U2’s Bono names his favourite Oasis song: “I love it all”
While U2 frontman Bono is a character who splits opinion, there’s no bigger defender of him than former Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher. The Mancunian has toured with the group extensively with his High Flying Birds. The experience was a dream come true as their records were formative in his early life, and their music still occupies a special place in his heart.
After finishing a world tour with the Irish rockers, which took them to stadiums from London to Buenos Aires, Gallagher explained why he was no longer prepared to waste his time arguing with people who dislike U2. “They get a lot of stick thrown at them, U2… In America, they’re one of the great bands of all time. But in England, they cop for a lot of flack, which is ridiculous when you think about the amount of records that they sell,” he told Radio X in 2017.
Gallagher continued: “Bono seemed, at Twickenham, less larger than life than he usually does… but they shouldn’t be worried. I’ve given up trying to defend U2 now. I’m like, if you get it – great. If you don’t, more fool you.”
As usual, Noel’s opinion isn’t shared by his brother Liam. When he appeared on the Loudwire Nights podcast, the singer used U2 as an example when claiming rock ‘n’ roll is a dying art form, stating, “They pass themselves as a rock ‘n’ roll band, but what the? Come on, man, I’ve never seen fucking Bono, I mean, I’ve never seen any of them do anything remotely rock ‘n’ roll.”
However, despite Liam’s stance on the group, Bono named ‘Live Forever’ as one of his favourite songs of all time in 2020. In an open letter to the group, he wrote: “‘I think you’re the same as me, We see things they’ll never see.’ I don’t know what this song is about… I don’t want to know. I know you wrote this song, but it belongs to me… well, it doesn’t really, it belongs to us… or anyone who was ever in a band.”
Bono continued: “Cause whatever you say, this song is about being in a band. And it’s us against the world…a very different feeling from me against the world. The last gang in town versus the man alone.
I love the singing and the playing and the lyric and Liam and Noel and Tony and the two Pauls… I love it all… and now I don’t need to live forever as much.”
For Bono, ‘Live Forever’ is a tale of being in a band with his brothers, but the song has a different meaning for every listener who connects with Noel’s lyrics uniquely. In the case of Gallagher, as he’s grown older, it no longer means the same as it did when he penned it as an aspiring musician with a dream of superstardom.
The songwriter explained to BBC Radio 2 in 2021: “In its original form, ‘Live Forever’ is a fist-pumping, you know we are going to take on the world, me and my best friend are going to take on the world, and no one’s going to get in our way and we are going to live forever, and singing it now as a 54-year-old father and you’re kind of looking back over your life, and it’s taken on a completely different meaning.”
Listen below to ‘Live Forever’.
