The Oasis song Noel Gallagher called “my ‘Hey Jude'”
Half the reason Noel Gallagher became the songwriting entity he is today is because of The Beatles. Without the music of the Fab Four, Oasis probably would have gone in a very different direction, with his brother Liam sounding a lot more like John Lydon than John Lennon. Even though Noel may admit that he lives in the shadow of what the band created in their prime, he thinks one of his songs has become legendary enough to stand alongside one of their masterpieces.
When first honing his songwriting, Noel was happy to just crib notes from any artist he saw. Across the band’s first album, Definitely Maybe, Noel was known to pinch different bits and pieces from rock and roll history, playing T. Rex’s ‘Get it On’ riff for the track ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ and even adopting the chorus from Mott the Hoople’s ‘All The Young Dudes’ when playing the song ‘Whatever’ live.
Not even The Beatles were safe from his plagiarising. When working on those initial hits, Noel subconsciously put different odes to the Beatles songs he loved as a kid, adopting the lead guitar hook from the George Harrison song ‘My Sweet Lord’ for the guitar passage in ‘Supersonic’.
While the band may have grown up a bit in between making their first and second album, all of What’s the Story Morning Glory saw Noel still wearing all of his influences on his sleeve. As much as some of the songs bled the same classic rock pastiches, he did have plenty of classic tunes under his belt. Though Liam thought he would be suited to sing the track ‘Wonderwall’, Noel kept ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ for himself, singing one of the biggest anthems of the group’s career.
Featuring faint glimpses of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, the song would be one of the signature songs from this era of the band, with Noel giving up singing it these days and letting the crowd sing it instead. When talking about the song’s legacy, Noel would say that the song was his way of reaching a Beatles level of prestige.
Discussing the impact the song has made over the years, Noel would say that he feels like he has to play the song every time he steps up to the microphone, explaining, “You’re kind of obliged to at least give it a go. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ – I don’t think I’d be allowed out of the venue if I didn’t play that. It’s kind of like my ‘Hey Jude’”.
While Noel may have proven every promise he made on this song, he would spend the rest of his days in the band still cribbing from the same influences. On the next album, Be Here Now, Noel would become notorious for putting as many references to the Fab Four as possible, even shoehorning their song titles into the lyrics without any rhyme or reason.
Even with the massive fallout of the band throughout the last few years of the 1990s, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ would remain the classic singalong that millions of fans worldwide would resonate with. While Lennon and McCartney may not have written it, Noel’s masterpiece will most likely become his closest brush with being Fab.
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