3 Facts You Might Not Know About Oasis

There are many things you likely already know about Oasis. You are familiar with the stadium hooks, the sibling rivalry, and Britpop. But here are three additional facts you might not know about the band for the next time you find yourself at Britpop trivia night at the local pub.

Marr’s Guitars

Oasis had impressed Johnny Marr at an early gig in Manchester. But The Smiths’ guitarist wondered why Noel Gallagher was taking so long to tune his guitar between songs. Marr suggested to Gallagher that he should bring a backup. To speed things up between songs. But money was tight in the early days, and Gallagher brought the only electric guitar he owned. So Marr lent him several guitars as Oasis prepared to record their debut album. One guitar, a 1953 Gibson Les Paul, has quite a history: Marr had received it from Pete Townshend and wrote The Smiths’ single “Panic” on Townshend’s former—and allegedly smashed—Les Paul. Then Gallagher penned the Oasis song “Slide Away” on the same instrument.

Burt Bacharach

It’s well known that Noel Gallagher is a Beatles fan. And many Oasis tunes borrow openly from the Fab Four, including “Supersonic”, “Morning Glory”, and “Don’t Look Back In Anger”. But Burt Bacharach remains another of Gallagher’s songwriting heroes. The guitarist adapted the Bacharach and Hal David tune “This Guy’s In Love With You” for the Oasis B-side, “Half The World Away”. Recorded in Texas, the sessions also led to increased tension between Gallagher and drummer Tony McCarroll. The drummer was banned from playing on the track, which only features Gallagher and Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs. “Half The World Away” backs the single “Whatever” and arrived in 1994. Oasis fired McCarroll the following year.

D’You Know What I Mean?             

The success of “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova” proves one doesn’t need to understand the literal meaning of a song to connect with it. “Slowly walking down the hall / Faster than a cannonball,” Liam Gallagher sings in “Champagne Supernova”. The line was inspired by a children’s TV show character, a sauntering butler named Brackett, from the British series Chigley. Gallagher needed a rhyme for “hall,” and he chose “cannonball.” It highlights how a feeling often supersedes meaning in songwriting and wouldn’t be the first time that nonsensical lyrics led to an anthem.

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