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Don't Look Back in Anger
1996 single by Oasis From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"Don't Look Back in Anger" is a song by English rock band Oasis, released on 19 February 1996 by Creation Records as the fifth single from their second studio album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995).
"Don't Look Back in Anger" was written by the lead guitarist and chief songwriter, Noel Gallagher, and produced by Gallagher and Owen Morris. It was the first Oasis single with lead vocals by Noel, who had previously only sung lead on B-sides, instead of his brother, Liam. Noel later sang lead vocals on six other singles.
The single was the second Oasis to reach number one on the UK singles chart, and was certified six-times platinum in the UK. The music video was directed by Nigel Dick, featuring Oasis performing at a mansion with a large group of women.
The song received positive reviews. It is one of Oasis' signature songs, and has been played at almost every live show. In later decades, it has been included in retrospective rankings of best songs,[2][3] and has been described as an "anthem" by critics in various contexts.[4][5][6][7][8]
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Background and writing
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In a 2019 Esquire interview, Noel Gallagher said: "I remember writing it in Paris on a rainy night. We had just played a strip club: our set finished, the strippers came on. We were nothing, an insignificant little band. And I remember going back to my hotel room and writing it, and thinking, 'That'll be pretty good when we record it.' If I'd have known that night what I know now about people playing it at fucking funerals and weddings, I'd never have finished the song. Too much pressure."[9]
In August 2007, Gallagher told Uncut, "We were in Paris playing with the Verve, and I had the chords for that song and started writing it. We were due to play two days later. Our first-ever big arena gig, it's called Sheffield Arena now. At the sound check, I was strumming away on the acoustic guitar, and [Liam] said, 'What's that you're singin'?' I wasn't singing anyway, I was just making it up. And [Liam] said, 'Are you singing, 'So Sally can wait'?' And I was like—that's genius! So I started singing, 'So Sally can wait.' I remember going back to the dressing room and writing it out. It all came really quickly after that. (The title) just popped out."[10][11]
The title is a combination of David Bowie's 1979 song "Look Back in Anger" – and the Bob Dylan documentary "Don't Look Back" (1967).[12][13][14] It is also a reference to John Osborne's 1956 play "Look Back in Anger", which explores themes of empty gestures and moral surrender.[15]
First performance
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Gallagher was so excited about the potential of the song that he used an acoustic set to perform the unfinished version, with differences in the arrangement and with a few slight lyrical changes,[16] at an Oasis concert at the Sheffield Arena on Saturday, 22 April 1995.[17] Only one verse had been written, and it was dedicated on the night to Paul Mathur (journalist and friend of the band, who also wrote the Oasis biography "Take me there : Oasis, the story")[18] Before he performed, Noel told the 12,000-member crowd: "I’m gonna play a brand new one - I only wrote it on Tuesday! No one’s heard this before."[19] He then noted "I haven't got a title for it yet either" as he began to play.[17]
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Recording
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The song was recorded at Rockfield Studios as part of (What's the Story) Morning Glory? in May–June 1995.[20] Several days of recording had already taken place at the studio.[21] After playing "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back in Anger" to Liam, Noel asked him which one he wanted to sing on. Studio engineer Nick Brine recalled: "Noel was going to sing Wonderwall, then Liam was going to sing Wonderwall, then Noel said OK I'll sing Don't Look in Anger and then Liam wanted to sing Don't Look Back In Anger - there was a debate as to who was going to sing what."[21]
Eventually, Liam chose "Wonderwall", which was recorded without problems.[19] When it came time to record "Don't Look Back in Anger", Liam felt redundant and went to the local pub at Monmouth. Later, he returned with a crowd of around 30 drunken 'friends' who disrupted the session.[20] Alan McGee, the boss of Creation Records described it as "half of fucking Monmouth" in the room, and "complete strangers playing with £30,000 worth of guitars".[19] He continued: "one of them asks for the number of a cab and Noel kicks them out. A punch-up ensues, and Noel chases Liam out with a cricket bat." Oasis' photographer, Michael Spencer Jones described the situation as "A Victorian fistfight on Rockfield's lawn ... It was chaos and the scene of devastation in Liam's room afterwards was like nothing I'd ever seen ... It was like a nuclear explosion had gone off."[21] He further said: "the band quickly disappeared - and everyone was thinking 'is that it? is it over?'"[21] Producer Owen Morris recalled: "The next morning, Noel had left. The band was over. The album dead. No one knew if he was coming back. We were all gutted."[19]
