Today is gonna be the dayThat they're gonna throw it back to youBy now you should've somehowRealized what you gotta doI don't believe that anybodyFeels the way I do about you now
Backbeat the word was on the streetThat the fire in your heart is outI'm sure you've heard it all beforeBut you never really had a doubtI don't believe that anybody feelsThe way I do about you now
And all the roads we have to walk along are windingAnd all the lights that lead us there are blindingThere are many things that I wouldLike to say to youI don't know how
Because maybeYou're gonna be the one who saves me?And after allYou're my wonderwall
I really like the gratuitous incorporation of "backbeat."
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:39 (eighteen years ago) link
While obviously bigger in Britain, The album went multiplatinum (one of the best selling albums of the year) and "Wonderwall" went top ten here.
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:44 (eighteen years ago) link
― b b, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link
― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:46 (eighteen years ago) link
x-post I agree wholeheartedly, Dan.
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― strng hlkngtn, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:49 (eighteen years ago) link
― strng hlkngtn, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link
I find it emotionally incoherent. I have no idea where it's supposed to be taking me. The only bit I find at all affecting is the "There aare many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how" line.
I like lots of other Oasis songs, including the supposedly mawkish 'Don't Look Back In Anger'. 'Wonderwall' remains a mystery to me.
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link
Now, the point of this story is not to claim special favor for Oasis or this song -- many *many* different bands and songs have captivated people on the down and out and turned things around for them, after all, including lots of stuff *I* hate quite openly. But something about Sanneh's quote there bugged me a bit. When I had the chance to have a beer and a chat with Noel in 2000, I passed on this story and he was quite moved.
That said, I do also always prefer the Noel-sung versions.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― miccio (miccio), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:53 (eighteen years ago) link
and Ned...yr point is entirely fair. again, were debating here a song that many of us claim to derride but somehow got to millions of people and, for better or worse, is now part of a cultural conscious. this is something about music, esp popular music, which will forever confound me, but also something that reminds me that its all worthwhile
(that said i still can't figure out "simply the best" ...)
― b b, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 14:56 (eighteen years ago) link
While we're on the "Oasis saved my life" tip: in all seriousness, "Don't Look Back In Anger" helped me get over the deaths of both my father and stepmother. (Of course, the fact that my stepmother was called Sally was not immaterial to the situation.)
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 15:31 (eighteen years ago) link
I remember on my fathers birthday, there were quite a few of us there listening to the chart to hear the inauguration. it missed, number 2 robson and jerome were number one but looking back how thin the line is between the two both were populist ballads only autism to differentiate, that’s unfair. Looking back Common People to me looks like the high water mark. Blur had razed the ground at the Brits the old guard (annie lennox et al) seen of by the descendent of the '80s underground (perhaps not ideologically) after the high summer (as a child i believed it all this was 1966 or whatever this was better than that cos the nostalgia hadn't really kicked off well not in my world, i went to bed early, I Love 1970 + didn't start for another few years, that’s when the walls closed in on me) wonderwall is the first slide on the slope down. live aid to live 8 with britpop in the middle, wonderwall the sticky wicket the moment that the most popular drone rock band ever reinstated englebert humberdinks victory.
― elwisty (elwisty), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 15:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 15:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike t-diva (mike t-diva), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 16:00 (eighteen years ago) link
c.f. "Mystery Train": Is he riding the train? Is it taking his baby away? Outside the boxcar waiting? Or take me away to nowhere place? The emotional version.
My friend Jon once said he made a cassette tape of nothing but "Wonderwall" looped over and over again. I hated the song until I loved it. Then I became obsessed with it. Nice thread...
― Pete Scholtes, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 16:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 21:30 (eighteen years ago) link
Perhaps for maximum appeal a song must by nature be “empty” listener relates song to own (universal?) experience rather than “subtlety” coded messages (New Way (Quick Wash and Brush Up With Liberation Theology)) and so forth. Whatever there is to “get” is not the lyric, Gallagher N admits as much though anti intellectual posturing (“It’s only rock ‘n roll” sneer) is part of his equation of course though at the same time he does not pull the Robbie / Eminem I’m only an entertainer card. Oasis not entertainment (snarf snarf) not arty. Coldplay empty as anything but made the leap to U2 size that eluded Oasis, not tripped up by roots in punk rock / c86 mentality, hello Blur! (graham coxon went out with lead singer of huggy bear during great escape period, it’s like metaphor in human form or something!) but having nothing to say beyond escaping there environment to a very big house in the country? Though maybe that’s just the way it seems, a rag to riches meta story written over by Nicky Wire, Paulo Hewit et al Oasis as blank canvas Maxwell from Big Brother singing Be Here Now songs to himself, the post ecstasy post feminist Status Quo
― elwisty (elwisty), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 15:28 (eighteen years ago) link
Why? I don't think I see the reason.
I think Alba has a point, about incoherence. I like also what Miccio says about 'Backbeat'. I was thinking that yesterday when listening to the song.
― the pinefox, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link
OTM!
― latebloomer: the Clonus Horror (latebloomer), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Mippy (Mippy), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 11:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― polyphonic (polyphonic), Tuesday, 23 August 2005 11:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― I AM PAUL MCARTNEY, Tuesday, 23 August 2005 11:38 (eighteen years ago) link
elwisty- still posting?
