The Oasis song that inspired Richard Ashcroft: “I’ve always thanked Noel for that”
Callum MacHattie
Mon 29 September 2025 4:00, UK


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But that wasn’t the band’s only stellar effort. Before Urban Hymns, they released A Northern Soul, which was also released in 1995 also and began to showcase the band’s penchant for penning expansive, gritty ballads. It was a sound they decided to fine tune, abandoning the model of their first record A Storm In Heaven and embracing the model of the after hearing the undeniably brilliant Oasis. And for Ashcroft, it was ‘Live Forever’ in particular that led the way to this brave new future.

“When I first heard the demo of this before I’d even met Oasis or played with them this song popped out at me and I thought this is a classic,” Richard Ashcroft explained. “Then going on to meet the lads and play with them and stuff, in the period leading up to recording A Northern Soul I started to make this conscious effort of wanting to create things that, a bit like ‘Live Forever’, are more direct, more succinct, close to perfection. Clear and uplifting and transcendent.”

Sure, on A Northern Soul, they created their own greatness with tracks like ‘Life’s An Ocean’, but it wasn’t until Urban Hymns were they perfected their own style of alternative heritage.

Ashcroft continued, “You know, I’ve always thanked Noel for that because I really do think that song and those guys re-energised and refocused me as a musician to where I was going to end up. There wouldn’t be a ‘Lucky Man’ or a ‘Sonnet’ or a ‘Drugs Don’t Work’. I really don’t believe that without this moment, without hearing ‘Live Forever’.”

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