Some Might Say is my favourite of all the Oasis sleeves I created, it’s also their first number one and the first oasis artwork to feature both of my parents! In the following blog article I’ll tell the story of how the whole thing came about.

Oasis - Some Might Say. A Microdot sleeve.

By Autumn 1994 I had already created artwork for every Oasis release to date, namely – ‘Supersonic’, ‘Shakermaker’, ‘Live Forever’, Cigarettes & Alcohol’, ‘Definitely Maybe’ and ‘Whatever’, so we were fully in the swing of things. The process always began the same way – a conversation between me and Noel. He would outline any ideas he might have or a certain direction he’d like me to go in – occasionally he’d say he had no particular ideas and let me get on with it. In this case though, he was very specific.

On the 30^th of November 1994, I caught the train from Wigan to Southampton with Wayne Griggs, who was The Verve’s DJ at the time. Oasis were playing a sold-out show that evening at Southampton Guild Hall and I was due to discuss the artwork for ‘Some Might Say’ with Noel. After the gig, we watched the show on a VHS recorder in the band’s mini bus (they hadn’t yet progressed to full tour bus status!) everybody was in a very upbeat mood as the Oasis juggernaut was really gathering momentum by this point. It was in the minibus that Noel handed me a handwritten set of the lyrics to the song and told me he wanted the lyrics visually illustrating on the sleeve – no pressure there then, I thought!

 Some Might Say lyrics in Noel Gallagher's hand.

The following day saw us travel to Sheffield in the minibus with the band to see them play in Sheffield after which I returned home to begin conceptualising the sleeve artwork.

Taking Noels cue that he wanted all the lyrics illustrating the first thing I had to decide upon was a location – the lyrics provided this ‘Standing at the station’ – there was a physical place I could latch onto, the lyrics then go on to say ‘In need of education’ – how was I to illustrate this? Then I came up with the notion of a disused railway station, the idea being if you were waiting for a train at a disused station you needed educating to the fact there was no train coming!

After a fruitless search of crumbling former station halts we were recommended Cromford station in Derbyshire, which is semi disused, one platform still has a regular service from Derby to Matlock whilst the other is out of use – we finally had our setting.

I then had to create a series of ‘mini sleeves’ within the main sleeve artwork, each containing its own character playing out a section of the lyrics. The ‘models’ I chose for each of the characters were family and friends – they always were in any sleeve artwork I did back then. I found family and friends easier to work with than hired models or actors, it wasn’t a budget thing either, as Oasis would have covered the cost. The cast of characters in this sleeve are –

On the bridge – Liam Gallagher, doing his trademark salute from the time whilst proclaiming ‘Hooraah!’ a reference to ‘We will find a brighter day’ in the song’s lyrics, a very upbeat, positive message.

Holding the watering can – Noel Gallagher, neither Noel or Liam really needed to come along for the shoot, we could have easily found people to play their roles – but they wanted to, they were fully hands on and loved the whole process.

‘She’s got dirty dishes on the brain’ Karla Knox, the barmaid from my local in Wigan can be seen stood at track level with a custom made ‘umbrella’ that had pots and pans on the end of the brolly spokes – the ‘dirty dishes’.

The dog was hired from a theatrical animal agency and had appeared in a Kevin Costner movie previously!

My Mum is present with mop, mopping ‘the kitchen’

My assistant Matt Sankey from Microdot plays the beggar ‘the man who lives in hell’

And finally my Dad pushing ‘the sink full of fishes’ a wheelbarrow construction he and his next door neighbour crafted from a real sink.

All the above points and more can be seen illustrated in the recently issued limited edition print link HERE there are 100 numbered copies.

 Watch the new Microdot YouTube video below, with more information and details you may not know about the sleeve artwork!