The one song Noel Gallagher vowed never to record
No artist feels quite at home like they do in the studio. Instead of worrying about different amp settings or effects going off at the right time on the live stage, musicians are free to be their most creative selves when working in the studio, constantly tweaking songs until they are the best pieces of music they can be. Although Noel Gallagher has made more than a few creative masterpieces in the studio both in Oasis and solo, one of the greatest moments he ever created came from a live record.
Then again, Noel had always thrived off of making tunes on the fly whenever working in Oasis. Throughout his career, the songwriter has given many different answers about how he would write songs in various soundchecks during Oasis’ tenure, famously filling in the chorus to ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ when his brother Liam asked who Sally was that he was singing about.
Until Oasis split, Gallagher was still woodshedding songs that would later turn up on his solo projects. Across the soundchecks on what would be the group’s final tour, Noel could be heard playing various songs like ‘Everybody’s on the Run’ and ‘If I Had a Gun’, both of which would become standout tracks when he fleshed them out on his debut album with the High Flying Birds.
After honing his songwriting craft, though, Noel started moving into atmospheric territory on his next few solo outings. Throughout Chasing Yesterday, his songwriting had begun to give way to lavish instrumentation, which would turn into lush soundscapes once he started flirting with synthesisers on his third outing, Who Built the Moon.
Between both albums, Noel had done various radio appearances to showcase some of his material, including stopping into a radio station to play the song ‘The Dying of the Light’ acoustically with a piano accompaniment. While the rest of the roadies and technicians were setting up the equipment, Noel would sing a song that would become a fan favourite of his solo catalogue, ‘Dead in the Water’.
Sounding incredibly sparse due to the recording situation, Noel thought the song was too good to be thrown out, eventually including it as a bonus track when they needed to fill out Who Built the Moon. Although what many fans are hearing is a half-decent demo of the tune, Noel thought that the song worked best in its final form rather than be tarnished in the studio.
When talking about putting the song out, Noel thought that he should never try to equal the power of the performance in the studio, telling Virgin, “When I heard it, I got goosebumps. I was singing it for me, and it’s the first time I’ve ever done that because when you’re in the studio, you know people are going to hear it. It’s a special moment in time. I’m probably not going to ever record that song, just keep it like that as a special moment. I’ll play it live, and all the people will cry”.
Although the song may have a few rough edges from a production standpoint, none of them get in the way of Noel projecting his heart out to the rest of the world for those few minutes. Fans may like the idea of a full studio track, but ‘Dead in the Water’ may join a company with songs like Neil Young’s ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ as one of the few tracks that were too good to be put into the studio environment.
