Dear God We're All Old Now.

If you didn't already feel old af, the Oasis classic Wonderwall is 25 years old. That's the exact number of years between the release of the song and the breakup of The Beatles, whom the Brothers Gallagher openly emulated with pride. What the hell happened:

For a song that would live on as long as it has, “Wonderwall” came together remarkably fast. On a Tuesday that May, Noel recorded his acoustic guitar foundation for the song to a click track. Alan White, newly hired as Oasis’ drummer, overdubbed his part, after which Noel added additional guitar parts (including on an electric) and played the bass himself. The basic track was finished that evening. “It was kind of quick,” producer Owen Morris recalls. “When Noel played it through, he was unsure how to come in and out of the bridge, and he asked me which was best, and I told him the simpler way. That would have been a minute decision like that. There wasn’t a lot of agonizing.”

The next morning, Liam drank some tea, took maybe a few puffs from a cigarette, and sat down at the microphone. “At that period, Noel would sing a song through once to Liam on acoustic,” Morris says. “Once. With all the phrasing and some of the lines he’d just written. Then Liam would go in and sing it once through. And he would always fucking nail the phrasing start to end. I found that quite freaky. With ‘Wonderwall,’ he said, ‘I’m singing it now!’ And he did, I think, four takes and that was it. People ask me, ‘How outrageous were the sessions?’ I say, ‘We just worked, really.’”

Liam has similar memories of an efficient process. “I was always desperate to get to the pub,” he says. “As soon as I got my singing done, I went to the nearest pub. I didn’t want to sit around and watch people fuck around with guitars and amps.” Listening to a mix, Liam told Morris his vocals were too loud and should be lowered. “That’s the only time he ever said that,” Morris says with a chuckle.

“Wonderwall” may well be one of the last major standards from what we could call the rock era. Since the mid-Nineties, only a select few rock-based songs — like Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love” — have been recorded by a wide range of big-name acts the way earlier classics like the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” Dylan’s “Forever Young,” or Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” have been. “Wonderwall” is now on that very short list.   

I'd never known this little tidbit:

In the end, the Gallagher brothers decided to split the lead vocals on “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Despite his initial qualms, Liam grabbed “Wonderwall.” “I would have sung them both,” he says. “But he got to sing one of them. I’m the singer in the band and that was my job. And once I sung it, I realized it’s a good fucking tune.” 

True confession time: I've always liked Don't Look Back in Anger more than Wonderwall.