Two chords, Johnny Marr on guitar, then The Cage
Better Man is the last song on Heathen Chemistry, and then the disc keeps going. The song itself ends at about 4:20. On the CD Big Brother released on 1 July 2002, roughly thirty minutes of silence follow, and then a hidden track, The Cage, written by Noel Gallagher. The Japanese pressing and the later digital editions remove the gap and list the two pieces apart. If you bought the British CD and let it run, the song you came for was over long before the album’s printed length, 76 minutes, was done.
Liam wrote Better Man. In an interview while the album was new, Gem Archer said Liam had arrived with two chords and had meant to keep the song acoustic. They plugged in, Liam said that was the one, and they cut it live. Noel said he could not find a guitar part worth adding as a third guitar. He got a drum kit out instead. George Harrison had died on 29 November 2001, inside the stretch of sessions at Wheeler End in Buckinghamshire and Olympic in London. The sleeve still credits Johnny Marr with guitar and backing vocals on this track, and Paul Stacey with piano. Andy Bell plays bass. Gem is on rhythm guitar with the rest of the band.
The album leaked almost three months before release. At a show in Las Vegas, fans already knew words from the new songs. The Better Man that came out in July is not the same mix as that early leak. Oasis produced the record. Mark Stent mixed it. Alan White is the drummer named on the album. Noel’s account of this particular take puts him on the kit for the song, on a Ringo kit with a Beatles skin. Marr, who also plays the solo on (Probably) All in the Mind and slide on Born on a Different Cloud, is on the closer with a guitar and a backing vocal.
Him and Johnny on guitar, Andy on bass. It was really hard for me to find a bit in the fucking song. You don’t want three guitarists on a track, so I got me drum kit out and bashed it out. I was playing my Ringo drum kit with a Beatles drum skin. George Harrison had just died.
(Noel Gallagher, interview, 2002)
Better Man was not a British single. The singles from the album were The Hindu Times, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, the double A-side Little by Little / She Is Love, and Songbird. This track stayed the closer that hides another piece of music. A lot of listeners never sat through the silence. The Cage is Noel’s, not Liam’s, and on the original CD it starts only after that half hour. The four minutes before the gap are the song: Liam’s vocal, Marr’s guitar, Stacey’s piano, Bell’s bass.
Heathen Chemistry was the first Oasis album with writing credits for Liam, Gem Archer and Andy Bell beside Noel, and the last studio album with Alan White. Better Man is Liam’s third song on it, after Songbird and Born on a Different Cloud. The take to keep is the live one they cut when the two chords were plugged in. The silence afterwards was a CD trick. It was not the song.
