meaning and history of the masterpiece signed Oasi…

Take a globe, spin it at random, and like in certain 80’s films, stop it with your finger at any point. If you are lucky enough not to hit an ocean, but the experiment could work there too, go to that point on the globe (or plate if you are a convinced flat earther) and start singing Wonderwall by Oasis. Whether it’s verse or chorus it doesn’t matter: the moment you pronounce the first sentence you will find yourself surrounded by people who will join you. Yes, because, the fundamentalists of music don’t want it, Wonderwall was Yesterday in the 90s. And the connection between the Beatles and Oasis, between Liverpool and Manchester, has never been stronger, and we will soon see why. Yes, because today we tell you the story and the meaning of the most popular of Oasis’ songs, but also of the most incredible of the songs released in the last 30 years: Wonder wall.

The Story of the Song: From Wishing Stone to Wonderwall

“And after all you’re my wishing stone”. Well yes, the chorus in the original version of the song was this. Noel, older brother of the two Gallaghers and supreme compositional leader of the Manchester quartet, immediately understood that there was something wrong with the text, but he lacked the closure of the refrain. What to put in place of “wishing stone”? The solution in these cases is one: If you can’t find the right word, invent it! Or rather, if so, take a made-up one.

Noel bangs his head for a few days, until the suggestion comes from a forgotten album of George Harrison. We don’t believe too much in the paranormal, but that there is a connection of some kind between the Beatles and Oasis is indisputable.

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By 1969 Harrison had composed Wonderwall Music, an instrumental soundtrack album for a less-than-laudable film called Wonderwall. Noel’s light bulb goes on.

“And so I thought, ‘You’re my wonderwall. Holy shit! Sounds great. No one will ever know what it’s like”

Noel Gallagher, 2015

“I want to tape it…on a wall”

In our episode of Inside the Song dedicated to Yellow by Coldplay, another band from Manchester, we mentioned the magic of Rockfield Studios, in Wales, which in 1995, the year in which the Britpop war finally broke out, hosted Oasis. The band was there to record what was to be one of the masterpiece albums in their discography: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?.

Noel said he rehearsed the song sitting on a wall outside his studio in Wales. It is not known exactly why, but he is convinced that the piece should be recorded there. So he asks producer Owen Morris to bring out a scale and a couple of microphones.

“I want to record it on… a wall”, Noel tells him. It doesn’t rain and there is no wind. So Owen has no excuses: he executes.

In the Return to Rockfield documentary, Gallagher recalled that “there were a lot of sheep watching me while I was recording Wonderwall. I don’t know who was more scared, me or them.”

In reality, the audio recordings on the wall are not very good. There are birds chirping and acoustic guitar sound is not clean. It was then decided to record the guitars in the studio, but keep the external takes to open the album. In the intro of the first song on the album, Hello, you can hear Wonderwall’s intro being played on the wall, complete with birds chirping in the background.

The meaning of Oasis’ Wonderwall: What exactly is a wonderwall?

There has been a lot of discussion about the meaning of Wonderwall, too much, sometimes even to no avail. To the point that we are still groping in the dark today. But great songs, after all, are like that. However, we have various hypotheses

As mentioned, the song was originally called Wishing Stone. The idea came from a girl who wanted to give Noel a stone, to which she attributed some sentimental significance. Noel is impressed. However, the initial concept is totally distorted in the writing phase.

The media have long speculated that the track was about Meg Mathews, Gallagher’s partner at the time and his future wife first, and ex-wife later. Noel has never confirmed this hypothesis, indeed, only years after the divorce he explained:

“The media has jumped on it by making up stories about what Wonderwall is all about. At that point how could I tell my lady that that song wasn’t written for her? Well it wasn’t. Wonderwall is about a friend who saves you in time of trouble”.

And indeed the song seems to be about just that: someone who lights the way for you in a dark moment. Someone who, for lack of better terms, is referred to as a Wonder wall.

