Oasis: Champagne Supernova

Welcome to Lyrics, Weakly, where we listen to the songs so you don’t have to!

First of all, a bit of an apology to Karate Mom—she requested last week’s song, but i neglected to acknowledge her request in the intro. So, then, here’s the acknowledgment.

And speaking of acknowledgments, here’s one for Mariana this week, for requesting “Champagne Supernova” by Oasis. It’s a long song at well over seven minutes, and one of the more nonsensical songs i’ve ever listened to (which is saying a lot).

The most amazing thing isn’t that this song reached #1 on the Billboard modern rock chart—by now we expect that of dumb songs—but that, in an absolutely beautiful bit of synchronicity, the song it replaced at that position was one of the few #1 songs that could give this one a run for its nonsensical money, Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic”. (And that was preceded by “Wonderwall” by, once more, Oasis, which to be honest isn’t much better, and that by Bush’s “Glycerine”…really, the spring of 1996 may well have been the peak of dumb music. But then you start looking at 1986, and 1976, and you realize that dumb is simply what music does. Which, i suppose, is a good thing for the business of this blog.)

But enough about the idiocy of the modern music industry—we’re interested in the idiocy of this song. And since there’s a lot of it, let’s dive in now, shall we?

How many special people change?

Well, all of them do, actually. See, as long as you’re alive, your cells are in a constant state of change. In fact, even after you die you go through processes of change, though they’re not necessarily as rapid.

But i’m sure any sort of ignorance of such scientific truths was simply a momentary lapse, and that no further such false statements will be found anywhere in this song, right, Mr. Gallagher?

(And i’d also like to note that i can’t tell if this question refers to people who are special to you, or to “special” people. ’Cause if it’s the latter, that’s a little bit mean, you know?)

How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

Well, given Mr. Gallagher’s particular history of drug use, i’m thinking that any of us could pick a random place any of us have been during the past thirty or so years and we’d be right.

Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannonball

Um.

Yeah.

Okay, see, i’ve got a problem with this couplet—mainly, i can’t tell what in the world it means. But, being the brave lad i am, i’m going to give it a shot.

The main problem, i guess, is that there are multiple possibilities.

The first one is that Mr. Gallagher is playing with the fact that cannonballs don’t actually have any power to move themselves—so since by walking you’re moving, no matter how slowly you walk down the hall, you’re always going to be faster than a cannonball.

The second one is that he’s trying to give some sort of impression of great speed, since most imaginings of cannonballs have them hurtling at a target—but since i’m unaware of any prominent imaginings of cannonballs hurtling through a hallway (not saying that none exist, but i sincerely doubt they’re very common), this is a really bizarre image to use.

Well, except that…

Where were you while we were getting high?

…when you consider the sheer quantity of recreational chemicals that went into this song, such bizarreness suddenly seems less unlikely.

Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide

Is it just me, or is this a Fleetwood Mac reference?

Yeah, it’s probably just me. Still puts me off a bit, though.

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

A champagne supernova. Really? A champagne supernova?

And i thought the whole cannonball thing was confusing.

All right, i can do this—let’s just break this down piece by piece, shall we?

First of all, supernovae are massive events, releasing so much energy that they can outshine entire galaxies. Further, they occur due to the effects of nuclear fusion and always involve stars a good bit more massive than our own sun. It is unlikely—though i will admit that this has technically not been proven—that one could actually use champagne to trigger a supernova.

In any event, since a supernova results in an ejection of energy and plasma away from a core that eventually becomes very dense, potentially even a black hole, i would think that a landslide in conjunction with a supernova would be the least—and, probably quite literally the last—of your worries.

Wake up the dawn and ask her why?

Eos, goddess of the dawn, was known to have abducted young men who struck her fancy. Therefore, Mr. Gallagher, i would suggest that you do exactly what you’re suggesting. The rest of us might get lucky.

(Though i suggest that you make sure your insurance is up to date before you do so.)

A dreamer dreams she never dies

Obviously, she dreamed she was falling.

Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Dude, we already know you’re baked. You don’t have to keep telling us about it.

Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a Champagne Supernova in the sky

Not only is this a nonsensical image (supernovae don’t have landslides, landslides don’t occur in the sky, &c.), it’s not even a terribly pretty one. I can let nonsense slip past occasionally if it’s being offered in the service of poetic imagery, but if i suspect (as i do here) that it’s only because you knew you had to fill the meter with something or the song wouldn’t make it onto the album, well, then it deserves to be held up as a steaming example of all that is wrong with musical “talent” these days.

Someday you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a Champagne Supernova
A Champagne Supernova

Why the repetition? I’m guessing it’s because even Mr. Gallagher’s stoned-beyond-sensibility brain had enough functioning neurons to realize that the phrase “champagne supernova” actually is that bizarre, and so it had to be repeated in order to let everyone know that yes, they just paid good money for something that makes no sense in an attempt to pretend to be deep.

’Cos people believe that they’re
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die

As opposed to all the billions of people who live and don’t die? Like, this is supposed to make us feel like you’re special?

The world’s still spinning round
We don’t know why?
Why? Why? Why? Why?

First of all, We don’t know why is not a question, even though it’s marked as a question in every internet source for the lyrics for this song i could find. I don’t know if this is Mr. Gallagher’s fault or that of his transcribers, but either way it’s just not right.

Second, if you couldn’t think of four syllables to fill that last line, you could have just remained silent.

Finally, the world continues to spin around due to the initial angular momentum of the cloud of interstellar debris coupled with the possible effects of collisions between the Earth and other comparatively large objects during its history. Couple that with the fact that the effects of friction on the Earth aren’t large enough to counter all that initial and added energy, and you have an easy answer to every “Why?” you could ever throw at us.

And speaking of “Why?”, why has it become my lot to teach songwriters the basics of astrophysics? ’Cause if someone as unqualified in that field as me is able to do that, it makes me kind of worried about what other ignorances they’re bringing to the table.

How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

Right here, dude. We’re still right here, finding it halfway amazing that you can ramble like this for nearly eight minutes.

Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Mr. Gallagher, i already told you that we’re aware of how stoned you’ve been, and so you can assume we don’t have to be told about this yet again.

Oh, wait—maybe you’re just unaware that you’ve already told us. Ah, then, it’s entirely understandable—annoying, but understandable.

And then we get the verses about champagne supernovae and the world spinning around repeated, which i’ll leave out, since even if Mr. Gallagher doesn’t remember singing them, we remember hearing them.

All too well.

How many special people change?
How many lives are living strange?
Where were you while we were getting high?

For those of you keeping count, this is repetition number six. Six! I mean, come on—if you haven’t gotten an answer yet, it’s just not going to happen. Give it up already!

We were getting high

Yes, we were aware of that—no need to mention it again.

We were getting high

Or maybe you should have googled for some advice before sitting down to write this.

We were getting high

Never mind. It’s obvious that you’re out to win this argument.

You know, George Martin—yes, that George Martin, the “fifth Beatle” George Martin—actually once called Mr. Gallagher “the finest songwriter of this generation”.

Yeah, i rather boggled at that one, too.

Anyway, We were getting high repeats gobs and bunches more times, but i’m done with it—listening to this is starting to give me the munchies.