A deep cut song from Oasis‘ Standing on the Shoulder of Giants was inspired by Liam Gallagher‘s favourite John Lennon song.
The Wonderwall singer, who is touring with a reformed Oasis on the Live ’25 tour, confirmed the deep cut song had been written thanks to a Lennon classic. Gallagher would confirm that both Beautiful Boy and Hey Jude were the key songs he took influence from when writing the Oasis deep cut. There’s slim, if any, chance of the song being performed by the band on their recent tour, and not even Gallagher performed the song on his solo tour. The song, Little James, has been played just once by the band and even then, it was not part of a wider show, but an OBP Radio performance for Portland, United States listeners.
Gallagher said: “[It] was inspired by Beautiful Boy and Hey Jude. More Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy). People who’ve got any soul will realise that there’s a day when you go home and put your feet up and cuddle your kids. If anyone slags it off, they’ve either got no heart or they don’t know what the meaning of life is.”
Gallagher shared his thoughts on the songs inspiration during an interview with Uncut Magazine. The frontman has made it clear Lennon was a huge influence on his career, but also on his early years. Gallagher reflected on the time he first saw Lennon, saying he saw The Beatles member on the TV.
He said: “I was eight. Imagine is the song for me, because I was putting the TV on and I remember that song being on all the time and just thinking, ‘Who’s this guy?’ and all that and then obviously you forget about it and go to school. Later on in life, I got into the Beatles, the whole band and stuff.”
Fellow Beatles members weren’t all that keen to comment on Oasis during their heyday, though Paul McCartney would try and toe the line between wishing them well and calling them out for saying they were better than The Beatles.
In an interview on the Howard Stern show, McCartney confirmed he was not the biggest fan of the band but had tried to maintain a professional level whenever asked about the at-the-time young rockers.
Stern suggested McCartney had called the band “horrible,” to which McCartney replied: “You know what, did I? No. The trouble was I was asked, everyone, because they’re so Beatle-y, everyone asks, ‘What do you think about Oasis?’ I got fed up of being asked. I used to say, ‘They’re okay, I wish them good luck, they’re young guys, it’s difficult out there,’ just trying to help.
“But then they started to badmouth us [The Beatles], saying stuff like, ‘We’re much better, man.’ In the end, I didn’t really badmouth them too much, I just said I think they’re slightly derivative. They thought they were better.”
McCartney was not the only member of the Fab Four to criticise Oasis, with Harrison saying the band would have been better off without frontman Liam Gallagher. Harrison said: “He’s a bit out of date. He’s a bit of a – he’s just silly. I feel a bit sorry for him, really, because I think he’s totally missed the bus.
Harrison went on to suggest there was proof of Oasis being weighed down by Liam Gallagher fronting the band. He shared: “I think it was proven when you see the band without him singing, you know, they’re more in tune. He’s just excess baggage. All he does is make people think ‘what a bunch of prannies they are.’”
