The Oasis song title Noel Gallagher doesn’t understand: “We’d better change that”

Posted On August 20, 2024August 20, 2024

Track titles are often the last element of songwriting on an artist’s mind when they are in the creative process, and most times, they are nothing more than an afterthought. However, as former Oasis songwriter and guitarist Noel Gallagher knows first-hand, a song title can be vitally important.

In the grand scheme of things, bad song titles, similar to bad band names, are essentially rendered harmless if the quality of the track is high. Nevertheless, they still provide a first impression to the listener, and if the title is too abstract, understandably, this could get things started on the wrong foot.

With Oasis, Gallagher was typically to the point with song titles that often immediately grabbed attention and did what they said on the tin. However, when a track is wholly instrumental with no chorus available to grab a song title from, such as ‘The Swamp Son’, Gallagher had to opt for a more left-field approach to his naming system.

While two short excerpts of the track featured as interludes on (What’s The Story) Morning Glory, the full version of ‘The Swamp Song’ was reserved as the B-side to ‘Wonderwall‘ alongside ‘The Masterplan’. It was never intended to be anything more than a throwaway and an attempt to capture the freewheeling spirit of an impromptu jam.

Explaining its creation to NME, Gallagher recalled: “At the beginning you can hear a crowd noise, and ‘Swamp Song’ was the first track we played at Glastonbury. So we took the drums from the Glastonbury performance, ‘cos it was the right pace, and then we just overdubbed all the guitars. I think I played bass. And the guitar on it is by Paul Weller. He’d come down to play the solo on ‘Champagne Supernova’. So we thought, ‘Might as well get our money’s worth out of him’.”

Gallagher was thrilled with the final product, which perfectly encapsulates the raw, chaotic energy of an Oasis live show, but to his frustration, the rest of the band were less convinced. He recalled, “And he plays the mouth organ as well. It’s one of my favourites, actually, but everyone was dead against putting it on this album. It’s just a jam, really. It was called, for ages, ‘The Jam’. Totally inspired title.”

The original title was another issue the band felt compelled to overcome due to Weller formerly being the frontman of The Jam. Therefore, to avoid unnecessary complications, Gallagher switched from ‘The Jam’ to ‘The Swamp Song’, much to his later regret.

Gallagher explained: “So then when Paul played on it, we thought, ‘We’d better change that’. So when we changed it, he said, ‘How come you’ve changed the title?’ I said, ‘I thought it would sound a bit corny’. And he went, ‘No, I really liked that title!’ For the life of me, I don’t know why we called it ‘The Swamp Song’.”

Undoubtedly, ‘The Jam’ works better than ‘The Swamp Song’, but ultimately, it was only supposed to be a B-side, and as it wasn’t on a studio album, this shouldn’t have mattered. However, while Gallagher didn’t know it then, every song released by Oasis during their golden period continues to hold great cultural weight, including the bizarrely titled, ‘The Swamp Song’.

Related Topics