LIVE FOREVER (Creation)

"Maybe I just wanna fly/Wanna live, don't wanna die..."

On the afternoon of 9 April 1993, Noel Gallagher was at home in Ashburn Avenue, Burnage. The phone rang. At the other end of the line he could hear a babbling Scottish voice. It was Alan McGee, on holiday in Hawaii.

"He signed us on the strength of four songs," Noel Gallagher recalled in 1994. "Then we gave him 'Live Forever' before he went away. When he phoned, I could hear the water: he had a f*****g phone on the f*****g beach, on a f*****g li-lo. He was saying, 'This is the greatest song ever written, man.' I said, 'Alan, I've got £3.50 to go and buy a pizza - enjoy your f*****g holiday.'"

Unsurprisingly, 'Live Forever' has its roots in another song. It had been written in the autumn of 1991 when Noel was listening to "Shine On Me" from The Rolling Stones' "Exile On Main Street". It's chorus has exactly the same melody as the opening line of "Live Forever" - a sufficient starting point to propel Noel into writing the first song he sincerely believed was a potential classic.

Eighteen months later, McGee, the group and manage Marcus Russell were in uniform agreement that the song deserved to be their first Top Ten hit. Thus, while "Supersonic" and "Shakermaker" built up the band's profile, "Live Forever" sat in Oasis' live set for the best part of a year, the song's reputation quietly growing as the band's stature increased.

It's a manifesto, of a sort - presenting the Oasis ethos and establishing both where they've come from and what they're reacting against. Much was made of the way that it simultaneously forged a break with the angst-wracked outlook of the grunge era and nodded to Noel's acid house experiences: "You and I are gonna live forever" could have tumbled from the mouth of any E'd up clubber between 1988 and 1990.

In addition, lurking within it's lines is the heartwarming presence of Peggy Gallagher - hence "How your garden grows". "Our mother is an obsessive gardener," Paul Gallagher wrote in his book 'Brothers'. "It's her pride and joy. And 'Live Forever' is one of her favourite songs."

It was recorded twice, as with most of "Definitely Maybe" - at Monnow Valley in Wales with rejected producer Dave Batchelor, and at Sawmills in Cornwall, overseen by Anjali Dutt and Mark Coyle, and eventually mixed by Owen Morris. Unbelievably, its guitar solo was initially removed, until an apoplectic Noel told Morris it had taken him years to compose.

In August 1994, "Live Forever", wrapped in a sleeve depicting John Lennon's childhood home, flew into the Top Ten, and the last doubts about Oasis' musical merits (slightly occluded at this point by gin, coke and fighting) vanished into insignificance. By the end of the year, they were all but omnipotent.

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c 1998 Andrew Turner

aturner@interalpha.co.uk

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