The greatest love song ever written, according to Noel Gallagher
Of all the adjectives used to describe Noel Gallagher, ‘sentimental’ is not often one of them.
While he does have his sensitive side and openly talks about his innermost feelings in his songs, hardly anyone is going to be looking at the same man who wished AIDs upon his enemies and thinking that he is the most tender-hearted soul they have ever seen. Noel didn’t pull many of his punches back in the day, but if there was anything that was going to melt his heart, it was going to come through music more often than not.
Throughout every phase of his career, Noel has shown most of his vulnerable side whenever he’s stuck behind the glass. He was never going to open up in front of a camera or detail every aspect of his personal life on the road, but in between all of the great rock and roll numbers that the band played every single night, ‘Talk Tonight’ and ‘Half the World Away’ were those rare moments where all of the darkness would fade away for a little while.
Then again, that’s how all of Noel’s inspirations worked as well. The Beatles had both the light and the dark side of their sound whenever they performed, and while The Stone Roses could kick out the jams when they wanted to, there was a far more introspective feeling mixed into tunes like ‘Bye Bye Badman’ and ‘Waterfall’ that you wouldn’t have heard out of the other bands in the Manchester scene.
But Noel’s songwriting was more about the melody than the groove half the time. He had studied all of those great Lennon/McCartney songs when he was a kid, and while people like Johnny Marr were opening new doors for what rock and roll could be, Noel always had a soft spot for artists like Burt Bacharach in between his regular diet of Beatles, Stones, and The Who.
Bacharach isn’t exactly the coolest name drop that any songwriter can throw down, but when you start listening to his tunes, you start to realise how much of a dent he’s left in pop culture. Aside from having the most beautiful melodies of all time, songs like ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ also manage to cram in as many music theory tricks as possible, with most of the chorus being in an uneven metre.
And while Noel didn’t give out praise lightly, he readily admitted that nothing was going to be the song ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’, saying, “I will say it took me two and a half years to work the song. Then I moved it up two keys, moved it around, and wrote my own song. I’m surprised he hasn’t sued me yet. It’s called ‘Half the World Away’. I want to cover ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’ one day, though. I will say that’s probably the best love song ever written.”
Noel did eventually get his wish when he got the opportunity to play with Bacharach in the late 1990s, but he took a few more lessons than simply nicking the chords to his favourite song. He was always a sponge of his favourite artists, and even though Paul Weller showed him the chord that would eventually turn into ‘Let There Be Love’, the arrangement of the song is a lot closer to the kind of music that Bacharach was writing back in the day.
Putting Bacharach right on the cover of Definitely Maybe may have been one step too far in terms of fan worship, but there’s no reason why Noel couldn’t wear his influences on his sleeve. He pulled from his favourite artists all the time, and even if the more critical listeners were accusing him of stealing, no one could have taken all those different musical elements and made songs like ‘Some Might Say’ and ‘Half the World Away’.
