Tender (A britpop era fiction)

Supersonic

"McGee wanted them to release Bring It On Down as their first single. He thought it was the perfect way to introduce their style. Very Punk, very down from the bottom. You're the outcast, you're the underclass..." I quote and smile thinking about the sheer energy of the song. The guitar riff, Tonys raw drumming, Noels solo and Liams snarl. I love that song, it holds a lot of memories. 

"But it was simply not happening" I go on. "We sat in the studio and there were problems with the drums, with the recording, the pace...nothing came together the way it should. Noel got more and more frustrated which always made Liam more frustrated. It became quite late, I wanted to go to bed but Tony asked me to stay."

"Why?" Matt interupts me. 

"Sorry?"

"Why did he ask you to stay? Did you help with the production?"

"No. I..." I pause. "I never thought about it, to be honest. Why he wanted me there, why they all wanted me there. Only later I realized that someone must have thought having their sister around them would stop my brothers from tearing each other apart. That the presence of me would equal out the extreme of Noel versus the extreme of Liam."

"There is a very famous quote of you from the interview the three of you gave to Vanity Fair in September of 1996."

"Oh. That one." I get uncomfortable even thinking about it. 

"You said, quote:"

"You'd think these tinkers are able to look out for themselves. This one's 24, this one's fuckin' 29. Grown-ups. Yet still here I am, getting paid for being their fuckin' babysitter." I take a deep breath of my cigarette and stomp it out in the ash tray before me. I can feel Noel on my right stiffen. Liam shakes his head in disbelief.  But I only got started.

"Listen, you gotta understand that I took this job voluntarily. I liked being around with me brothers, with Tony and the boys, getting paid to make sure they would do what they were asked to do. No one ever said me explicitly that's my duty but I saw it as such, for quite a while. The kind of problems that came with it, I accepted them far too long. And saying all of this, don't make the mistake to think a part of me didn't enjoy to get pushed in the limelight once they really took off. "

I look down to my entangeled hands. 

"Being a Gallagher, being able to do what we did, the parties, the drugs, the booze, the sex and all the opportunities, the whole world adoring me brothers, adoring me - I felt invincible. Untouchable. Supersonic even. Until shit hit the fan, of course." I squint my eyes and my thoughts wander back to that night in the recording studio.

"Anyway, I didn't leave. Someone left to get chinese take-away. And I remember very clearly, Noel sitting in the corner, scribbling on a piece of paper, the guitar in his hands. Repeating a certain riff over and over again. Everyone was sitting around and I played with a dog that somehow was in the studio. A Rottweiler girl named Elsa." I grin. "So you know where that comes from. 

Suddenly, Noel jumped up and left the room. The food came, we ate and I just put my bowl aside when he came back, a sheet of paper in hand. He grabbed Liam, the noodles practically still hanging out of his mouth and dragged him in the studio, singing him the song he finished only a few minutes ago. Both of them came back to us and hurried the others up. It was one of those moments between them. Liam immediately knew that this was the song that would change everything, because Noel knew it and because they have a very similar understanding and appreciation for music. Our kids problem most of the time is he can't articulate it as well as Noel, therefore the press always liked to protray him as the... simpler mind out of the two. But this night, they acted as a union, in spirit and in intention.