Noel Gallagher has revealed that he regularly forgets the lyrics to his iconic tracks when performing live.
In an interview with The Sun, Gallagher said he resorts to “making shit up” when he suffers a memory lapse onstage.
“Brain freeze, I get it. I get them when I’m doing gigs to 70,000 people,” he said.
“As the next line is coming I think, ‘Seriously, what is the next line to this song?’ You’re thinking, ‘I genuinely don’t know what it is’. Somehow it falls out of the sky. But sometimes I just have to make shit up.”
“My band will say, ‘Are they the right lyrics?’ And I go, ‘I don’t think so’. I’ve played ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ a billion times and sometimes I think, ‘What is the first line?’.”
Aside from forgetting lyrics, Noel Gallagher also confirmed that he is working on a cover album of tracks that have influenced his songwriting.
“Everybody does Bob Dylan covers albums — it’s boring,” he said.
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In other news, Gallagher recently declared that the 90s were the “last great decade in music”… not that he is biased, of course.
During an appearance on Absolute Radio (via Ultimate Guitar), Gallagher discussed the upcoming documentary Oasis Knebworth 1996, which marks the 25th anniversary of the group’s record-breaking concerts at Knebworth Park, England.
“When you see this documentary, it’s the band that is at its absolute peak, Liam [Gallagher] is at his absolute peak, it’s a real snapshot of a long-gone era,” he said.
He continued: “A quarter of a million people, not a single mobile phone, no internet, in the moment, with the band, everybody is singing at the top of their lungs, very young crowd… You kind of think, ‘Wow, the 90s…’”
“It was the last great decade in music. When people see this film, I got quite emotional watching it just because of what we’ve lost. But it’s a great document of a great band and great music,” he concluded.
For more on this topic, head over to the Classic Rock Observer.