720. ‘Some Might Say’, by Oasis

/ UK #1s blog

I’m both thrilled and downhearted that we’ve reached the beginning of the Oasis era. Much like I wrote in the intro to my last post, on Take That’s ‘Back for Good’… What can I add to the three decades’ worth of column inches dedicated to Britain’s most polarising band.

Some Might Say, by Oasis (their 1st of eight #1s)

1 week, from 30th April – 7th May 1995

Basically, what to say about Oasis that isn’t cliched? I need to approach this completely subjectively, then. Which isn’t hard, because Oasis were my first big musical love (OK, second… but we’ll deal with that Spice Girls-shaped elephant in the room when the time comes…) ‘Some Might Say’ has never been among my very favourite Oasis records but, actually, this is a good thing, as far as this post is concerned. It hasn’t been overplayed to death, and I’m glad that this made #1, and not the two #2 hits that followed.

On the other hand, I’d rather their two preceding singles – ‘Whatever’, or ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’, had been the first chart-topper. ‘Some Might Say’ has some of the vim, the punkish energy of ‘Definitely Maybe’ – I’d say it’s the song from ‘What’s the Story…’ that could most easily slip onto their debut – but signs of bloat are already appearing. After a brilliant glam riff opening, it settles into a slightly plodding, overlong rock song (why, oh why, is this five and a half minutes long?) And, despite the long-held belief that Oasis were a rejection of grunge’s misery and introspection, there are some very heavy, grungy chords in the chorus.

I had a pop at Gary Barlow’s lyrics in that last post, and I have to call Noel out here too, even if this is where I tip into well-trodden cliché. Oasis lyrics walk the line between revelatory and ridiculous. One minute you’re thinking ‘Yes, profound!’. The next you’re thinking ‘Maybe not…’ Some might say they don’t believe in heaven, Go and tell it to the man who lives in hell… is a great line. Some might say you get what you’ve been given, If you don’t get yours I won’t get mine as well… is more at the ‘maybe not’ end. (Though we can all agree that The sink is full of fishes, She’s got dirty dishes on the brain… is a lyric for the ages…)

The star here, as in many of Oasis’s early songs, is the man interpreting these words, and making them his own. Liam. The last true rock star, and one of the all-time great frontmen. A beautiful moron (‘Some Might Say’ doesn’t have a proper video because he never showed up for the shoot), his sweetly aggressive vocals attack his brother’s unwieldy lines and transform them. Just try singing this song like he does. It’s very difficult – your voice ends up straining, and cracking, and getting lost among the walls of guitar (Oasis were, thankfully, never fans of understated production.)

Like I said, I once loved Oasis – growing up male, in small town Scotland, in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, it was all but mandatory – but it is a love that has faded. I’ve accepted that they were limited, that they did have a habit of ‘borrowing’ riffs and melodies (even now I’ll listen to a Kinks album track and hear a bit that sounds familiar…), and that they believed their own hype a little too much. And yet, they were never as bad, as unoriginal, as much a Bargain Bucket Beatles, as some critics were desperate to make out.

Anyway, I’m writing as if this was their one and only chart-topper, not as if they have seven more to come. It’s easy to forget just how phenomenally successful they were. All seven of their studio albums entered the charts at #1, while ‘Some Might Say’ was the first of eight singles in a row to make either #1 or #2, between 1995 and 2000. It might not be the perfect song to be crowned their first chart-topper – the first chart-topper of the Britpop era even – but Some might say, We will find a brighter day… is perhaps the perfect summation of the Oasis manifesto.

25 thoughts on “720. ‘Some Might Say’, by Oasis”

  1. I had to look this one up. None of their singles from the first album charted, here. Their second album, Wonderwall made it to #8. Champagne Supernova didn’t chart, here, either but, it somehow made it to the alt/grunge rock stations. I heard Supernova more than I heard Wonderwall.

    Your YT video link, above, doesn’t work. Says “unavailable.”

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    • Ugh annoying… There’s no official video for this, and even the version featuring clips of previous videos isn’t on YT. I’ve added another homemade one below…

      I knew Wonderwall was their big US hit, while Champagne Supernova was never a single in the UK (so many of Oasis’ B-sides and album tracks are better than their singles). They’re another band, much like the Kinks, Slade and T Rex, who were absolutely massive in the UK (and all around the world, really) but never made it in the US of A.

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      • It is a head scratcher as to why the UK & US can’t seem to exchange music, equally, all the time. It seems like we got a better exchange between our two countries in the 60s & 70s.

        When you say “homemade”, do you mean that you made that video?

      • Haha no not at all! I’m not techie enough for something like that… I mean it looks homemade by somebody else.

