I know every Oasis song by heart. I didn't plan it that way, it just happened. I grew up in Burnage, Manchester, in the 90's, just as Liam and Noel were blowing up and leaving Burnage, Manchester, in the 90's. They lived around the corner from me, Burnage isn't that big. They went to the same primary school as me. My mum had a casual job in a butcher's shop for a while, and she used to sell their mum meat. She was nice. In "Shakermaker" they sing "Mr Sifter sold me songs, when I was just sixteen". Sifter's is a second hand music shop on the same street as the butcher, Fog Lane, it's still there.
I can't tell you what it meant to a little kid who liked writing stories to hear one of the biggest bands in the world on the radio and know that they came from Burnage, but I'll try. It inspired me, and it made me dream. Literally, I used to have dreams where I was a writer and would drink with Liam or Noel. I have always loved music, of all kinds. Oasis were my favourite band for a while as a kid. I know all the objections, the simplistic arrangement, the meaningless lyrics, but none of that matters when you're already connected, and they were good enough for me as a kid discovering rock and roll. I rarely listen to them now. I remember writing a poem once about my own experience of walking the streets of Manchester as a young man at night, and there is some kind of link between that poem and this song. Oasis gave me an example, you could be a man from our background (their ethnic and cultural background is almost exactly the same as mine), our streets, and writing could be something that you did.
If I had to pick 3 favourite Oasis tracks, "Gas Panic!" would be one of them. It's probably the one I sing the most.
What tongueless ghost of sin crept through my curtains?
Sailing on a sea of sweat on a stormy night
I think he don't got a name but I can't be certain
And in me he starts to confide
That my family don't seem so familiar
And my enemies all know my name
And if you hear me tap on your window
You better get on your knees and pray, panic is on the way
My pulse pumps out a beat to the ghost dancer
My eyes are dead and my throat's like a black hole
And if there's a god would he give another chancer
An hour to sing for his soul?
Cause my family don't seem so familiar
And my enemies all know my name
And when you hear me tap on your window
You better get on your knees and pray, panic is on the way
Gas Panic!
You'll have to hear for yourself to judge. But I hear insidious anxiety, insistent desperation. I hear a song written for Liam's voice, and I hear a story I relate to.
In the first verse, a nameless, tongueless "ghost of sin" slips in through the window as the singer suffers through restlessness, sleeplessness, a stormy sea of night-sweat and begins to speak. This can't be a coincidence, the sin must be the singer's own, the sins of others have no power to torment. The ghost confides despite being tongueless, straight into the singer's heart. The ghost is the singer himself.
The singer is tormented by the ghost's picture of isolation, vulnerability and hopelessness. The ghost implies a threat that he can visit the singer any night. The suggestion of prayer only underlines the singer's helplessness.
In the next verse, things become even more nightmarish. the singer's "eyes are dead", his throat is "like a black hole" as the ghost now dances to the beat of the singer's strained heartbeat.
But for me, this is where a transformation occurs in the song. The singer, a chancer, sees hope, or at least acceptance. The song is not performed hopelessly or helplessly. The vocals and guitar evoke the stress of the night-storm and the visit of the ghost of sin, but the tone is defiant now. The singer asks only for a chance to save himself. This song seems to me to be about anxiety and self doubt, but we know that the man who wrote it made it. We know that the man who sang it, the writer's brother, was so anxious that he had to self-medicate and constantly project swagger, but he made it too. Here's a performance of a song called "Round are way" that's about where we grew up. This was recorded before Oasis peaked, but while they were on their way. Tell me, does Liam look confident to you?
There is no clear or certain path to success or redemption in the song, but they did succeed, making plenty of trouble for themselves along the way. The writer/singer simply wonders whether he can give himself a chance, despite his mistakes and isolation and threats all around, to claim himself for himself.
In the end, it's a good question.