Originally I was going to discuss 2023 a bit more. I decided against that after I got to typing – this year has been a bit of a shit to me personally and I’d rather see it just go the hell away. Instead, I’ll go with what is supposed to be my normal Wednesday routine and talk about a song instead.

Whatever, indeed.

Our song today hails from Oasis, and was their first ever non-album single. We are now 29 years and 1 day removed from its single release, it was a UK Christmas single in 1994. This would do very well for what was about to become a behemoth of British rock, the song went to number 3 on the UK charts and sold over 540,00 copies.

This was recorded as part of the sessions for the debut album Definitely Maybe, and in fact I believe it was released on a few international versions of the album. I can’t immediately corroborate this, so if anyone has more concrete information about this, please share and I’ll be happy to correct this.

The thing that kept Whatever off the debut album was the use of orchestra strings, which were recorded by the London Session Orchestra. Among the players was violinist Wilfred Gibson, who had previously been part of Electric Light Orchestra, as well as contributing to early King Crimson work, among others. Imagine being this guy who had been on decades of mountain-moving work.

But Oasis and the powers that be, likely Alan McGee and Creation Records, decided that Whatever didn’t fit the debut album. I’d honestly say it’s a fair call, this song does stand out as different from the vibe on the record. It might have worked, but Definitely Maybe does work just great as it is, so it’s probably for the best that this is a bonus track.

Our song today isn’t that difficult to go through, most Oasis songs aren’t. It’s an ode to being free and embracing whoever you are, like a lot of Oasis it’s a celebration of the everyday person. It’s an embrace of the free spirit of the brief Britpop time of the mid-90’s where things weren’t as grim and everyone could take on the new form of rock music while still having a good time. It’s a celebration of self, it isn’t overly intellectual and it works pretty well.

The signature part of this song might be at the end, as the last minute or so sees the strings lead the song out. It leads to memes like the one just below, and it sums up the spirit of the song. We aren’t supposed to take it all that seriously, yet in that time for us of the right age in the mid-90’s, this was pretty serious. For a brief moment in time, relatively speaking, Oasis were the voice of a generation.

Now, this song did give primary songwriter Noel Gallagher a bit of a fit – there was a lawsuit from celebrated English act Neil Innes, who contended that this song lifted parts from Innes’ 1973 song How Sweet To Be An Idiot. Oasis management chose to settle, and Innes is listed as a co-writer of Whatever.

This got played out live a fair bit, including during Oasis’ high time of 1996, and the Knebworth set that I go on and on about on here. All in all this is listed as being played 99 times during the band’s career, and was one they were playing on their final tour when shit came to shit and the band imploded. Both Noel and Liam have played this in solo sets post-split.

So at the end of the day we have a Christmas song, although it’s not about Christmas, as if Oasis would ever do that. But we do have a very nice song that didn’t quite fit the album they were putting out and we got this as a bonus single instead. A fine piece of work, if I do say.