Was Oasis the Worst Lyricists of Their Time?

Or did they have enough of everything else going for them to not care about words?

Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis as imagined by Midjourney

It was 1996. I was not long out of art school. Myself along with a group of classmates and some old friends were standing in Molson Park in Barrie, Ontario, Canada on a sweltering hot day. It was relatively calm among the crowd as Jewel finished her set.

Then came the roars and screams.

Likely the biggest band in the world at the time, Oasis, finally stepped onto the stage after making us all wait in their signature “don’t give a fuck” style. That was their schtick: the Gallagher brothers hated each other, and everyone else too.

But it didn’t matter. The band was loved no matter how it hated on people. The young women at the concert were practically throwing their panties onto the stage. In fact, that might’ve actually happened. But bear with me, that was almost 30 years ago, and my brain has leaked some memories.

I found a setlist from that concert. Apparently they led with Acquiesce. I had to look it up on Youtube to remember how it sounds. And then after arguing with some people in the front row, they played their hit Supersonic.

The audience went absolutely bonkers. My group was a fair distance from the stage, as there was a lot of moshing and jostling going on near the front. In fact, we had to rescue one of our friends who got herself trapped in “the pit” as the kids called it.

I enjoyed their set a lot that day, and I think it’s the only time I saw them live.

But it’s weird. Despite being a band that was being compared to the Beatles in sound and style, there was something missing for me. I didn’t buy their albums, but I’d leave them playing on the radio.

I think I already knew what the problem was. But it has taken me 30 years or so to figure out why I didn’t go gaga over them:

Their lyrics sucked.

Let’s take the song Supersonic for example. I really have no idea what the song is about. The lyrics jump all over the place.

Here’s one of the verses:

Cause my friend said he'd take you home

He sits in a corner all alone

He lives under a waterfall

Nobody can see him

Nobody could ever hear him call

Nobody could ever hear him call

And within the next:

I know a girl called Elsa

She's into Alka Seltzer

She sniffs it through a cane on a supersonic train

If you read the rest of the lyrics (captioned under the Youtube video above) you’ll be left scratching your head.

Sure, the words are fun to sing, and easy to remember—which is good when you’re young and drunk. But they’re not telling a story. There’s nothing wise about the lyrics. Except that maybe you shouldn’t snort coke aboard a fast-moving vehicle.

It sounds like someone fed lyrics from the Beatles’ psychedelic era into an AI like this one, and asked it to create something new from that. It’s just a bunch of nonsense, really.

Okay, that’s just one example, you see. Let’s take a look at another of the big hits from Oasis:

Champagne Supernova.

Admittedly, the song has a nice melody, and is pretty chill. It was a good one to play at parties, and at the college cafeteria when the bar opened.

But while it’s one of their better songs in my opinion (it spent a few weeks in the top 100) the lyrics are atrocious.

It starts with this flash of poetic genius:

How many special people change?

How many lives are living strange?

Where were you while we were gettin' high?

And as if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, it ends the verse with,

Slowly walking down the hall

Faster than a cannonball

Where were you while we were gettin' high?

I feel like when the band was writing these lyrics, they were falling off the couch laughing amid empty liquor bottles.

(British accents)

“Wot do these words even mean?” asks Liam Gallagher.

“Foaked if I know,” laughs Liam Gallagher, snorting a line.

Now I can hear you saying: Okay, so now you’ve named two examples, genius. Oasis released like 150 songs!

Okay, here’s another example of some limp lyrics from Don’t Look Back in Anger:

Slip inside the eye of your mind

Don't you know you might find

A better place to play?

Okay, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, and keep listening…

So I start a revolution from my bed

'Cause you said the brains I had went to my head

Step outside, summertime's in bloom

Stand up beside the fireplace

Take that look from off your face

You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out

I get the first line: it’s a nod to the “bed-in” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The rest reads like stream of consciousness writers from one of those Beat Poets from the 50’s. Why would I go outside into the warm sunshine, only to then stand next to the fireplace?

And then there’s this song. It was played on the radio every four songs when it was released as a single in 1995. It was the anthem of every young man longing for a young woman he would probably never see again.

It made it to #2 on the charts, staying in the top 100 for 95 weeks. That’s impressive.

The song is called Wonderwall, and it got so popular among us college kids that the band reportedly got sick of hearing it. (According to the setlist from the 1996 concert I was at, Noel played Wonderwall solo. His brother was probably busy backstage with some birds.)

Let’s take a slightly closer look at the words from this huge hit—now, remember, some sensitive people (like us art students) were crying in their student basement apartments when they heard this:

Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you

By now, you should've somehow realized what you gotta do

I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now

And backbeat, the word is on the street that the fire in your heart is out

I'm sure you've heard it all before, but you never really had a doubt

I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now

Admittedly, there are some more meaningful lyrics buried in this tune:

And all the roads that lead you there were winding

And all the lights that light the way are blinding

There are many things that I would like to say to you

But I don't know how

That perfectly sums up the man-child whose awkwardness and bad timing messed up his chances with her.

It was me, okay? I’m talking about ME.

Oasis is ready to rock again

Oasis sounded great during that day-long concert in 1996, where we also heard the Gin Blossoms and some other bands I can’t remember because I got too high and sunburnt.

But all the music perfectly complemented a day filled with sunshine, alcohol, youthful hope, and a lot of second-hand weed smoke. By the time we were ready to pack it in after Neil Young’s headlining set, I was floating about 25 feet off the grass.

Oasis broke up in 2009 due to a spat between the Gallagher brothers, a “stunning backstage fight” as one source describes it.

But as mentioned, they had always been at each’s throats, at least for show. In 2009, it was apparently the last straw. Except that the brothers have announced they’re playing shows this year together—I guess their bank balances are getting low.

I also see a Toronto show has been added to the tour. Hmmm. Knowing Toronto, it’s probably already sold out.

Well, I wish them well during their reboot, even if it’s a brief one to pay child support. Or it could be in support of a new album that reportedly is “finished” but hasn’t been officially announced yet.

I’m sure if there is a new album, it’ll sound great. But I also hope that the band’s time out of the spotlight has allowed it to practice writing lyrics. Not that they’ll need them to sell tickets, mind you.