The jury may still be out on who exactly Pulp's "Common People" was written about, but the subject of another Britpop classic has just been revealed. Melissa Lim has come out as the woman that inspired Noel Gallagher to write Oasis track "Talk Tonight."
The song originally appeared as the B-side to "Some Might Say" in 1995 and later appeared on the group's compilations The Masterplan and Stop the Clocks. As recently examined in the documentary Supersonic, the tune was written by Noel when he briefly left the band in the middle of their first U.S. tour.
He ditched his brother Liam and their bandmates in Los Angeles in the fall of 1994 and took off for San Francisco, where he allegedly met a girl who talked him down and inspired him to rejoin the band.
The song's refrain hears an uncharacteristically contemplative Noel cooing, "I wanna talk tonight / Until the morning light / 'bout how you saved my life."
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, that woman was Lim. In an interview, she describes her first meeting with Noel and reminisces about taking him in, feeding him, calming him down and then just hanging out together listening to music, record shopping and visiting a park that Lim played at as a child.
"San Francisco has a reputation of being a place where bands come to die, like the Band and the Sex Pistols," Lim said. "I wasn't going to let it happen on my watch. I told him, 'You can't leave the band — you're on the verge of something big.'"
The aforementioned documentary depicts Lim's relationship with Noel as the crucial puzzle piece in keeping the band together, though Noel's memory of his time in San Francisco isn't particularly clear.
"If I close my eyes now, I can't even picture the girl," he says in the film. "I can't remember her name."
Lim countered in the new interview, "Keith Richards can remember the name of his milkman from when he was eight years old. I don't know what's going on with Noel, and that's fine. I was a part of something that touched so many people. That's good enough."
It doesn't look like even Lim will be able to bridge the rift between the Gallagher brothers this time around, but you can relive the 1994 musical urban legend in song form by listening to "Talk Tonight" in the player below.
The song originally appeared as the B-side to "Some Might Say" in 1995 and later appeared on the group's compilations The Masterplan and Stop the Clocks. As recently examined in the documentary Supersonic, the tune was written by Noel when he briefly left the band in the middle of their first U.S. tour.
He ditched his brother Liam and their bandmates in Los Angeles in the fall of 1994 and took off for San Francisco, where he allegedly met a girl who talked him down and inspired him to rejoin the band.
The song's refrain hears an uncharacteristically contemplative Noel cooing, "I wanna talk tonight / Until the morning light / 'bout how you saved my life."
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, that woman was Lim. In an interview, she describes her first meeting with Noel and reminisces about taking him in, feeding him, calming him down and then just hanging out together listening to music, record shopping and visiting a park that Lim played at as a child.
"San Francisco has a reputation of being a place where bands come to die, like the Band and the Sex Pistols," Lim said. "I wasn't going to let it happen on my watch. I told him, 'You can't leave the band — you're on the verge of something big.'"
The aforementioned documentary depicts Lim's relationship with Noel as the crucial puzzle piece in keeping the band together, though Noel's memory of his time in San Francisco isn't particularly clear.
"If I close my eyes now, I can't even picture the girl," he says in the film. "I can't remember her name."
Lim countered in the new interview, "Keith Richards can remember the name of his milkman from when he was eight years old. I don't know what's going on with Noel, and that's fine. I was a part of something that touched so many people. That's good enough."
It doesn't look like even Lim will be able to bridge the rift between the Gallagher brothers this time around, but you can relive the 1994 musical urban legend in song form by listening to "Talk Tonight" in the player below.
