A CONVERSATION ACROSS THIRTY YEARS
i was listening to cast no shadow (unplugged) from the (what’s the story) morning glory? [30th anniversary] edition earlier and it sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole.
maybe it is because you can hear what sounds like present day noel harmonising with 1995 liam? whatever it is, i ended up thinking about what a conversation between them would actually look like.
WONDER WHAT 2026 NOEL WOULD SAY IF HE FOUND HIMSELF SITTING ACROSS FROM 1995 LIAM
not the mythology. not oasis. not the headlines. just liam.
i imagine it would start with something ordinary.
maybe liam would grin that daft grin because honestly, he would have always suspected as much.
then he would ask another question.
and i can almost hear noel answering with one of those shrugs he hides entire emotional universes behind.
because where do you even begin? how do you explain thirty years to someone who is still standing at the front door of them?
the strange thing is that i do not think noel would spend much time talking about success. i think he would spend most of the conversation watching.
watching a brother who still thinks time arrives in endless supply. watching someone who has not yet discovered that people change, relationships drift, things break for reasons that do not always make sense. that some chapters end so quietly you do not realise they are over until years later.
not because noel would not know the answer. because he would.
because sometimes knowledge is heavier than words.
the older i get, the more i think that is one of life's cruelest tricks. when you are young, you think the future is the important part. when you are older, you realise the future eventually becomes a collection of rooms you cannot go back into.
then i started thinking about the reverse.
2026 LIAM SITTING ACROSS FROM 1995 NOEL.
because i do not think liam would ask about the songs.
i think he would spend most of the conversation looking.
at someone carrying responsibilities he has not learned to name yet.
and noel, being noel, would probably laugh it off and change the subject.
but i think current liam would recognise things in young noel that only time teaches you to see.
the pressure. the loneliness. the habit of carrying too much and then pretending it is nothing.
and maybe the saddest part is that both younger versions would be impatient to hear about what comes next, while both older versions would be mourning what they are about to leave behind.
because that is the irony of it all.
1995 noel and liam thought they were standing at the beginning.
2026 noel and liam know they were standing in the middle of something they will spend the rest of their lives carrying with them.
not the fame. not the records.
and maybe that is why hearing present day noel harmonise with 1995 liam feels the way it does.
for a few seconds, neither of them is young or old.
neither of them knows the future or remembers the past.
they are just brothers again, meeting somewhere in the middle of a song.
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