FRAN HEALY has admitted he stole the chords for one of Travis‘ breakthrough hits from Oasis‘ ‘WONDERWALL’.
The singer says he wrote ‘Writing To Reach You’, from their number one album ‘The Man Who’, after listening to ‘Wonderwall’ as well as The Connells‘ one-off hit ’74-75′ on the radio.
Astute fans may have noticed the theft because ‘Writing To Reach You’s first verse contains the lyric: ‘The radio is playing all the usual/And what’s a wonderwall anyway?’.
Speaking to DJ Gary Crowley on a BBC London Live show (94.9FM) to be broadcast tonight (June 20), Healy said: “I’m sitting in the house and ‘Wonderwall’ was on the radio all the time and I just thought ‘That’s great’.”
“Then I thought ‘I’ll nick them, why not, they’re just chords’ I changed the rhythm. I had to put the wonderwall line-in there and it was directed totally at Noel, totally at the writer and he got it and he was on some radio station and he was going ‘I like those chords, FRANNY. Those chords are really good…FRANNY‘.”
Healy was in the studio with Travis bassist Dougie Payne, and the two told of their surprise at Noel Gallagher‘s recent walkout, halfway through Oasis‘ European tour.
The pair described Oasis as “all getting on great” during their time on the road together in America.
To read the full story, with Healy speaking about Travis‘ next album, see this week’s NME, on sale in London this afternoon (June 20) and the rest of the UK tomorrow.
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