Oasis is eligible for the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and perfect to form, Liam Gallagher said, “It’s all a load of bollox.”
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At their height, Oasis was one of the best rock bands on the planet, though the brothers Gallagher would tell you they were the best rock band on the planet. Indisputably, Noel Gallagher is one of the finest songwriters of his time (or any generation), and no one in the ’90s wore better hair, shoes, parkas, or swagger than Liam Gallagher.
There aren’t many bands whose song titles define them unequivocally. Sure, a lot of bands have massive hits, but songs like “Supersonic,” “Wonderwall,” and “Champagne Supernova” are just so … Oasis. It’s like Noel Gallagher created a new lexicon to existing words, ironically, because no one seems to have any idea what the hell these songs are about.
It Means Nothing and Everything
People have debated what “Champagne Supernova” actually means. Speaking with NME in 1995, Noel Gallagher said, “It means different things when I’m in different moods.” He said it’s about being young and questioning whether bands or scenes accomplish anything.
Gallagher mentioned punk rock bands like the Sex Pistols and The Clash, but he also referenced the Madchester scene, ultimately wondering if these bands did anything more than leave behind great songs.
How many special people change?
How many lives are livin’ strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?
Slowly walkin’ down the hall
Faster than a cannonball
Where were you while we were getting high?
In Manchester, their group of friends frequently asked where they were while “we were getting high.” Meanwhile, the cannonball line references Bracket the Butler from a pair of British children’s television shows, Camberwick Green and Trumpton. The butler walked slowly, making his way down the hall, but Gallagher needed something to rhyme with “hall,” and he ended up with “cannonball.”
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky
The Guardian wrote of “Champagne Supernova” it’s the “perfect epitaph for swaggering mid-90s hedonism.” The song reaches its peak with Paul Weller’s epic guitar solo.
It’s a Feeling
Critics call the lyrics nonsensical or even ridiculous, but Noel Gallagher pushes back on these charges. He’s witnessed a stadium of 60,000 people sing the words back to him, which means something to them. Gallagher may not be in the same lyrical ballpark as Leonard Cohen, but the emotional impact of his empty metaphors persists. “Wonderwall” may define Oasis, but “Champagne Supernova” epitomizes the group’s milieu.
He often chooses words for his songwriting because they sound good to sing. When Oasis arrived, they released one of the best one-two punches in British pop music history with their opening albums, Definitely Maybe (1994) and (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995), and everything Gallagher wrote sounded like an anthem.
Experiencing one of the most incredible songwriting runs of his time, Oasis’s B-sides collection, The Masterplan, rivaled other bands’ studio albums. During Britpop’s mania and media frenzy, Oasis battled Blur for chart dominance, which spilled over into public feuding between the bands. Ultimately, Oasis proved bigger than Britpop, and they defined the ’90s cultural movement sweeping the UK in many ways.
Coming to America
Oasis broke through in the U.S. with Morning Glory. The album’s singles, including “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” “Wonderwall,” and “Champagne Supernova,” established Oasis as more than the novelty of two brothers fighting constantly.
Other Britpop bands selling out arenas in their home country had difficulty transitioning to clubs in the U.S. Oasis persisted, though their American peak happened with Morning Glory. “Champagne Supernova” topped the U.S. Billboard Alternative Airplay chart—the second No. 1 single on the modern rock chart following “Wonderwall.”
Knebworth
The band reached their zenith with the legendary Knebworth shows in the UK in 1996, performing in front of 125,000 people on back-to-back nights—an estimated 2.5 million people applied for tickets to the event.
At Knebworth, The Stone Roses guitarist John Squire joined the band for “Champagne Supernova,” taking Weller’s grand solo to its apogee. Where were you when we were getting high? The Knebworth gig distilled the indie rock dominance of British popular music.
Working Class
Britpop’s cultural movement dominated the ’90s music scene in the UK, but Oasis was an entirely separate cultural phenomenon for the working class. They rose from the council estates in Manchester, and hopelessness overwhelmed most people they grew up with.
The British music scene witnessed middle-class bands (Blur) release working-class anthems (“Parklife”). But music fans saw themselves in Oasis, and like Nirvana in the U.S., it shifted every aspect of popular youth culture. It wasn’t only music. They changed fashion and even how the lads walked, mimicking Liam Gallagher.
Check the Meaning
“Champagne Supernova” may not have a literal meaning, but its emotional impact shows in concert footage. The band gave an escape to fans returning to grueling labor jobs—if they were fortunate enough to have a job—or to the dole where Noel Gallagher used to sign on with his dad.
Gallagher’s songs healed the city after the Manchester Arena bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017. You can find videos online of people at a vigil singing “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” it’s worth looking up.
In the Manchester Vigil videos, the facial expressions and the solidarity of a broken city are what “Champagne Supernova” means.
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Photo by Theo Wargo/WireImage
