Shakermaker
1994 single by Oasis
"Shakermaker" is a song by the English rock band Oasis. Written by lead guitarist Noel Gallagher, the song was first released on 20 June 1994, by Creation Records, as the second single from their debut studio album Definitely Maybe (1994). The single peaked at number eleven in the UK. It was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry in 2013, having previously been their only single of the 1990s not to be certified in the UK. As of 2021, it remains the only single from the band's first two albums not to reach at least platinum status in the UK.
Background
Noel Gallagher states that the lyrics are taken from the world around him. For example, a Shaker Maker was a popular toy in the 1970s; the character of "Mr Soft" was taken from a Trebor Soft Mints commercial, which featured Cockney Rebel's song "Mr. Soft"; "Mr. Clean" is a song by the Jam, one of Gallagher's favourite bands; Mr Benn is a British children's cartoon; and the entire last verse – "Mr Sifter sold me songs / When I was just 16 / Now he stops at traffic lights / But only when they're green" – was written in a taxi on the way to the recording studio to record the song. Apparently, Liam Gallagher was pestering Noel to finish the song just as the taxi stopped at the traffic lights outside "Sifters" (a record shop on Fog Lane, Didsbury, Manchester), named after people 'sifting' through records and run by Peter Howard since 1977. Noel, who used to frequent the store to buy old records before Oasis started releasing albums, penned the lyric and it became part of the song.
"Shakermaker" illustrates Noel's habit of borrowing from the past: the chords are a simple twelve-bar blues progression (albeit with the V (F♯) raised to a flat-VII (A)). The melody for the verse was originally taken from "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" by Roger Cook, Roger Greenaway, Bill Backer and Billy Davis.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Shakermaker” is 1994 single by Oasis. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Shakermaker, single and Oasis, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2566005. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2013, 2021 and 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “Shakermaker” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.