The Oasis song Noel Gallagher called “Elvis on crack”
Most of the best Oasis songs are about returning to rock and roll glory days. As much as artists might like to advance music, Noel Gallagher still worships at the altar of his favourite acts, whether lifting a melodic line from The Beatles or making his best interpretation of David Bowie or Slade. When putting together one of the band’s later tunes, though, Noel remembers his brother throwing it back to the pre-psychedelic days.
Then again, Oasis was already looking to shy away from too many Beatles comparisons throughout the 2000s. Having fallen out of the public’s good graces with the album Be Here Now, the next handful of albums saw Noel reaching for different influences in his sound, which made for projects that felt a bit discombobulated across the track listing.
Although there were more than a few scattershot years with Oasis at the turn of the century, Don’t Believe the Truth was the first time they seemed to be on firm ground again. Returning to the group’s old influences, most of the track listing feels like that glorious 1990s rock band was finally revived, with knockout singles like ‘Lyla’ alongside ballads like ‘Let There Be Love’.
Compared to the glory days, the songwriting had taken a democratic approach across the track listing, with every band member contributing a song. Although former Ride leader Andy Bell delivered pure psychedelic bliss on tracks like ‘Turn Up the Sun’ and ‘Keep The Dream Alive’, Liam was still snarling like a feral dog on the track ‘The Meaning of Soul’.
Featuring acoustic instrumentation and the shortest runtime on the album, this is the sound of Liam doing his equivalent of a punk rock song, talking about how he can show the listener what it takes to sing what’s in their heart. While the song may have a snarl that reeks of early Sex Pistols, Noel thought Liam was cribbing notes from the King of Rock and Roll.
When discussing the recording of the song, Noel thought that Liam had written his uptempo take of an Elvis Presley song, remarking, “Like Elvis on crack. We played it at Glastonbury like The Stooges, but kept the Elvis ’56 vibe for the record”. Then again, it’s not hard to see why Liam would have a few bits of inspiration from Presley’s early records.
Considering the uptempo groove of the song and being dominated by an acoustic guitar, the song practically feels like an update of what tracks like ‘All Shook Up’ used to be, taking only a handful of chords and a mountain of attitude to get his point across. To make the song even more barebones, the album version also featured drummer Zak Starkey playing a box of Weetos instead of the traditional drumkit, which makes for a disorienting listen whenever the song comes on.
Although the rock and roll of old may have been working fine for Oasis, it wasn’t enough to keep the brothers happy for long, only splitting up a few years after the album’s release when their relationship finally broke down. Despite Liam’s fixation with artists like John Lennon, it’s sometimes better to write a song in the vein of those who inspired your heroes.
