrets further down the line. This is a lesson that Oasis rock ‘n’ roll star Noel Gallagher learned the hard way.
As the songwriter for one of the leading bands in the Britpop movement, Gallagher penned some of the most anthemic songs in modern guitar music. He gave us iconic tracks like ‘Supersonic’, ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Wonderwall’, the latter of which is still guaranteed to get entire crowds of people singing along three decades on from its first release. But there is one song that Gallagher had some slight regrets about and wished he could re-record.
In 1995, Oasis released ‘Some Might Say’, a huge hit that preempted the release of their beloved album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? The B-side to the chart-topping track featured a song called ‘Acquiesce’, another anthemic track with drawn-out vocals, tambourine shakes and washing guitars. “Because we need each other, we believe in one another,” Noel sang in the chorus, taking the mic from his brother, “And I know we’re going to uncover what’s sleeping in our soul.”
The song soon became a staple in their live set, though not all audiences were happy with this choice. “It was weird when we first started doing pretty big gigs in America,” Noel remembered during a conversation with NME, “There’d be an uproar when we came on, then we go into this song and everyone would go: ‘What the f***’s that?!’ ‘Cos you’re supposed to do your big song first.”
Despite American audiences’ protests, the song did become big, despite its B-side status. Eventually, the band left actual singles out of their live performances in order to appease audiences with ‘Acquiesce’, “just because the place would go f*****g ballistic when we played it.” Noel was a fan of the track, too, describing it as “one of the better songs,” but that didn’t mean he was entirely happy with the way it had been recorded and produced.
“If I had my way again I’d rerecord it,” he admitted, “‘cos it sounds really thin to me and I don’t like the guitar sounds. And of course, the drumming’s not much cop. Allegedly. Your honour. But, yeah, a good way to open the album.” Noel’s criticisms of the final version of the track do make some sense. Perhaps it could feel a little more dense, or perhaps the guitar tones could be more interesting.
But audiences were unconcerned with nitpicking the song in the same way that Noel did. It didn’t matter if the drumming wasn’t perfect or the track could have been a little less thin; it was a banger nonetheless. It didn’t find favour with audiences because of any of those elements, and it endeared itself to fans with that characteristically anthemic Oasis quality, those big, bold choruses that almost sound as if they’re encouraging you to sing along.
‘Acquiesce’ didn’t need those studio perfections to thrive. A hit is a hit.
