“Far out”: The John Lennon song Noel Gallagher was privilege to cover
For those who aren’t in the loop, there might be a good chance that the Gallagher brothers were influenced by The Beatles just a little bit. From the minute that Oasis broke out of Manchester with Definitely Maybe, it was clear that Liam and Noel Gallagher worshipped at the altar of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and judging by their increased interest in classic rock, that hasn’t seemed to have dulled in the years since their breakup. But while Liam was always trying to cop Lennon’s trademark vocal style, Noel saw it as a great opportunity every time he covered one of his idol’s classics.
Because looking back at how The Beatles operated, Lennon was the one most in tune with how the Gallaghers conducted themselves. Compared to the softer songs that Macca was known for writing, Lennon was seen as the original punk in many ways, always going against the conventions and ensuring that everyone knew that he expressed himself exactly how he wanted to.
But as Oasis would soon find out, why outright cover one of Lennon’s songs when you could shoehorn them into your original tunes? It was already clear that they had a fixation judging by the use of his childhood home for the cover of the ‘Live Forever’ single, but anyone is listening to the intro to ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ and insists that they didn’t lift the iconic piano opening to ‘Imagine’ either is delusional or has never actually bothered to listen to the Lennon classic.
At the risk of alienating many Oasis fans, though, Noel was better suited to cover most of Lennon’s material than Liam was. Liam’s voice worked perfectly when singing some of their feral songs, and while he had a fine voice for ballads later on in his career, like ‘Songbird’, hearing Noel’s voice soaring above their softer moments isn’t all that different from what Lennon did on his early ballads.
Noel willingly admitted to being only a greatest-hits fan when it came to Lennon’s solo catalogue, but listening back to his best singles, there was a lot more to explore on his lesser-known albums. Mind Games might not have been the most celebrated record in Lennon’s body of work, but when Noel was asked to cover the title track for his idol’s birthday, he considered it a part of his duty as a Beatles fan.
“I get a call off Sean Lennon who goes, ‘It’s dad’s birthday tomorrow – I’m asking loads of people to do some stuff and post it on their socials.’ I was like, ‘Well, isn’t this fucking destiny calling?’”
Noel Gallagher
Whereas most people celebrate such occasions for special radio specials or the odd charity record, Noel remembered getting the call from Sean Lennon asking him to cover the tune, saying, “I get a call off Sean Lennon who goes, ‘It’s dad’s birthday tomorrow – I’m asking loads of people to do some stuff and post it on their socials.’ I was like, ‘Well, isn’t this fucking destiny calling?’ So I got the troops together and we started ‘Mind Games’ and put a little clip of it on the internet. Then we finished it off, and it sounds great. The lyrics are far out, man.”
Compared to most of Lennon’s other ballads, being able to cover ‘Mind Games’ properly is far from easy. Lennon is singing at the top of his range for most of the tune, and the chorus is riding the line where most singers go into falsetto, and while Noel has nowhere near the same vocal power that his hero had at the time, his version is a more psychedelic affair, which does a lot better job at matching the lyrics than the thin production that the original had.
While Noel and Liam had major disagreements in the past regarding everything they did, it probably worked out for the best that Liam was the one covering ‘I Don’t Want to Be a Soldier’ as his brother covered this tune. Liam’s voice works much better for that kind of hypnotic rock song, but the vocal melody Lennon sings over the line “love is the answer” was practically made for Noel’s voice.
