4 of the Best Oasis Songs Sung by Noel Gallagher

The magic of Oasis has always been Noel Gallagher’s songwriting and his brother Liam’s voice.

It’s a beauty and the beast combination of Noel’s melodic instincts and Liam’s swagger and attitude. However, Noel has also sung some of Oasis’s defining tracks—“Don’t Look Back in Anger” being the most prominent example. But the Oasis B-side “Acquiesce” distills the yin and yang of the brothers in one song.

This list is a taste of Noel’s finest vocal moments with Oasis. “The Importance of Being Idle,” “Little by Little,” and “Going Nowhere” are equally beautiful. Regarding “Going Nowhere,” its gorgeous chorus made it tough to leave off the list.

I’m gonna get me a motor car

Maybe a Jaguar maybe a plane or a day of fame

I’m gonna be a millionaire so can you take me there

Want to be wild ’cause my life’s so tame

Still, Noel has plenty of anthems to choose from should Liam decide to bolt mid-gig like the old days.

“Talk Tonight” from The Masterplan (1998)

Noel wrote “Talk Tonight” following a famously disastrous Oasis show in 1994 at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. Without telling the band, he traveled to San Francisco thinking his band was already finished. Noel stayed with a woman who tried to ease his despair by taking him to a park where she played as a child. (The lyric about strawberry lemonade refers to her love of Snapple.) The woman who saved Oasis, Melissa Lim told NME, “San Francisco has a reputation of being a place where bands come to die, like The Band and the Sex Pistols. I wasn’t going to let it happen on my watch. I told him, ‘You can’t leave the band, you’re on the verge of something big!’”

“Half the World Away” from The Masterplan (1998)

Noel is a Burt Bacharach fan and used Bacharach and Hal David’s “This Guy’s in Love with You” as the blueprint for “Half the World Away.” In 1996, he and Bacharach performed “This Guy’s in Love with You” at the Royal Albert Hall, giving fans a chance to see the source in real time. The song is about searching for something else, a new place, hope. Noel’s early songwriting offered a light to the prevailing doom of American grunge bands in the 1990s. “Half the World Away” first appeared as the B-side to “Whatever,” a standalone single released between the first two Oasis albums.

“The Masterplan” from The Masterplan (1998)

The fact that “The Masterplan” is a B-side requires no further proof that Noel was his generation’s finest songwriter. For most other bands, “The Masterplan” would be their “Wonderwall.” It’s fitting for “The Masterplan” to back the “Wonderwall” single, a song Noel might have sung too if Liam hadn’t chosen to sing it when his brother gave him the ultimatum: You sing “Wonderwall” or “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” not both. “The Masterplan” is the kind of soaring orchestral anthem Burt Bacharach would’ve appreciated.

“Don’t Look Back in Anger” from (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

Inspired by John Lennon’s “Imagine,” this Oasis anthem has become something like Lennon’s timeless dream. Following the 2017 terrorist attack during an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, “Don’t Look Back in Anger” became a healing song for the Gallagher brothers’ hometown. Noel said he sings “Don’t Look Back in Anger” when he’s at home—singing it to himself. Explaining why he writes songs, he said they are “the greatest reward.”

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