Oasis had enjoyed a monumental 12 months as winter turned to spring in 1995 but the Britpop titans weren’t done yet. Far from it. This was a band whose songwriter and chief Noel Gallagher was in the midst of a generational purple patch, knocking out classic anthems left, right and centre and things were about to get supernova for the boys from Burnage.
Their era-defining debut Definitely Maybe had only been released a matter of months before but they were already pushing on. The orchestral-tinged euphoria of Whatever, released as a standalone single in December 1994, had demonstrated that and next came the song that put them at the top of the UK single charts for the first time. Released 30 years ago next month, Some Might Say marked the beginning of a period where Oasis turned from thrilling rock’n’roll band into cultural phenomenon, the first cut from their world-conquering second album (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?.
Noel has never been shy about his influences, or the fact that he would happily “repurpose” songs he loved in his own work. The Beatles, Bowie and Pink Floyd were obvious touchstones in Oasis songs but the inspiration behind Some Might Say is one of Noel’s more curious lifts, taking its cue from a song by long-forgotten US rockers Grant Lee Buffalo.
“They were an American indie band who had this tune called Fuzzy,” Noel explained in an interview to mark …Morning Glory’s 25th anniversary a few years ago. “You can see it’s a big influence on Some Might Say. I’ll obsess about a song for years and I’ll rip it off 12 times and get 12 different tunes out of it.”
“Everything I do is a nod to something or other,” he continued. “I’m not a genius, I’m a fan of music. Paul McCartney is a genius and Morrissey and Bob Dylan. I’m not, I’m just fans of theirs. I’ve got a good knack of putting shit together but I’m not a snob about where it comes from – I’ll tell you. Nothing is original, there’s only 12 notes anyway.”
The similarities are clear as soon as Fuzzy begins, not so much in anything about the songs themselves – one is a delicate acoustic number and the other is a chugging rocker but both are rooted in a swinging, bluesy riff.
Some Might Say, as Noel explained to Fran Healy in an interview for the Travis frontman’s radio show a few years ago, was written almost a year its release. “When I wrote it, I was living opposite a studio in Chiswick called Eden Studios,” he recalled. “Across the road, they had a house where if you were working at Eden Studios, you could rent one of the rooms. But I wasn’t working there and for some reason I was living there, on the top floor, above Mike Oldfield’s ex-wife, not that that has anything to do with anything. I wrote it over a couple of days in the top flat. I’d just moved to London and was sampling the nightlife of London and I remember coming home at all hours of the morning and writing, which is why the lyrics are quite nonsensical… dogs itching in the kitchen and all that, I was quite hammered when I wrote it. Everybody would read different things into the lyrics and I’d just agree with all of them, going, ‘Yeah, that’s what it is!’.”
Returning from a bout of touring a few months later, Noel was determined to get a demo on tape, not a regular occurrence at the time, he said. “I was so excited about it I wanted to do a demo. At that point, I wasn’t big on doing demos. It was the only demo I did for Morning Glory.”
He contacted Owen Morris, the producer who had rescued Definitely Maybe when sessions weren’t going to plan and who was away working with The Verve on what would become their second record A Northern Soul. “He said, ‘I’m in Wales with The Verve but I think they’re having the weekend off, so why don’t you come down for the weekend?’,” Noel remembered. “I jumped on the train and went to Loco Studios and the demo is actually recorded with all of The Verve’s equipment, it’s me playing the drums and the bass and all that but it’s Nick McCabe’s rig and Simon Jones’ bass.”
It proved to be a journey worth taking – on the way back Noel’s train broke down in the Severn Tunnel and whilst sitting there, he wrote the classic Oasis B-side Acquiesce. “It turned out to be one of the best weekends ever,” he beamed.
The band recorded a new take of Some Might Say for the single release but Noel says he prefers the demo version. “It was a tiny bit slower and a bit more 70s,” he explained. “The way we did it with Oasis was a bit more Britpop. The demo was a bit dirtier and sleazier. The demo was slow and a bit more boozy.”
Released in April 1995, Some Might Say went to Number One and also marked the end of Oasis Mk 1 – original drummer Tony McCarroll plays on the track but by the time it was top of the charts, he had been replaced by Alan White behind the kit.
“It’s a funny song in the Oasis catalogue cos we gave up playing it pretty quickly because Liam struggled with it,” Noel reflected. “It’s probably my favourite Oasis song, I think the chorus is brilliant. I’ve always got fond memories of it.”
Liam seems to have overcome any troubles in that department though – the song was a regular fixture in his solo setlists between 2018 and 2022, hopefully meaning Some Might Say will feature in setlists when the Oasis reunion shows roll round this summer. If not, we’ll always have this rendition from their iconic Knebworth shows to fall back on…