― who shivs a git (darraghmac), Wednesday, 13 July 2011 09:24 (twelve years ago) link
nope
― so brycey (history mayne), Wednesday, 13 July 2011 09:33 (twelve years ago) link
Looking from a window above don't you know you might findA better place to playCame back only yesterday, but all the things that you've seenWant you near me
All I needed was the love you gaveCause you said the brains I had went to my headStep outside, summertime's in bloom Only you
Sometimes when I think of her name, she knows it's too lateAs we're walking on byHer soul slides away, it's getting harder to stayWhen I see you
― Post-Manpat Music (dog latin), Wednesday, 13 July 2011 10:27 (twelve years ago) link
When I see a couple of kidsAnd guess he’s fucking her and she’s Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm, I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives— Bonds and gestures pushed to one sideLike an outdated combine harvester,And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if Anyone looked at me, forty years back, And thought, That’ll be the life;No God any more, or sweating in the dark
About hell and that, or having to hide What you think of the priest. HeAnd his lot will all go down the long slide Like free bloody birds. And immediately
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows: The sun-comprehending glass,And beyond it, the deep blue air, that showsNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
― bernerrrrr! berrrrrnowwww.... (Eazy), Wednesday, 13 July 2011 18:31 (twelve years ago) link
Nope: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/worst-songs-ever-oasis-wonderwall/
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 1 April 2018 06:12 (six years ago) link
According to Wiki, though, “Wonderwall” remains the most streamed nineties single on Spotify and “the most streamed song released before 2000, with over 428 million streams as of March 2018.” This sounds right. HURL
― El Tomboto, Sunday, 1 April 2018 12:43 (six years ago) link
Thanks, Alfred. I should’ve commented earlier, but, nevertheless, I’ve really enjoyed the series!
As an American I immediately associate Wonderwall with either the trope of the single guy with the acoustic guitar at the college party or as the song covered by unsuccessful country artists at showcases and open mics to demonstrate their cross-over appeal. I guess the two overlap. Neither is a good look.
― Allen (etaeoe), Sunday, 1 April 2018 16:43 (six years ago) link
As I hacky bar-band staple, I think I've heard this one played even more often than "Hallelujah" or "The Joker."
― Dangleballs and the Ballerina (cryptosicko), Sunday, 1 April 2018 17:12 (six years ago) link
"I" = a
After the second set of verses and a return of the chorus, “Wonderwall” has nowhere to go yet insists on filling its allotted time of 3:45
The Mike Flowers Pops version is imo superior to the original in every way, but it's notable that it truncates the song by finishing at exactly this moment
― soref, Sunday, 1 April 2018 17:56 (six years ago) link
This song is heavily featured in the Netflix series “Everything Sucks” (which is set in a high school in 1996) – the album, song, and video are major plot points. It almost feels like “product placement”...
― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Monday, 2 April 2018 01:18 (six years ago) link
(I wuz skeptical that any U.S. teenagers could have found meaning in this song, but my wife – a few years younger than me – assures me that it’s possible...)
― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Monday, 2 April 2018 01:21 (six years ago) link
This song is heavily This song is heavily featured in the Netflix series “Everything Sucks”featured in the Netflix series “Everything Sucks”
I might say "Everything Sucks" if I were exposed to Oasis daily.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 2 April 2018 01:23 (six years ago) link
This song means nothing to me, whenever I hear it I think “hey, it’s Wonderwall”Of songs from the 90s whose lyrics begin with the word “Today” that I don’t really care about, I would say this is a more enjoyable song than “Today” by the Smashing Pumpkins
― valorous wokelord (silby), Monday, 2 April 2018 01:28 (six years ago) link
"anyway here's wonderwall" is a popular meme with the youth
― NBA YoungBoy named Rocky Raccoon (m bison), Monday, 2 April 2018 01:30 (six years ago) link
Excellent song
― brimstead, Monday, 2 April 2018 01:34 (six years ago) link
It’s someone who doesn’t understand how they feel trying to express how they feel despite not having the tools to do so. No wonder I speaks so loudly to so many people. Completely meaningless but so loaded with hollow spaces where you can insert your own meaning.
― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 2 April 2018 07:17 (six years ago) link
So of course the key lyric is “there are many things that I would like to say to you but I don’t know how”.Notably I was able to type that lyric almost completely with predictive text on my phone. Noel G is predictive text as lyrics.
― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Monday, 2 April 2018 07:25 (six years ago) link
this was one of my favorite songs when I was ~10 years old, can't really hate
― niels, Monday, 2 April 2018 09:36 (six years ago) link
Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you pic.twitter.com/qCoF30eEWK— Sean Leahy (@thepunningman) February 7, 2017
― nashwan, Monday, 2 April 2018 09:40 (six years ago) link
You're all missing it.
The key line is:
And all the roads we have to walk are windingAnd all the lights that lead the way are blinding
That's a great line (OK, pair) that any songwriter would be pleased with, I don't know if any previous song has something similar, and if "Wonderwall" didn't have it, it would not be the big hit it is now.
― Mark G, Monday, 2 April 2018 09:51 (six years ago) link