"Columbia" was born by Liam Gallagher & Chris Griffiths, Not by Noel

[cristian]

Read this from Tony McCarroll's book:


«It was our second week in Bootle. We had that comfortably thing already and we just knew we could produce something good here. Liam was frustrated, though. He wanted to write a song. One of our earlier rehearsals had developed into 'Columbia', a simple instrumental that needed finishing but we still rolled it out live. Liam sang melody quietly to himself while Chris Griffiths plucked away on his acoustic.

Liam suddenly raised his voice: 'There we were. Now here we are. All this confusion. Nothing's the same to me.' Chris Griffiths asked Liam to repeat this line over and over, then joined in, in a higher pitch, with, 'But I can't tell you the way I feel because the way I feel is oh so new to me.'

Crash, Bang, Wallop. Oasis and The Real People collided. It sounded bang-on, and in the next couple of hours it was completed. Chris threw in a few 'yeah, yeah, yeahs' as his Liverpudlian marker and Liam pleaded his Mancunian 'C'Mon, c'mon, c'mon' and we had another new song. We headed back to Tony Griffiths and Noel and sang the new melody and lyrics to them. We told him that Chris had come up with it. Noel looked proper chuffed and was immediately repeating the melody. Liam then proudly told Noel he was involved in the writing as well. Noel's smile seemed to vanish as quick as the light after the flick of the switch.

PS: Chris Griffiths also co-wrote "Rockin' Chair" with Noel Gallagher in 1993.»

[david]

and of course there's a lot of 'real people' in supersonic too. wasn't there some kind of deal done with that moneywise?
columbia is so unloke anything noel has ever written that it's always seemed obvious.

saw the real people a few times in the early 90s, very good they were.

[frjdoasis]

'There we were. Now here we are. All this confusion. Nothing's the same to me.'

Fantastic line. Well done Liamino. I love this song, it's hypnotic

[tiger40]

Columbia is and always will be my favourite Oasis song.
I once heard that Liam claimed to have written one or both of the verses so I guess that what Tony Mccarroll said in his book must be it then.

[srx17]

Liam’s delivery at the very beginning of the song sets such a great tone for the melody. Classic.