The song Mac DeMarco wrote to emulate Oasis: “I didn’t really get close”
There is a big question to be asked here: Since the 1990s, has it been possible for an indie artist to pick up a guitar and not, in some way, be influenced by Oasis? Perhaps that influence is even subconscious, as the Gallagher brothers came to define easy crowdpleaser rock as the modern interaction of four chords and a dream. But in Mac DeMarco’s case, the impact was fully intentional.
I raise the question because, really, who would ever put Oasis and Mac DeMarco in the same category? At the complete opposite end of Britpop, surely there stands American slacker rock, which DeMarco is undeniably part of despite being Canadian. While Britpop was all rowdy energy and theatrics, that opposing brand of Americana indie is downtrodden, lazy, and hazy. It’s weed, while Britpop is pure booze: lager, straight vodka.
Make it more specific, and if we focus directly on the Gallaghers and DeMarco, once again, you couldn’t get more opposite. The Oasis brothers are the epitome of rockstar bravado with Liam’s swaggering walk and Noel’s takedowns in the press. They partied like rock stars, feuded like rock stars and are back playing like rock stars on their comeback tour. Meanwhile, DeMarco once shared his address on an album, pointing his fans to a remote bay-side community and inviting them over for a calm cup of coffee. It’s rock and roll but in a completely different way, being radical in its total sweetness.
Musically, too, it’s never felt like there would be much, if any, crossover between Oasis and DeMarco. Even on his loudest tracks, the slacker king was always more left-field. His music is hazier, janglier, less all-out guitar rock and more mellow and delicate.
But in the moment when he wanted to make something big and boisterous, DeMarco immediately knew who to look towards, returning us to the question at hand – is it possible to escape Oasis?
“I had just seen a documentary about Oasis before writing this song, and I was trying to write a gigantic rock and roll hit with my renewed love for the band,” DeMarco explained, admitting that he, like everyone else, loves a bit of Manchester’s finest.
The result was ‘All Of Our Yesterdays’, which, as he would be the first to admit, sounds absolutely nothing like Oasis. “I didn’t really get close to that at all,” he said, “but I’m happy with the song that came out.”
To give him some credit, though, the opening guitar line of the track, if it were played on big electric guitars with all-out attitude, rather than with a blues edge, would potentially come close to an Oasis opening. There’s also a simplicity to the craft of the song that’s reminiscent of a more emotional, downtempo Oasis song, like ‘Talk Tonight’.
There are moments on the track that the Gallaghers could certainly work with, but it’s asking a lot of a man like DeMarco and his softer disposition to attempt to step into the shoes of two of rock’s rowdiest.
