What is Roll With It?
Short Answer:
Oasis’s 1995 single. Or how to lose a battle but win the war.
Long Anwer:
What is it?
Roll with It came out in August 1995, the same day Blur released Country House. The press framed it as a battle. For us, it wasn’t. We already knew who we were backing.
The song isn’t subtle. It’s not even particularly original. But it doesn’t need to be. It’s a bottle of warm lager hurled through a window marked "expectations". Three chords. One idea. Absolute conviction. Noel wrote it fast because he knew what it was straight away. Liam barked it out like gospel, because to him it was.
It’s not about depth. It’s about movement. Don’t wallow. Don’t apologise. Just roll with it.
The Battle of Britpop
Blur wore suits and smirked. Oasis stood outside a chip shop in Burnage and told the world to f*** off. When both bands dropped singles on the same day, we were told it was a fair fight. It wasn’t.
Blur sold more copies.
Oasis sold the future.
We didn’t sing Country House on the bus to school. We didn’t scream “Blowin’ bubbles with his gin” in a field at the top of our lungs. Blur got the Number One. Oasis got the decade.
Sound and Style
Basic drums. A riff that doesn’t go anywhere because it doesn’t need to. Liam’s voice dead centre, flattening every vowel into defiance. Noel’s solo lasts five seconds. It’s all you get. It’s all you need.
This isn’t a song that evolves. It arrives, repeats, leaves. You’re either with it or in the way.
Video
Shot on a miserable beach. No concept. No performance. Just four lads looking mildly hungover while the wind ruins their hair.
Blur had budget and irony. Oasis had sand in their shoes and somewhere better to be.
Why It Hit
It opened every show for months. You heard the drums and you knew. No faffing, no sentiment. Just that voice, yelling the obvious with such force it stopped being obvious.
That’s what people never got. Roll with It wasn’t trying to be clever. It was trying to get you through the week.
Reception
Number Two. That’s the stat. Here’s the truth: it never left. The critics thought it was lazy. We knew it was direct.
It’s still in the setlist. It still works. Not because it’s perfect. Because it never promised to be.
Legacy
It’s not Live Forever. It’s not Don’t Look Back in Anger. But it doesn’t want to be.
Roll with It is the sound of a band on the edge of something enormous, still just about small enough to mean something personal. It’s laddish, loud, and rough around the edges. And if you were there, you never questioned it.
You didn’t overthink it. You didn’t need to. You just sang along. Because for a few minutes, it felt like Oasis were shouting just for you.
And they were.
