Songfacts®:

• This was released as a single and was not was available on any album apart from the Australian release of Definitely Maybe, which contained an extra disc included with the song. The single was released around Christmas 1994, and got them their highest chart entry to that date.
• The first line: "I'm free to be whatever I, whatever I like if it's wrong or right it's all right," was written by Noel Gallagher about how his dad used to make him work on a building site with him as a teenager. Noel's dad tried to force him to become a builder. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Nick - southampton, England, for above 2
• In the US, this was released as a bonus track on the album. In France, Definitely Maybe was released with a bonus edition CD featuring this track. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Bertrand - Paris, France
• The strings were arranged by Nick Ingham and Noel Gallagher and were played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which featured former ELO violinist Wilf Gibson.
• The song has spent a total of 51 weeks on the UK Singles chart to date, more than any Oasis single. This included a re-entry for one week on June 20, 2010 at #64 due to the release of the Oasis singles compilation Time Flies... 1994–2009 - the first time that "Whatever" has been available to purchase digitally.
• Part of the song's melody was borrowed from Neil Innes' 1973 song "How Sweet to Be an Idiot." Innes successfully sued Oasis for plagiarism and as a result now receives royalties and a co-writing credit. As a certain Alanis Morissette song goes this was ironic, because Innes is famed for his parodies of The Beatles in The Rutles, and has had to share songwriting credits and royalties with Lennon and McCartney.
• The band knew this song was a hit as soon as Noel Gallagher first played it to them. Rhythm Guitarist Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs recalled to Q magazine in 2011: "Noel had shown us Whatever very early on and it freaked my head out. It was like, 'Nah you haven't f---ing written that.' It was brilliant."
• The song's music video was filmed on December 15, 1994 at Malcolm Ryan Studios in London. Noel Gallagher explained the reason for his messy state in the clip during the 2017 Alan Carr Christmas Chatty Man special.
  
  "I was very drunk that day," he said. "I had been out all night. What I'm wearing, you don't usually wear that kind of stuff on a video shoot. I'd been out the night before to the pub. I woke up in a bus shelter in Maida Vale."
  
  "It was before the days of mobile phones and I didn't know where the video shoot was and I didn't have any way of getting in touch with anybody," Gallagher continued. "Someone from the record label just happened to be passing in a car when I was trying to hail a taxi even though I didn't know where I was going, but it made for a good video."