If you’ve been paying attention to British music over the last quarter of a century you’d be very familiar with the swaggering and confrontational figure of Liam Gallagher. Lead singer of Oasis with his feuding brother on guitar, LG has always cut an angry figure.
Once dubbed “the angriest man in the world” by his guitarist brother Noel, with whom Liam has endured a near decade long feud, Gallagher has mellowed of late. Having two solo number one albums in a row with As You Were and Why Me? Why Not? will do those kinds of things for you.
As affronted as Gallagher always seemed to be by the normality of life, there was one piece of his agitated heart that he kept calm and always adoring. The piece of his heart he saved for the Beatles, and more importantly, for John Lennon.
Liam Gallagher has always been a massive fan of the band, taking on some of their classic style tips, covering some Beatles tunes with Oasis (‘I Am The Walrus’ being a live favourite), and even naming his son Lennon. It’s fair to put The Beatles and Lennon high on Gallagher’s mantel.
We were intrigued to find then that the ‘Once’ singer’s favourite song from John Lennon wasn’t a number with The Beatles but, in fact, from Lennon’s last album Double Fantasy with Yoko Ono from 1980.
As part of an issue of UNCUT, where the magazine asked an array of musicians for their favourite Lennon song, the Oasis man explained that his favourite song from the ‘Imagine’ singer was Lennon’s song for his son, Sean, then aged five, called ‘Beautiful Boy’. The track is inspired by the joy of fatherhood and is even references French psychologist Emile Coue in Lennon’s praise of their shared lives.
In the piece, Gallagher goes on to say how this song inspired Oasis’ own track ‘Little James’, “[It] was inspired by ‘Beautiful Boy’ and ‘Hey Jude’. More ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’. People who’ve got any soul will realise that there’s a day when you go home and put your feet up and cuddle your kids. If anyone slags it off, they’ve either got no heart or they don’t know what the meaning of life is.”
Advice for those who don’t have a heart? “f**K them. You can’t win with these people.”
So there, you have it, the angriest man in the world (who also happens to be one of the greatest rock frontmen of all time) has picked his favourite song from his idol John Lennon’s extensive collection. Believe it or not, he picks a heartfelt, touching and utterly wonderful song about the inner joy of fatherhood.
Martin A Nethercutt is a writer, singer, producer and loves music.
Creative Director at McCartney Studios
Editor-in-Chief at McCartney Times
Creator-in-Chief at Geist Musik
President (title) at McCartney Multimedia, Inc.
Went to Albert-Schweitzer-Schule Kassel
Lives in Playa del Rey
From Kassel, Germany
Married to Ruth McCartney
If you’ve been paying attention to British music over the last quarter of a century you’d be very familiar with the swaggering and confrontational figure of Liam Gallagher. Lead singer of Oasis with his feuding brother on guitar, LG has always cut an angry figure.
There are no comments at the moment, do you want to add one?
Write a comment