Sunday Sounds: May 24, 2020,”Champagne Supernova”

Posted On May 24, 2020

Samantha Colleran, May 2020

Oasis is one of those bands that people only know for a select few songs, when in reality their songwriting and sound are complete genius works, despite the harsh differences between brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher. They have so many amazing deep tracks that I wanted to bring attention to, but I keep finding myself drawn to one of their more popular songs, “Champagne Supernova” from their album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. I think it’s because I heard Noel talk about the song not having an actual meaning. In an interview on March 8, 2009 with The Sunday Times, Noel recalled how critics often told him the song could have been a classic if it wasn’t for the ‘ridiculous’ lyric “Slowly walking down the hall/ Faster than a cannonball”. A music critic was going on about the lyrics not making sense, and Noel said “I don’t f—ing know [what the lyrics mean]. But are you telling me, when you’ve got 60,000 people singing it, they don’t know what it means? It means something different to every one of them.” 

Something about hearing him say that stuck with me. Artists write lyrics with one thing in mind, and people attach their own meanings to it. They relate it to experiences and situations and times in their lives. And then when an artist sings their songs live and hears people sing the lyrics back to them, there’s new meaning. That’s the beauty of music. Lyrics have a way of impacting people, and “Champagne Supernova” is clearly no different. It’s a spacey song with lyrics that don’t really make sense at first, but when you listen to it at different times you get different feelings about it or you have one meaning you attach to it and you can understand what Noel actually meant when he wrote the lyrics. I personally love the lyrics “How many special people change?/ How many lives are living strange?” as well as the bridge (“But you and I, we live and die/ The world’s still spinning ’round, we don’t know why”) . I’m not sure why, but when I listen to it I know what it means and it hits a part of my heart in a way I can’t articulate properly.

If you’ve never heard the song, now’s your chance. If you have heard the song, take seven minutes out of your day and relive the lyrics and try to come up with your own meaning for the cannonball part. Let me know your thoughts on the incredible Oasis in the comments below!