“I was deranged”: the songs Noel Gallagher has no memory of recording
You might want to be careful where you air this particular opinion, but many people often look at Oasis and immediately consider Noel Gallagher to be the more talented half of the brothers that front the band. As the band’s principal songwriter and lead guitarist, he’s got a lot of reasons to be able to argue this point, and you know damn well that he will, but to call him any more talented than his younger sibling, Liam, is a gross discredit against the band’s lead vocalist.
Oasis would’ve been nothing without Liam’s swagger, bravado, and distinctive vocal delivery. Sure, the tunes that Noel wrote for Liam to sing were great, and the ones he took for himself were still exceptional displays of pop prowess. But, if Liam hadn’t been there to counter his brother’s comparative tenderness with over-the-top arrogance, then the band would probably have fizzled out far quicker than they did, and there certainly wouldn’t have been as much interest in a massive reunion tour. To put it simply, they’re the yin and yang that present as opposites but require each other to exist.
Still, Noel was indeed the songwriter on all of the band’s biggest hits – you know, the ones that got them famous. Remember them? ‘Champagne Super-something’ and ‘Cigarettes and… uhh’ – you know, those ones. They might all be etched into our memories, but if you were to ask Noel about how either of those tracks originally came about, he’d probably tell you that he hasn’t got the fucking foggiest idea.
The band’s debut album, Definitely Maybe, was a staggering success in 1994 and, at the time, became the fastest-selling debut album of all time in the UK. Their follow-up, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, came barely a year later and further cemented their status as titans of rock not only in their home country but overseas as well. The trouble is, with more success came a bigger budget to splash on narcotics, and by his own admission, Noel was hoovering up his cocaine supply and smoking everything else on a far too regular basis to have any recollection of the band’s most triumphant years.
According to the elder Gallagher, “from 1993 to when I stopped taking drugs on June 5, 1998, I can hardly remember a thing,” he told The Daily Telegraph in 2001. This span of time covers the entire creative process of their first three albums, and it’s probably not a bad thing that he doesn’t remember making Be Here Now, but you might be wondering why he’s got such a vivid recollection of the exact date he went clean.
It turns out that the sight of several people in his house at 11am “skinning up and chopping out lines” while waiting to watch Germany play Greece in the 1998 World Cup was enough to send him on the straight and narrow. Apparently, Noel chose to abstain from the drugs that day and made himself a Pot Noodle instead. “A few hundred grand at least” worth of drugs done in half a decade, over in an instant.
Oasis would have had plenty of moments to celebrate in that five-year window, from meeting the Prime Minister to headlining Knebworth, but none of those occasions have remained with the guitarist. “I can remember signing our first record deal,” he told the interviewer. Concluding, “I don’t remember recording our album, (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? I was deranged. I don’t particularly remember getting married. Not at all. Not that I would want to remember it.”
