"Wonderwall": I Don't Get It

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.

As I hacky bar-band staple, I think I've heard this one played even more often than "Hallelujah" or "The Joker."

"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

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”...

(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...)

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.

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

"anyway here's wonderwall" is a popular meme with the youth

Excellent song

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.

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.

this was one of my favorite songs when I was ~10 years old, can't really hate

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

You're all missing it.

The key line is:

And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And 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.

I like the pathos of
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do, about you now
incredible noone had written that before since its the essence of so many songs

I also like the cello and the drum fill before the 2nd verse starts

and the Beatlesque video:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6hzrDeceEKc/hqdefault.jpg

song is def played and half the lyrics are lazy (not that it has a big impact on the song's quality, if anything it makes it easy to sing along) but I can't see how it's bad

The best Oasis ever did. Not that it says a lot. I'll shout along if it comes on the jukebox.

wtf it's garbage

I like most of the stuff on the first three Oasis albums as just dumb rock fun, but 'Wonderwall' and 'Champagne Supernova' are just part of the bland alt-rock radio wallpaper of my teen years, songs that just pop up unnoticed between 'Watch That Girl Destroy Me' and 'Pure Massacre' just before the DJ gives away some Green Day tickets.

as usual Neil Cicierega completely ruined this song for me, every time when it comes on all I hear is "TODAY duh day duh day duh day duh day"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yQFebRcznA

The key line is:
And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead the way are blinding

I always assumed the first line was a (lazy) reference to the song title “The Long and Winding Road,” and the second is, well, a rhyme (what does it mean for the lights to be blinding, in terms of a metaphor? why are they blinding?)

I like the pathos of
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do, about you now
incredible noone had written that before since its the essence of so many songs

This is a good lyric? It’s so trite...

I mean honestly these lyrics seem like a collection of empty catchphrases. I’m impressed anyone can glean any meaning at all...

I've always treated Oasis lyrics as the admirable if not quite successful product of a non-native songwriter trying to translate their songs into English.

They usually conjugate correctly, at the very least.

Geir OTM, as always.
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Monday, July 4, 2005 4:53 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean honestly these lyrics seem like a collection of empty catchphrases. I’m impressed anyone can glean any meaning at all...

― absorbed carol channing's powers & psyche (morrisp), Monday, April 2, 2018 1:23 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Precisely. It's perhaps the greatest exponent of an artist seeking (or forced by external demands) to make a show of sensitivity (qua "ballad" or whatever) without actually engaging in the slightest bit of even faux substantive expression/thought. This is why it's a song of choice for acoustic buskers throughout, I presume, the English-speaking world.

I was in Dallas in December for an annual company meeting, and one evening several of us found a local bar to have some drinks. There was a singer/guitarist there just doing acoustic covers, everything from Adele to Pearl Jam. When she started playing "Wonderwall" she almost literally didn't have to sing a single lyric. The entire bar sat singing it at the top of their lungs. I was flabbergasted.

The lights being blinding underscores how hard it is to follow the long and winding road. This isn't exactly difficult.

So break down the metaphor for me. The road isn’t difficult to follow because the path is dark or obscure (as you might expect) – it’s actually illuminated – but it’s TOO well lit, the lights are “blinding.” What does this mean, in terms of a metaphor involving guidance (the lights) through the twists and turns of life or difficult situations (the road)?

At best, it’s a lazy line meant only to rhyme and vaguely sound appropriate; no good songwriter would be proud of having written it.

Neil Cicierega ruined this song, looked at it in his rear-view mirror, then reversed back over it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2fh8qfDiA

"these lyrics don't follow an internal logic, therefore the song is bad" is probably my least favorite form of music criticism.

xp 1:45 there is one of the few things that makes me laugh out loud every single time I hear it

xpost
I was responding to a comment that said That's a great line (OK, pair) that any songwriter would be pleased with. I made my case why this isn’t true (IMO). If you’d like to make a substantive counterargument rather than calling me “lazy,” feel free...

