What does “slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball” mean?
Oasis’ debut album Definitely Maybe cemented the Mancunian group at the forefront of Britain’s next generation of angsty young musicians. The punk energy captured within that first recording acted as the manifesto for the group, but it was their follow-up (What’s The Story) Morning Glory that put the band on the worldwide map. An undisputed triumph, the record contains some of the band’s most well-known tracks. There was just one problem with Morning Glory: the indecipherable lyrics.
Released on Alan McGee’s Creation Records in the early spring of 1995, as the Britpop scene reached its peak, the album topped the UK album charts – where it remained for ten weeks – and even broke the top five in America. There was no doubt about it; Oasis had officially arrived, and 1995 would be their year. Featuring such classics as ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ and, of course, ‘Champagne Supernova’, the record is an archetypal ‘all killer, no filler’ release.
For many (What’s The Story) Morning Glory was the last truly great Oasis album, arriving before the overblown and bloated effort of Be Here Now. The record signified a maturity from the youthful rebellion of Definitely Maybe, with the tracks on Morning Glory generally seeming more considered, developed and palatable. This maturing sound was the result of various influences, from the replacement of drummer Tony McCarroll with Alan White to the inclusion of guest musicians like Paul Weller. Generally, though, it could be put down to the development of Noel Gallager’s songwriting talents.
Penning every track on the album, Noel came under fire from much of the music press upon the record’s release, with many deeming his seemingly nonsensical lyrics to be pointless and derivative. In actuality, Gallagher’s songwriting sees some of its strongest moments on (What’s The Story) Morning Glory. Granted, there is a certain lack of subtlety to his songwriting, and it is often difficult to interpret the Mancunian’s iconic lyrics, but the fact remains that the tracks on that album have taken on a life of their own since originally being penned by the guitarist.
One of the things that Gallagher found himself criticised for upon the release of Morning Glory was that his lyrics made no sense. This was the case for much of the album, but particularly for the closing track ‘Champagne Supernova’. Just what is a champagne supernova, and how can you slowly walk faster than a cannonball? Well, as it turns out, the track is simply an amalgamation of ideas that came to Noel randomly. The song’s title, for instance, reportedly comes from the songwriter mishearing the title of the Pixies album Bossanova while watching a documentary about champagne.
The line “Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball” is perhaps one of Oasis’ most iconic lyrics, yet it is fairly nonsensical. The subject of its exact meaning has been debated for years, but Noel managed to set the record straight in The Sunday Times back in 2009, revealing that he himself does not know what it means. “I don’t fucking know,” shared Gallagher, “But are you telling me, when you’ve got 60,000 people singing it, they don’t know what it means? It means something different to every one of them.”
What is the meaning of ‘Champagne Supernova’?
So, even if Gallagher’s iconic line doesn’t mean anything in particular, or at least its true meaning is unknown to the songwriter, the song itself must mean something, surely? In a 1995 interview, Gallagher said, “It means different things when I’m in different moods. When I’m in a bad mood, being caught beneath a landslide is like being suffocated” This suggests that, once again, the song’s meaning is up for interpretation.
There is a feeling of togetherness and brotherly love within the song, but apparently, Gallagher was more inspired by feelings of disappointment – of being let down. “It’s about when you’re young and you see people in groups and you think about what they did for you and they did nothing,” the songwriter once explained. “As a kid, you always believed the Sex Pistols were going to conquer the world and kill everybody in the process. Bands like The Clash just petered out. Punk rock was supposed to be the revolution but did it do? Fuck all.”
Did ‘Champagne Supernova’ get to number one?
The track was not released as a single in the UK, with the album producing four unforgettable singles in ‘Some Might Say’, ‘Roll With It’, ‘Wonderwall’ and ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’. Both ‘Some Might Say’ and ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ reached the number one spot of the UK singles chart, while the other two made it to number two. ‘Roll With It’ was kept off the top spot by Blur’s ‘Country House’, during one of the most prominent chart battles of the Britpop period, whereas ‘Wonderwall’, unbelievably, was kept at number two by Robson and Jerome, ‘I Believe’.
Although not released as a single in the UK, ‘Champagne Supernova’ did get a single release in the US, Australia and New Zealand. In the US, the single received a lot of radio airplay, providing the band with their first glimpse of ‘breaking’ the US, though it failed to chart within the Billboard Top 100. In Australia, the track managed a respectable 26th place, improving to 11th in New Zealand.
