Be Here Now by Oasis Lyrics Meaning – Unveiling the Mantra of Mindfulness in Britpop
Lyrics
Flash your pen at the song that I’m singin’
Touch down bass livin’ on the run
Make no sweat at the hole that you’re diggin’
Wrap up cold when it’s warm outside
Your shit jokes remind me of Digsy’s
Be my magic carpet ride
Fly me down to Capitol City in the sun
Kickin’ up a storm
From the day that I was born
Sing a song for me, one from Let It Be
Open up your eyes, get a grip of yourself inside
So wash your face in the morning sun
Flash your pen at the song that I’m singin’
Touch down bass livin’ on the run
Make no sweat of the hole that you’re diggin’
Kickin’ up a storm
From the day that I was born
Sing a song for me, one from Let It Be
Open up your eyes, get a grip of yourself inside
Inside
(Get a grip) inside
(Get a grip) inside
(You betcha)
(You betcha)
So wrap up cold when it’s warm outside
Please sit down, you make me feel giddy
Be my magic carpet ride
Fly me down to Capitol City
I’ve been kickin’ up a storm
From the day that I was born
Sing a song for me, one from Let It Be
Open up your eyes, get a grip of yourself inside
(Get a grip inside)
(Get a grip inside)
(Get a grip inside)
(Get a grip inside)
(You betcha)
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Come on, come on, come on
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Come on, come on, come on, come on
Come on, come on, come on
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Oasis, the renowned architects of Britpop, have left an indelible mark on the musical landscape with their manifold anthems. ‘Be Here Now’, a track from their eponymous album, unrolls as a less ostentatious fabric in their grand tapestry, but its threads are no less vibrant. The lyrics, a concatenation of imperatives and present-tense musings, dance around an axis of self-awareness in a world preoccupied with retrospection and anticipation.
This deep dive into the song’s essence reveals a mantra like quality, exuding a call to the present moment that resonates with mindfulness philosophies centuries old. Tinged with Oasis’s signature sound and uncompromisingly delivered by lead vocalist Liam Gallagher, ‘Be Here Now’ propounds more than the sum of its lyrics and chords—it divulges a blueprint for a way of being.
Carpe Diem with a Mancunian Accent
Emerging from the swaggering spirit of Oasis’s earlier works, ‘Be Here Now’ replaces bravado with a grounding precognition. The phrase itself, plucked from Eastern spiritual teachings, gets a hearty Mancunian rendition as Gallagher enjoins listeners to seize the day. The song’s raw energy is gilded with reminders to experience life, eschewing the stagnancy of past ruminations and future anxieties.
Its repeated exhortation to ‘wash your face in the morning sun’ is as much a cleansing ritual as it is a metaphorical baptism into the newness of now. There is no room for yesterday’s grime or tomorrow’s dust; there is only the vital, burning zeal of the present.
A Labyrinth of Mundane Mysticism
Oasis’s ‘Be Here Now’ strips down the pomp of esoteric traditions to its undergarments of bare, accessible wisdom. Each line serves as a reminder that even in the throes of everyday life—’touch down bass livin’ on the run’—there exists a quiet center. Gallagher isn’t summoning his audience to a Himalayan retreat; he’s calling them to the sacredness of the sidewalk, the supermarket, the soccer match.
This is Britpop’s homage to Zen, served with a pint and a punch. The ‘hole that you’re diggin’,’ perhaps a personal pitfall or the grave of dreams deferred, is faced without dread, without the perspiration of fear, and most importantly, without pause.
The Beatles’ Echo in ‘Let It Be’
No analysis of Oasis’s work is complete without a nod to The Beatles, and ‘Be Here Now’ winks at its heritage by calling forth ‘Let It Be’. It’s a conscious threading of one philosophical anthem to another, interlacing the ’60s’ melodies of acceptance with the ’90s’ chords of presence.
In entreating his audience to sing a song from the Fab Four’s repository, Gallagher is not just reaching back into rock’s annals; he’s speaking to the timeless nature of music as a vessel for conveying eternal truths. ‘Open up your eyes’ isn’t just a directive; it’s an initiation into a lineage of songwriters who have doubled as seers.
The Hidden Meaning: Impermanence in Capitol City
While the chorus pulses with the anthemic energy typical of Oasis, there’s a subtler allusion nested within the imagery of ‘Capitol City’. It’s a mythical metropolis of opportunity, but Gallagher’s request for a ‘magic carpet ride’ to this place isn’t merely escapist fantasy—the magic lies in the transient nature of the visit.
What the song underscores is an ephemeral quality of experience. The underlying message? That even the grandeur of Capitol City is but a fleeting locale on the map of life. It is visited with intent, with eyes wide open, but not clung to with desperation, for the current of now is ever-flowing.
Memorable Lines: The Pithy Poetry of Presence
Notable are the punchy, littered lines of the song that strike like lightning—the sharp humor of ‘Your shit jokes remind me of Digsy’s’ and the weather-worn ‘wrap up cold when it’s warm outside’ serve as gnomic truths garbed in the everyman’s vernacular.
These phrases compound in their simplicity, rendering the immense accessible and conceivable. They act as cairns marking the trail of ‘Be Here Now’, guiding the listener through a terrain of ordinary enlightenment, one that is walked in the well-worn shoes of daily life.