Or sorry, guess you didn’t call me “lazy,” don’t know where I got that from (LOL)

not arguing that it's a great line, but it's certainly a memorable one, and Oasis is one of those bands that cares a lot more about the scan of the melody than the actual words. if it's easy to remember, or easy to chant in a large group setting, even better. i think those lines achieve their goal.

If that’s the standard, then fine... seems like a low bar (or saying, “it’s a good song because it’s popular”).

i never liked this song or Oasis (though I fortunately missed constant exposure / it never forced itself upon me), so i never learned how to play it on guitar. as an American I also know it as the quintessential "annoying guy at the party with an acoustic guitar trying to get laid" song. anyway my brother asked me to play it on guitar as a joke so I looked up the chords and the chords are more sophisticated than I thought! not difficult, just not the easy peasy lemon squeezy open chords I assumed it was made of. lots of barre chords, in other words acoustic guitar dilettantes would have a shaky go at it.

it's a lot easier if you use a capo on the 2nd fret!

xp i'm not a huge fan of oasis and don't particularly think , but i have to admit that they were darn good at writing songs that combined lighter-waving festival grandeur with emotional resonance. though a lot of that could just be a result of Liam's voice

See I don’t feel the emotional resonance at all, it feels totally contrived and “cookie-cutter songwriting” to me (lyrically, at least)... but I get We’re All Different.

The lights being blinding references the fact that there are SO MANY people telling us how to live and love that it's too much, it's hard to figure out how to live in a way that feels true to one self.

It is cookie-cutter, it's half a line from Beatles and another one that rhymes. But it makes sense, it clearly touches a nerve with millions of people, and just throwing up our hands and saying it's nonsense is the laziest form of criticism.

Ha ha, so this time I actually am being called lazy ;) Your interpretation of the line at least makes sense, though I think you're being too generous (I don't see how the rest of the song's lyrics point toward that reading; they seem mostly like vague gibberish to me).

Am I allowed to criticize the couplet By now you should've somehow / Realized what you're not to do on the grounds that "what you're not to do" is totally forced and phony diction?

I mean, honestly, reading thru the entire lyrics -- they're really bad, a collection of cliches that add up to nothing!

A few lines that seem half-inspired kind of loosely woven together and boom, you get Oasis's american radio career

I'm still unconvinced that 'Wonderwall' and 'Champagne Supernova' are two different songs. Any attempt to remember lyrics from one and I end up with half of the other.

Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
And after all, you're my wonderwall

'what you're not to do' is not that good, but it's also just a variation of 'what you gotta do' from the first verse, and I'm fine with it. It's not a particularly good song, but it's very direct. As is a lot of Oasis lyrics, even though a lot of it is drug garbled nonsense. I read a point somewhere about how the one thing Oasis did better than anyone was taking the absolutely banal and unimpressive and make it sound really important. 'We see things you cannot see' 'Where were you when we were getting high?' 'I don't believe that anybody feel the way I do'. A lot of their songs I find awful, completely bullshit awful, for exactly this reason, they're odes to mediocrity by a mediocre band. But Wonderwall is pretty good.

let's hear what Lionel Messi has to say imo

I have to say I wasn’t expecting much but it is some of the best material I have ever heard. They are absolutely amazing. Their songs are incredible. I would have to say ‘Supersonic’ and ‘Live Forever’ are my favourites. I have been listening to their stuff on my iPod dock in the hotel room, on the way to the matches and in the dressing room. I can’t believe it’s taken me all this time to finally listen to them.

http://www.nme.com/news/music/oasis-207-1289921

The key line is:
And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead the way are blinding

I always assumed the first line was a (lazy) reference to the song title “The Long and Winding Road,” and the second is, well, a rhyme (what does it mean for the lights to be blinding, in terms of a metaphor? why are they blinding?)

It means that we can't see where we are going, metaphorically speaking.

It's possible that's inspired from The Long And, but at least it's a maybe/maybe not, as opposed to 'it clearly is' which is par for the other lyrical nicks..

I wasn't....expecting this thread expansion.

Oasis = butt