On May 13, 1996, Oasis released “Champagne Supernova” as the final single from their second album, What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, released the previous October. At the time, there were a lot of questions for Noel Gallagher concerning what the song was actually about. To hear him tell it, it meant everything and nothing at the same time.
“Some of the lyrics were written when I was out of it,” he told NME in 1995. Of the lyrics “Someday you will find me / Caught beneath a landslide / ln a Champagne Supernova in the sky,” he said, “That’s probably as psychedelic as I’ll ever get.”
Back then, Gallagher seemed to have a better understanding of what “Champagne Supernova” might have meant. “It means different things when I’m in different moods,” he explained. “When I’m in a bad mood, being caught beneath a landslide is like being suffocated.
Later, Noel Gallagher Found Less Personal Meaning in Oasis’ ‘Champagne Supernova’, but maybe realized what it actually meant
“The song is a bit of an epic,” he continued. “It’s about when you’re young, and you see people in groups, and you think about what they did for you, and they did nothing. As a kid, you always believed the Sex Pistols were going to conquer the world and kill everybody in the process. Bands like The Clash just petered out. Punk rock was supposed to be the revolution, but what did it do? F*** all.”
A defining aspect of “Champagne Supernova” is that it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Critics often claimed the lyric “Slowly walking down the hall / Faster than a cannonball” specifically indicated its meaninglessness. But what Noel Gallagher constantly considered, and seemed to finally realize decades later, is that “Champagne Supernova” means exactly what someone needs it to mean.
“This writer, he was going on about the lyrics to ‘Champagne Supernova’, and he actually said to me, ‘You know, the one thing that’s stopping it being a classic is the ridiculous lyrics,’” Gallagher told The Sunday Times in 2009. “And I went, ‘What do you mean by that?’ And he said, ‘Well, slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball — what’s that mean?’”
He continued, “And I went, ‘I don’t know. But are you telling me, when you’ve got 60,000 people singing it, they don’t know what it means? It means something different to every one of them.’”
Clearly, “Champagne Supernova” became Oasis’ second No. 1 hit for a reason. And it remains a fan favorite 30 years later. In 2020, Gallagher considered the song’s nonsense lyrics once again. Then, he seemed to really get it.
‘Champagne Supernova’ Even Appeals to Fans Who Weren’t Even Born When the Band Broke Up
“That song is so long, and I often find myself drifting off, enjoying the song and thinking, ‘What f—ing does it mean?’ You know, ‘Walking down the hall faster than a cannonball,’ what the f—k is all that about? And I should know, ’cause I wrote it, and I haven’t got a clue,” he said during an appearance on SiriusXM’s ’90s alternative station.
He explained that he happened to look out at the crowd while playing the song then. What greeted him was a sea of young fans singing along to all the nonsense lyrics. He noted that these fans, “all young lads, all with their tops off on each other’s shoulders,” were probably “two years old when the band f—ing broke up.” But there they were, singing every line like it meant everything in the world.
“So I think to myself sometimes, you know, ‘That’s what it means,’” Gallagher added. “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.”
The post 30 Years Ago Today, Oasis Released a Hit Single That Took Noel Gallagher Decades to Finally Understand appeared first on VICE.
