Becoming more like John Lennon

Checking out some  old vids the other day it struck me there was a time when everybody seemed to want to shamelessly ape John Lennon.

Lennon, of course, was always the coolest Beatle and while his death at the hands of a deranged fan in 1980 was a terrible tragedy that robbed the music world of one of its greatest talents, there is nothing like a premature death to ensure you are forever young in the hearts of the public.

Would Marlyn Monroe be the iconic and flawlessly beautiful figure she is today if she had been allowed to grown old ungracefully like Bardot? And would James Dean be forever be the Rebel Without A Cause had he ended up wearing old man's golf slacks?

Princess Diana is forever beautiful because she was beautiful the night she died. John Lennon is forever cool.

There was always something of a Lennon v McCartney rivalry in the Beatles. They were both geniuses but nobody wants to emulate McCartney - and that's not just because he wrote the Frog Chorus and married a scary woman with one leg.

In the 1990s it seemed as if just about every young act, and some not so young ones wanted to be John Lennon. Liam Gallagher from Oasis is the most well known example. In his prime Liam was like a badass, juvenile Lennon with ADD.

Then there was Paul Weller, the so-called Modfather who revived his Jam glory days in 1995 with his solo album Stanley Road, that sounds Beatlesque in the Abbey Road genre but it actually the name of the road he grew up in, in Woking. You Do Something To Me was one of his biggest hits. He seems tio want to emulate Lennon with those specs. Or maybe he wants to emulate Liam.

Even the bloke from Ocean Colour Scene looks like he's trying to do a John Lennon. Badly. I liked The Day We Caught the Train when it came out. Not so much now.

There were quite a few other acts that could also do a passable John Lennon. But the best John Lennon impression was given by this guy in tracks such as Jealous Guy where he does a great impression of Bryan Ferry.

O is for Oasis

Slip inside the eye of your mind. Don't you know you might find. A better place to play.

So begins Don't Look Back in Anger, one of my favorite Oasis songs. This track makes me think about the Nineties and about one of the decade's most profound dramas Our Friends in the North, as our heroes walked slowly away into obscurity under the bridges of the Tyne to the sound track of Oasis, their parts that dated back decades now over, the identities lost in the modern world.

Music appeared to reach its zenith in the Nineties and then it faded away. But we shouldn't look back in anger. It's a good philosophy for life. While I don't generally favor the Biblical turn the other cheek mentality that can be translated as 'bitch slap me until I'm blue in the face,' there's much to be said for just walking away and finding yourself in another place where nobody knows your name.

It's strange that this should be the Oasis song that strikes a cord with me the most because the brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher appeared to look back in anger most of the time. Before turning back in anger and punching somebody in the face.

Oasis styled themselves on the Beatles, even if they were from the rival city of Manchester, rather than Liverpool. And for a while from 1994 to 1997 they were almost as big as the Beatles, before abruptly facing away.

Oasis had a raw and angry sound that seemed to come straight from the mean streets they grew up on. Their first hit Supersonic was taut and edgy. They were discovered by Creation Records co-owner Alan McGee, who invited them to play at King Tut's Wah Hut in Glasgow. Nobody recognized their name on the door but, by all accounts they bullied their way in, and stole the show.

Although Oasis were not originally seen as part of the Brit Pop movement, their epic battle with Blur for the Number One slot - primarily a media creation at the time - has forever associated them with the Brit Pop movement.

Blur's County House edged out Oasis' Roll With It. Oasis claimed there was a problem with the bar code on the single. Noel Gallagher later told a newspaper he hoped Damon Albarn and Alex James of Blur would "catch AIDS and die," later apologizing for the remark.

Noel Gallagher was the oldest and more sensible of the brothers.

His battles with his younger brother Liam, that often spilled over into violence, are the stuff of Oasis legend.

In 1994, for instance,  at a gig in LA, Liam,  under the influence of crystal meth, made offensive remarks about American audiences and assaulted Noel with a tambourine.

Oasis ultimately proved to be bigger than their nemesis Blur with an unprecedented run of 22 top 10 hits in the UK.

But they also went down faster and Blur's legacy remains stronger. The fame, mansions, swimming pools and girls, appeared to dull the edge of the Gallagher brothers and they lost their distinctive street fighting sound.

The Gallaghers did the normal band thing of splitting up and going solo. But they left a hell of a legacy. Let's hope they don't look back in anger.


Curious fact about Oasis - This hard edged northern band were named after a leisure center in southern Swindon of all places.