Wonderwall from a musical point of view

Musically the song is characterized by some Gallagherismi very interesting. First of all the choice of chords: it is not the first time that Noel has composed keeping little finger and ring finger still on the same third fret of the B and mi strings. Starting from this position, the singer-songwriter plays an E minor, followed by the classic position of G major (which already includes that positioning of the little and ring fingers), and then modulates the other chords by moving only the index and middle fingers. All with a capo on the second fret (consequently the original key is not E minor as mistakenly played by novice musicians, but F# minor).

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Then there is another detail worthy of note. Although in 1995 Oasis hierarchies were decidedly rigid, Noel had begun to want to sing his own songs. Initially he wanted to sing Wonderwall, but in the end he reached an agreement with his brother Liam: Noel would sing another song. Which? Don’t Look Back in Anger. And here too the rest is history.

The only time Noel sang Wonderwall in an Oasis concert was for MTV Unplugged in 1996, when Liam, citing an excuse, decided not to go on stage and to enjoy the show from a theater balcony.

That absurd drum fill

Among the most iconic parts of the song there is certainly the entrance of the drums, which is heard only after the first chorus, with a decidedly atypical fill. Noel brought this up in the course in Daniel Rachel’s The Art of Noise: Conversations with Great Songwriters. Here are his words:

“I write songs purely on instinct. Like the battery entrance in Wonderwall: people were like, ‘Why did they go in there? Isn’t that an eighth beat too early?’ and I was like, ‘What the hell is an eighth note?’ I have a hard time understanding people’s perception of music. The drumming starts there because to me that’s where it sounds good. ‘It’s wrong’, they told me. And I’m like, ‘Wrong for who? How can it be wrong if it sounds right?“

Although the official video of the song suggests the presence of the cello, what we hear is actually a Mellotron recorded in analog, on tape. Finally, a little gem only for those who listen to the album version (therefore not from the official video): in the very last seconds of the track it is possible to hear the Supersonic introthe debut single from Oasis, played on acoustic guitar.

The cultural impact of Oasis’ Wonderwall

Despite its difficult to understand lyrics and its ambiguous meaning, Wonderwall became a huge success upon its release, also thanks to an incredible album like (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? of which it was chosen as the third single. In 1995 disco became the second best-selling album in UK history, secondo solo a Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band dei Beatles.

Due to its fixed chords (as mentioned two fingers stay still throughout the song), the song is very easy to play. He then suffered the fate that already Smoke on the Water dei Deep Purple (and in Italy The Song of the Sun by Battisti) suffered before her: hordes of novice guitarists were playing it everywhere. In 2002 Noel Gallagher told Guitarist magazine that: “After Morning Glory came out I was in Manchester and I went into a guitar shop and there was a sign forbidding people to play Wonderwall. When I walked in, everyone exclaimed, “Holy shit, man, do you realize how many times we’ve heard Champagne Supernova and Wonderwall play in the last six months?”.

Obviously, just like with Smoke on The Water (by the way, here’s our dedicated episode of Inside the Song), almost everyone played it wrong, since a capo is needed to play it like Noel.

The meaning of Wonderwall? People give it to them: the live versions

We have already mentioned Oasis’ MTV Unplugged, in which Noel sang solo. But Wonderwall is also and above all famous for the live versions with what is the real voice of the band: Liam. Over the years the song has kept its general shape unchanged, but has taken on a more rock (played with electric guitar) and softer guise, with acoustic guitar like the original.

Liam Gallagher has never made a secret of his preference: “with the electric guitar it’s not the real Wonderwall”, he said several times. We leave you below the two versions, of which the acoustic one from the iconic Live at Knebworth 1996.

And at this point, since we’re talking about two different versions and two brothers, we might as well listen to how they both sing them today. Looking forward to a reunion that the whole world is waiting for.

There are beautiful songs. Then there are the masterpieces. And then there are the generational anthems.