The Oasis song Liam Gallagher refused to record: “The one great song they wrote”
When Noel Gallagher got the ball rolling with Oasis, nothing would stop him from becoming one of the biggest artists in the world. He knew he had the songs to pull it off, and as long as he managed to keep the band out of trouble long enough to get to the top of world, there was no reason to think that he wouldn’t go down in history with writers like Paul Weller, Paul McCartney, or Neil Young. All they needed to do was sustain that magic, but all that started going south the minute the band started misbehaving.
Because as much as Noel would be able to run nearly everything that Oasis did, there was no way in hell that he would be telling his little brother what to do. Liam was the epitome of what a rock star should be, and while not everything that he did was perfect in the press, he was a magnet for the band when they started blowing up, clad in his Lennon shades and rocking one of the coolest stances anyone had ever made onstage.
But it’s not like Liam didn’t have his head screwed on in many other respects. Much has been made about how Noel wrote all the songs for the band in their early days, but before he had even joined the group, Liam was already starting to write tunes with the rest of the band after coming out of their stint as The Rain. And amid their tunes, ‘Take Me’ did at least have some energy behind it.
Even when Noel had the incredibly rare compliments of his brother back in the day, he said that there was no reason why ‘Take Me’ shouldn’t have been a part of their initial collection of songs when first playing it live, saying, “We mimed to one of our demos. It was one of Liam’s and Bonehead’s songs called ‘Take Me’, which they steadfastly refused to record. Fucking great song and all, the one great song they wrote.”
Then again, Noel might be a bit cagey about it being the only good song they wrote. Looking back at the rest of the band’s recollection of events, ‘Columbia’ ended up coming together as a group effort before Noel even became involved, and since Liam was there for that initial jam session, he was the one who gave the song that kind of hypnotic groove that keeps everything moving throughout the tune.
In fact, as much as Liam likes to claim that he is one of the reigning kings of all things rock and roll, there’s almost a little bit of swagger he has that would work well for rave music. While the last thing that any rock band wanted to do was be associated with dance music, that trance-like atmosphere that happens whenever this tune comes on is reminiscent of the mad psychedelic moments that could happen when listening to albums like Screamadelica by Primal Scream.
But considering where the band would be going from there, it’s not like they were itching to make something synthetic. There was admittedly some hip-hop samples to be found on Be Here Now, but those only served to provide unique textures rather than be something that was fleshed out on later projects.
At the same time, maybe Liam does have something a little more psychedelic like ‘Take Me’ on the table for the future. After all, his record with John Squire did have some psychedelic punch to it and gave the songs a lot of time spread out, so what’s stopping him from going all-in on the looping sounds of rock and roll?
