I remember hearing "Live Forever" for the first time. I was living in Seattle at the time in what I'd like to call a "transitional phase." I made a mental note that I'd need to get that record with that song on it. Being me, I managed to fuck that up. Definitely Maybe and (What's The Story) Morning Glory were released practically on top of each other. I bought the wrong one. Disgusted with myself, I sold Morning Glory to a used CD store and picked up Definitely Maybe. About a month later I heard "Wonderwall" and was back to buy Morning Glory again. I'm kind of dumb. Anyway, it was "Live Forever" that introduced me to Oasis and that remains a favorite song of mine.
I've heard most all the Oasis jokes by now, having been a fan for awhile. Yes, everyone told me way back when that Oasis were knocking off The Beatles. I don't know if it was because I'd heard that said 1,000 times or if I came up with it on my own, but I pretty well decided "Live Forever" wasn't actually about anything. It seemed a very innocent, naive, childlike little fantasy world that Lewis Carroll would have liked if it were slightly more fucked up (okay, a lot more fucked up).
It wasn't until I bought the DVD celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Definitely Maybe that I found out there is a little more substance to the song than I thought. "We see things they'll never see" is one of the lines in the chorus. On the DVD, Noel Gallagher explains that describes two people who've known each other their whole life or at least for a very long time and how they are in on all their own inside jokes, things no outsider is going to privy to. We get it, they don't. "We see things they'll never see."
How's that for irony? It's a line about being in on the joke and after listening to this album for a decade, I realized I'd missed the point.
As for missing the point, I'd love to tell you I learned my lesson with Oasis and never sold another of my CDs at a used CD store for fear of a similar incident. Yeah, not so much. My CD tower is littered with CDs I've bought more than once because I'm not very bright. It took well into my thirties for me to stop selling CDs to the used CD stores. I still haven't stopped buying the same album more than once. I guess evolution stopped for me.
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