Noel Gallagher spouted off some claptrap about refusing to wear a mask last week, but in a new interview the former Oasis guitarist and songwriter reveals he’s been spouting off claptrap for decades — and no, he wasn’t referring to his many headline-generating interview quips.
Speaking to SiriusXM’s ’90s alternative and grunge station Lithium to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Oasis’ 1995 sophomore masterpiece (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, Gallagher recalled playing the album’s epic closer “Champagne Supernova” on his most recent tour and realizing he has no idea what the lyrics mean. “Slowly walking down the hall/ Faster than a cannonball”? Complete gibberish. “Someday you will find me/ Caught beneath the landslide/ In a champagne supernova in the sky”? Also fully nonsensical. That much has been clear for years, but it hasn’t stopped people from trying to discern some kind of meaning from the song, hence all the comically off-base annotations at Genius.
If you are responsible for one of those annotations, wipe that tear away now from your eye. Personally, I also have no idea what the song means, but my inability to make sense of the words has never stopped me from believing “Champagne Supernova” is one of the most transcendent rock ‘n’ roll anthems of my lifetime. To cite a movie quote immortalized by another eminently quotable music star, “No one knows what it means, but it’s provocative. Gets the people going!” This is about where Gallagher ended up with it as well:
“I was on my last tour and I was playing “Champagne Supernova.” That song is so long, and I often find myself drifting off enjoying the song and thinking, “What fucking does it mean?” You know, “Walking down the hall faster than a cannonball,” what the fuck is all that about? And I should know, ’cause I wrote it, and I haven’t got a clue. And it was somewhere in the north of England that I happened to glance up at the crowd. It was just a sea of teenagers, all young lads, all with their tops off on each other’s shoulders, singing the words of a nonsensical song by a band that were broke up when — they were two years old when the band fucking broke up. So I think to myself sometimes, you know, “That’s what it means. Because we recorded it and it was written while we were still relatively young. It still appeals to young people, and it’s gone through three or four generations now.”
In the same interview, Gallagher says people often ask his daughter about “Wonderwall,” and he claims he almost sang lead on that song instead of his brother Liam. Now, Noel sounded great on “Don’t Look Back In Anger,” but when the Lord was distributing talents to the Gallagher boys, Noel was blessed with the songwriting acumen while Liam was given the supernatural vocal cords. It’s best that Noel let his little brother cook on the acoustic-guitar-guy classic — and on “Champagne Supernova” for that matter.
Source: STEREOGUM