26 July 2019: third single from Why Me? Why Not., written with Andrew Wyatt
On 26 July 2019 Liam Gallagher released Once, the third single from his second solo album, Why Me? Why Not. He wrote it with Andrew Wyatt, and Wyatt produced it. Warner put the album out on 20 September 2019. The sessions had run from April 2018 to April 2019 at Abbey Road and RAK in London, and at Bonnie Hill, Echo and Republic in Los Angeles. Greg Kurstin, Simon Aldred and Adam Noble produced other songs. Once is track three, 3 minutes 33 seconds, and it is the lighter, acoustic-leaning song next to louder singles such as Shockwave.
The lyric looks back at a moment and says it will not return. “You went down so easy like a glass of wine, my friend,” then the line that titles the song: you only get to do it once. Gallagher did not publish a key to the “friend.” Plenty of listeners heard the early Oasis years in it, before the split in Paris on 28 August 2009. The record itself does not say that. What it does say is in the arrangement. Wyatt keeps the guitars spare, the vocal in front, and the chorus short enough to sing with one acoustic guitar. A snippet had already surfaced in the documentary Liam Gallagher: As It Was, which premiered on 6 June 2019.
The same morning the single came out, Gallagher posted on Twitter that Once was one of the best songs he had ever been part of, and that he had sung on many great tunes. On the Official Singles Chart it peaked at No. 49 in the week of 8 August 2019, catalogue GBAHT1900588. Shockwave, the lead single, had reached No. 22. Once was never the campaign’s biggest chart record. It did become a song he kept playing. It later appears on the live albums Down by the River Thames and Knebworth 22, and he sang it at Reading in 2021.
Once is one of the best songs I’ve ever had the pleasure to be part of, and believe you me I’ve sang on many a great tune.
(Liam Gallagher on Twitter, 26 July 2019)
The picture most people remember arrived in January 2020. With the Acoustic Sessions EP, released on 31 January, Gallagher put out a video for the original demo, which he called his favourite version: “silky smooth.” Charlie Lightening directed it. Eric Cantona plays The King. Gallagher plays the butler and the chauffeur. Lightening has said the idea started because Cantona posted a clip of himself singing the song. Gallagher texted that it would be great to have him in, and Lightening already had a number for the agent from a project that had fallen through. Cantona agreed, came on his own, and did the scene. Gallagher later told the story as a list of offers refused: no fee, no hotel, his own flight, his own car, his own catering, then the video, then gone.
Once is the quiet single on Why Me? Why Not., and Gallagher treated it as one of the songs he would actually defend. The album version is Wyatt’s production. The demo in the Cantona film is the take he said he prefers. The title is the argument either way. Some things happen once, and the song is built to say that without dressing it up.
