The True Meaning of “Wonderwall”
The decoding of Oasis’s greatest hit
“Wonderwall” by Oasis is a timeless piece. The song was released in October of 1995 and was an immediate hit. With a great band and catchy lyrics how could it not?
It’s a song that everyone knows, but its meaning remains a mystery.
According to Noel Gallagher, the song was originally about his girlfriend but later said it is about “an imaginary friend who is going to come save you from yourself.”
What is a Wonderwall? You might ask. Although there is no clear answer, calling someone your Wonderwall can be associated with telling someone you love them.
But why a Wonderwall? That seems like such an odd term to use. Seeing as wonder and wall are sort of paradoxical. When you wonder, you expand your mind wide open into new territories. On the contrary, a wall is a barrier and its purpose is to restrain you from entering.
“Wonderwall” was Oasis’s only major hit, but it was one of the greatest from the nineties and remain timeless today.
Most songs from the nineties feel old and out of style, either from the beats or the lyrical content. A lot of songs have references to nineties culture that newer listeners cannot understand. “Wonderwall,” on the other hand, is an obscure song that you might have to listen to a couple, or even hundreds of times to find the meaning behind it.
The obscurity is the main reason why this is a timeless song. It is randomness and the unknown that keeps it interesting through the decades. When I listen to “Wonderwall” I feel as if it could have been created in the early 2000’s or even 2010’s because it just has that feeling. Maybe it’s the fact that Gallagher is singing about his girlfriend or his supposedly imaginary friend, and a lot of people who are lonely can relate to that. Maybe its the fact that the lyrics are very simple and the music flows nicely through your ears.
People can use their imagination to alter the meaning of the song. Replacing the imaginary friend with a girl, family member, or whatever they feel is important in their life. The song has very simple and repetitive lyrics, but still uses complex language that displays what Gallagher is thinking. The repetition of the line
“You’re gonna be the one that saves me”
shares a strong message about the song as well as the artist. The hopelessness in someone’s life and the need for someone to be there for you at your lowest points can really be portrayed through this line.
Every human at some point in their life needs someone to lean on. In some cases people need to lean on God when they are going threw hardships in life. God helps them through said hardship and brings light to their dark world. Ultimately God saves them by setting them back on track. And sometimes God can appear in a person.
“And all the roads we have to walk are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding”
These two lines are expressing that the road through life is not straight, but winding, meaning you cant see what's ahead. The lights that lead the path blind you, so you just have to just keep trekking. Gallagher is giving a lesson that life is not easy and sometimes it wont make sense but you just have to keep going.
“I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now”
This line is repeated twice in the song with two distinct meanings. In the first break, the meaning is that he is the only person who could possibly have this strong of a feeling towards this person. In the second break the person(his imaginary friend) has run out of chances to reach back to him. But this will never stop feeling the way he does.
I personally have listened to “Wonderwall” hundreds of times, and is one of my favorite songs to this day. After you listen to a song for hours you really start to pay attention to the lyrics, and then the song starts to change in your mind. Sometimes it is for the good, sometimes for the bad. For me, “Wonderwall” changed for the good. I started to hear the real beauty of the song and not just the catchy lyrics everyone knows. If a song does not get old after 100 plays, you know it’s a keeper.
“Wonderwall” according to Rolling Stone “has become the song that will not die.” It still gets about 500,000 streams a week and generates over a million dollars a year. “Wonderwall” has affected a lot of people around the world, and I believe it is the most impactful and timeless piece from the nineties.
