An acid-house jam that took a London hotel’s name
Columbia is track five on Definitely Maybe, six minutes and seventeen seconds on the album Creation released on 29 August 1994. Noel Gallagher named it for the Columbia Hotel in London, the place bands used in Bayswater, not for the country and not for a record label. He knew the hotel from his roadie days with Mark Coyle, working for Inspiral Carpets. In the 2014 liner notes he called it the scene of many nights of nonsense, and said the word sounded like a good title. The question of why the song is called that has a short answer. The hotel. The rest of the track is older than the title’s explanation.
The music started around late 1991 as an instrumental. Noel wrote that when the band had few songs they jammed the acid-house tunes of the time and messed about, and Columbia came out of one of those nights. They played it the first night he did a gig with Oasis. Lyrics were added later, when they were working at the Real People studio. He said it was still argued who wrote the words, that they were on acid, and that he wrote 90 percent of them. The credit on the record is his alone. Liam sings. The pattern is simple enough that Bonehead has called it his favourite Oasis song to play, because it can run.
Creation issued a white-label promo in 1993. It was played on BBC Radio 1. It was not a chart single. A stripped demo, about 5:24, then turned up as a B-side of Supersonic, the debut single, released on 11 April 1994. The album version was recorded at Sawmills in Cornwall, with Mark Coyle, Owen Morris and the band producing. Tape delay doubles the drums. The coda is long. On the finished debut it sits between Up in the Sky and Supersonic, Liam over a two-chord grind, Guigsy on bass, McCarroll on drums, Noel on lead. The white label is the scarce object. The song people know is the Sawmills cut.
Columbia derived from one of those nights. It was an instrumental and we played it the first night I ever did a gig with Oasis. It’s named in honour of the hotel. Because when I was a roadie with Mark Coyle working for the Inspiral Carpets, we loved that hotel, it was the scene of many nights of nonsense. And it sounded like a good title.
(Noel Gallagher, Definitely Maybe liner notes, 2014)
Live, the two-chord grind made it a useful opener. Oasis opened both Knebworth nights in August 1996 with it, in front of the crowds that had already learned the album version. The 1996 live cut is shorter than the 6:17 on Definitely Maybe. The point of the song on stage was the same as in the rehearsal room: keep the figure going, let Liam sit on it. Bonehead’s preference for it makes sense in that light. A simple pattern, played loud, does not fall apart when the set is long.
The 1993 white label is the scarce pressing, the one collectors price up. The record that fixed the song is the Sawmills master on the debut, still titled after a hotel bar Noel knew as a roadie, still built like a jam that learned a few lines. Supersonic became the first proper single. Columbia became track five, and the thing they could start a show with.
