The 1999 lead single from Travis's breakthrough second album The Man Who owes a direct debt to Noel Gallagher – so much so that its writer and band frontman Fran Healy even namechecked the Oasis song he lifted its verse chords from in the lyrics. But the Scottish musician has revealed he never believed at the time that Noel would ever hear his cheeky theft.
"The first song we had for The Man Who was Writing To Reach You," Healy tells Charlatans frontman Tim Burgess on his album podcast Tim's Listening Party about the song's genesis. "But we had that before we came to London in 1996. I wrote it in '95 – the day after Christmas, Boxing Day. There's a song on our first album called The Line Is Fine, which I wrote and then 20 minutes later I wrote Writing To Reach You straight after it."
