„As if all this weren’t bad enough, Noel has felt duty-bound to “write” some lyrics over his rotten stew and duly invokes the first line of George Harrison’s “Something” to get the old Gallagher blunderbuss lyric method a-rolling. Somehow, Noel manages to come up with 11 lines of hard-won doggerel, concluding with “I waited in the rain, my feet too wet to stand in… but somewhere in the crowd she heard me jingle-jangling.” Noel Gallagher is 47, far too old to be “jingle-jangling” in the crowd. Indeed, whilst taking up the challenge to actually sit through Yesterday’s Chase for Tomorrow I am reduced to letting out audible groans, whimpers of “Jesus Christ” and “Noel, you poor sod” after something called “The Girl With X-Ray Eyes.” (Sample lyric: “Going nowhere down the hill is hard to swallow like the pill/that was twisted on your tongue by the sea that was standing still.”)

It wasn’t always this way. But it mainly was. Oasis were a good band, with a shamanic singer and a pretty average songwriter, who managed about one and a third decent albums before the rot set in. The rot being “Wonderwall,” a song that invented an unwanted genre: dad-rock. “Wonderwall” is, of course, the King Dad of all dad-rock songs. (…) “Wonderwall” was also the moment that Noel decided that, to be a “proper” songwriter, his songs should be portentous and have gravitas. Which is a pity. Noel’s best song from the early Oasis days is a fantastic ditty called “Round Are Way.” (The ugly, illiterate use of “are” matters not a jot.) It contains the genius lines “Round are way birds are singing/Round are way birds are minging.” Noel was channeling the greats — and he didn’t even recognize it. Poor Noel.

On Yesterdays Chase Today, Noel’s lyrics have reached an almost admirable new nadir. Lines such as “I’ll follow you down to the end of the world just to wait outside your window” cower in the mix like frightened, unflushable turds in the shitter. (…) Noel seems to lay claim to ownership of playing Glastonbury — and if I ever refer to it as “Glasto,” make me go there for the weekend as punishment — but then I guess it was the one time he was never questioned: on his musical conservatism, his dwindling songwriting, even his godawful lyrics. It was a time when 300,000 people could sing back drivel at the beaming songwriter. A kind of human mass-entertainment version of the dog having his vomit returned to him.

It’s the conservatism that rankles. Musical and otherwise. Media Noel has taken to putting down (the harmless) Ed Sheeran — for his, in Gallagher’s view, musical conservatism. Not noticing that if he were to collaborate with Sheeran it would hardly change his music drastically. It might even sharpen up his lyrics and force him to kick out all that simpleminded fake ponderous wisdom, which is an odd contradiction, as Noel is smart enough at least to know that no song is ever going to change the world and we are all fucked. The excellent Sleaford Mods also know that we are all fucked, but their songs sound like surrealistic rants from a John the Baptist figure speaking in tongues. Noel doesn’t like Sleaford Mods very much. “Come back to me when you’ve written a chorus,” says Noel. Poor old Noel. (…)

As for the records, they sound like they’re getting harder and harder to make. Noel never seems like he’s had any fun making them. The slow turning of the cogs in his brain grinding to a halt is almost audible. So, as Noel has all the money in the world — as he is often so keen to tell us — maybe it’s time to give up.“


(Luke Haines bei Talkhouse über Noel Gallagher und die Folgen)


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