        I think the muscial exchange is a bit skewed in the US>UK direction… I can’t think of many big American names who aren’t similarly big in the UK. Apart from modern country stars, and some rappers…

      • The UK doesn’t really warm to US country music (much, of which, isn’t really “country” anymore), US rap or Southern Rock (think Lynyrd Skynyrd). I wish we could export rap to another country. I like to hear “singing”, not barking, into a microphone…words I don’t recognize. The Sugar Hill Gang from the late 70s, early 80s was the only “rap” I could stand. Rapper’s Delight & Apache are pretty funny, actually. When they start barking about “ho”s & “pimp”s, I’m done.

      • With country music, it’s probably that the cultural references – trucks and guns and all that – don’t cross the pond (and maybe I’m stereotyping!) I’m not as down on rap as that, but a lot of modern rap is just lazy mumbling over a ‘borrowed’ beat… (And now I sound old…)

      • Yeah. I would imagine the horror of some UK folks, thinking of our love of our 2nd amendment and pickups. I’m sure many picture wild west towns, tho most of them are overgrown metropolises in modern times. Culture can definitely separate as much as physical distance. Ha!

        We seem to have gotten a lot more UK music in the 60s, 70s & 80s…then, it dropped off a cliff. I am a crazy Def Leppard fan (chased them all over Texas in the 2000s). I miss REAL UK/Brit rock. Come to think of it…I miss REAL American rock.

        I sound old, too.

      • LOL! I left Texas in 2011 but, Fort Worth still has stockyards. There are still plenty of Longhorns roaming around. Go farther west and you get Bison. Much of this country is still untamed.

  2. Of course I like it! First of all it’s been so many boy bands and dance hits… finally some guitar and some edge….
    America never got burnt on Oasis like you did…they only played two songs played over here….while you guys were having this we had Sheryl Crow (who I like a lot) and others…The UK never let Crow in much.
    This is the video I found…well made regardless.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxOjIj18I9E

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  3. Good song. And as I’ve said before, from today’s perspective, it’s hard to believe I largely missed all the fuzz about Oasis in the ’90s since I hardly paid any attention to what then was new contemporary music. I really lived in my own music bubble. Which is why I still keep coming across ’90s songs or artists I don’t know, even though they were fairly popular during that decade.

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  4. I’m just going to say it. I love Oasis. I didn’t grow up with them – I was born in early ’99 so 90s rock predates me – and I fully admit that their music is overblown, cocky, dumb, arrogant, coke-addled, loud, obnoxious, overbearing. But I can’t get enough of it. Liam and Noel, they definitely were two of the last rockstars. There are great rock frontmen and frontwomen after them, but no rockstars, icons who just captured the public imagination with their antics. Most rockstars nowadays are wimps. I want my rockstars to be different from normal people.

    Oasis’ music, I think I like their sound so much because it’s “borrowing” and swiping from all the great British guitar pop: Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Slade, The Jam, The Who, Happy Mondays,, Small Faces, T. Rex, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, but applying a 90s rock sheen to it. That’s probably part of the reason they were the only Britpop band to have success in the US – their guitars are loud and aggressive and distorted and fit well on US rock radio. Plus, their lighter stuff like “Wonderwall” fits US pop radio too. I hear Nirvana and Pearl Jam’s influence in their sound more than the other Britpop bands. They weren’t as cheeky or clever as Blur, Pulp or Elastica, but that probably helped them internationally.

    I love this song so much. It’s one of my favourites off (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (which is a top 10 album for me of all time). Just a terrific anthem. And the live version at 1996 Knebworth is just biblical.

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    • I should clarify… I still really like Oasis, but sometimes more for what they represented, the memory of that time, than for the actual music. They were all those things you listed, and more. It’s why ‘Be Here Now’ is simultaneously the best and the worst album ever recorded. Some of the songs have seventy-odd tracks mixed into one…

      For me, ‘Definitely Maybe’ is the better album, featuring their best songs… ‘Rock n Roll Star’, ‘Supersonic’, ‘Columbia’, ‘Cigs and Alcohol’… ‘What’s the Story’ plays like a Greatest Hits album – great songs, but they don’t hang together all that well.

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  5. bought the album, loved it, but this wasn’t one of my fave Oasis songs on the album, or in general. Me, I’d opt for Beatles-styled Oasis, ballads especially Live Forever, Whatever, Wonderwall, their next chart-topper and Champagne Supernova, or the Glam Stomp tracks like She’s Electric and their Slade cover.

    Re Rap and the USA, it’s the lack of quality control in the streaming era that annoys – they get instant massive takeovers of the Hot 100 which is just ridiculous, when it’s really album plays not singles, and sell almost nothing. Never had a problem with rap acts able to make something musically and lyrically interesting, but the majority are formulaic lyrically, say nothing much of interest, and nick bits of somebody else’s work and add nothing to it. There are a few that can do the biz but not that many, and they dont necessarily sell like some I could mention who are well past their sell-by date. Did I mention autotune last time I mentioned rap? Thought so…

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