Britpop superstars Liam and Noel Gallagher are no strangers to getting into hot water about their comparisons of Oasis to the Beatles. But that didn’t stop the latter guitarist and principal songwriter from saying one of Oasis’ songs, in particular, was the closest anyone had ever come to embodying the essence of the Fab Four. (Interestingly, it wasn’t even one that Noel wrote.)
Clearly, Noel didn’t heed the advice of Paul McCartney, who had called such comparisons between their two bands a “kiss of death” for a group. But then again, when have the Gallagher brothers worried about what others think?
The Oasis Song Noel Gallagher Called “Closest” to the Beatles
In the 2005 video The Ear Has No Memory, which documented the making of Oasis’ sixth studio album, Don’t Believe the Truth, Noel Gallagher didn’t mince his words when discussing the album’s penultimate track, “A Bell Will Ring.” Although Gallagher has typically been the principal songwriter of the group, writing monumental hits like “Wonderwall” and “Live Forever,” Gem Archer was the one who wrote the second-to-last track for Don’t Believe the Truth.
According to Gallagher, the track is “as close as anybody that’s ever got to sounding like Revolver. I think, to me.” Gallagher, of course, was referencing the Beatles’ 1966 album. This release featured hits like “Eleanor Rigby,” “I’m Only Sleeping,” and “Yellow Submarine.” This was the second time a Gallagher brother made a high-profile Beatles comparison. The first was in 1996 in an interview with MTV where frontman Liam Gallagher said Oasis was bigger than the Beatles.
Liam’s bold opinion wasn’t much different from former Beatle John Lennon’s highly controversial comparison of his band to Jesus. But ironically, that didn’t stop one of the surviving Fab Four members from taking exception to the comments. “The biggest mistake they made was when they said, ‘We’re going to be bigger than the Beatles,” Paul McCartney later said in a Q Magazine interview. “I thought, ‘So many people have said that, and it’s the kiss of death’” (via NME).
The Guitarist’s Comment Was Quite The High Praise
When Noel Gallagher compared Oasis’ “A Bell Will Ring” to the Beatles’ Revolver, he wasn’t just likening one of his band’s songs to one of the most famous and successful rock bands of all time. For the guitarist behind signature riffs from “Cigarettes & Alcohol” and “Slide Away,” Revolver is one of the Fab Four’s best records of all time. In a 2022 interview with Apple Music, Gallagher described why he believed Revolver sparked a cultural and musical revolution.
“Even by Beatles standards,” Gallagher said. “The album before that was Rubber Soul. There’s nothing far out, psychedelic on that. So, in between those two albums, somebody’s passed somebody a spliff. They’ve gone for it. Imagine being a Beatles fan at 14 and then being 18 and hearing that.”
“We hear it differently,” the Oasis guitarist continued. “We know everything that’s gone since then. But imagine hearing it for the first time. Nothing that’s gone before it bears any resemblance to it.” Indeed, by Gallagher’s standards, it would seem that resemblance needed a couple of decades and some change to arise in the form of the Oasis’ 2005 track, “A Bell Will Ring.”
Photo by Shirlaine Forrest/WireImage
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