This is such a remarkable Oasis track.
Liam Gallagher recently admitted that he didn’t care about making it big in the US and one infamous gig at Whisky a Go Go in 1994 was proof of that.
In what has been described by the band as a ‘fucking shambles’ in the superb documentary Supersonic, every single member of Oasis was playing a different song to the other while they were on stage.
Why was this? Well, they were all off their heads on crystal meth.
As Liam says, “We all thought it was coke and were doing big fucking lines of it. The band was up for days.”
If you haven’t seen the Oasis documentary Supersonic then you really should because aside from those insane moments of bravado and rock ‘n roll , the film really resonates in the more insightful and quiet moments.
Case in point, after that shambles of a gig at Whisky a Go Go, Noel Gallagher was on the brink of leaving the band as he flew out to San Francisco to spend time with a girl that he’d been seeing.
In his own words: “I don’t know what the fuck I thought I was doing. Was I just going to disappear? But Talk Tonight was written about those few days (when he was about to leave the band) and out of that came that great song. It was meant to be. I sat in this girl’s flat, probably doing a bit too many fucking drugs and being a bit fucking mad, unbeknownst to me, they (Oasis management) found out where I was. I’d written these new songs – and someone booked a recording session – that was Oasis’ fucking cure for everything.”
After the release of the film, the San Francisco Chronicle actually tracked down Noel’s artistic muse on Talk Tonight (Melissa Lim) and got her side of the story.
“He was very upset. I took him in, I fed him and tried to calm him down. He wanted to break up the band. We went to Huntington Park to clear his mind. We listened to music. We went record shopping. San Francisco has a reputation of being a place where bands come to die, like The Band and the Sex Pistols. I wasn’t going to let it happen on my watch. I told him ‘You can’t leave the band, you’re on the verge of something big!” she said.
In fact, Melissa is the inspiration for the entire song but most poignantly this lyric: “All your dreams are made, Of strawberry lemonade” because she kept bringing back magazines and Snapple Strawberry Lemonade for Noel.
Speaking about Melissa, Mark Coyle, Oasis’ sound engineer, adds:”You meet them people in America, you don’t meet them anywhere else in the world. They take you under their wing, they’re spiritual people is what they are – she was one of them.”
Noel said: “She was saying ‘what are you going to leave?’ and what are you going to do? At this point, I’m going ‘what the fuck am I going to do?’ I just needed a bit of time-out I guess. I may have been trying to teach someone (Liam) a lesson and failed miserably!”
After Noel returned to the band, Coyle said that the new era of Oasis started as soon as he ” walked into that hotel. And everything was different after that and we all had to be different because if you’re not with him, you’re going home. Talk Tonight, that’s one fucking moody song. It shows a delicate side to Noel that you don’t see that often.”
As for the song, Talk Tonight was released as the B-side to Some Might Say in 1995 but it never received an official video…until now.
This is 4:23 of Noel Gallagher at his very, very best.
Have a listen.
Clip via – OasisVEVO