Three weeks after the fight, Noel returned and the band finished the song and the album on schedule.[19][20] Studio owner Kingsley Ward said of the incident, "We rang the record company and they said 'we thought they'd been banned' ... We didn't care less. They're lovely boys. They came back, paid the damage about 800 quid, apologised and went in that studio and did one of the greatest records in the world afterwards. It showed this band had something going for them."[19][21]
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Lyrics
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The opening line "Slip inside the eye of your mind" is a likely reference to the English rock band Small Faces' song My Mind's Eye.[22] Gallagher said some lines were taken from John Lennon: "I got this tape in the United States that had apparently been burgled from the Dakota Hotel and someone had found these cassettes. Lennon was starting to record his memoirs on tape. He's going on about 'trying to start a revolution from me [sic] bed, because they said the brains I had went to my head.' I thought, 'Thank you, I'll take that!'" The line "revolution from me bed" refers to Lennon's notorious bed-ins in 1969 as Gallagher was reading Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties published in 1994.[23]
In a September 1995 interview, before the song was released, Gallagher explained that the lines "Stand up by the fireplace/Take that look from off your face" were from when his mum Peggy used to say something similar when she lined the three boys up for their annual Christmas photo to send to their grandmother in Ireland.[24][25] In a later interview Noel recalled that he vividly remembered her saying "Take that stupid look off your face".[26]
Meaning
In 1995, Gallagher said, "It's about not being upset about the things you might have said or done yesterday, which is quite appropriate at the moment. It's about looking forward rather than looking back. I hate people who look back on the past or talk about what might have been."[27][14][28] In a 2018 interview with wxpn, Gallagher explained: "It started off as a song of defiance, about this woman: She's metaphorically seeing the diary of her life pass by, and she's thinking, 'You know what? I have no regrets.' She's raising a glass to it."[29]
However, in 2005, Gallagher also said that he was so high on drugs when he created the song that he has no idea what the lyrics are about: "I get the odd night when I'm halfway through Don't Look Back in Anger when I say to myself. 'I still don't know what these words mean!'"[30][31] This sentiment has also been echoed by journalists. In 2024, Dominic Green of the Washington Examiner described the lyrics as "passionate but almost meaningless",[15] while Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian said in 208 "[the song is] loaded with emotional meaning, and yet virtually meaningless in [itself]...(why is Sally waiting, who exactly is looking back in anger?)"[32]
Sally
YouTuber and music commentator James Hargreaves has said he felt the song was "something of a bittersweet breakup song. I always felt that it was always about the ending of a relationship." He has questioned Gallagher's evasive explanations of the meaning of the song, and has suggested that "Sally" is an alias for a San Francisco woman named Melissa Lim.[33] In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle in November 2016, Lim claimed that Gallagher had spent time with her in San Francisco following the band's disastrous performance at Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles in 1994, providing photo evidence to the publication.[34] It is believed she inspired the song "Talk Tonight".[35] Lim also claims she would answer Gallagher's phone calls by saying "What's the story, morning glory?" – a line from the 1963 film Bye Bye Birdy. Lim further claimed that when Oasis returned to San Francisco in 1995—Gallagher had already been seeing his girlfriend and future wife Meg Mathews for several months[36]—she found him distant, and reportedly told him "It's OK, I won't look back in anger. I know we're just friends."[34]
Of the character "Sally" referred to in the song, Gallagher commented, "I don't actually know anybody called Sally. It's just a word that fit, y'know, might as well throw a girl's name in there."[37] Gallagher claims that the character "Lyla", from Oasis's 2005 single, is Sally's sister.[38] In the interview on the DVD released with the special edition of Stop the Clocks, he also revealed that a girl approached him and asked him if Sally was the same girl mentioned in the Stone Roses track "Sally Cinnamon".[39] Gallagher didn't have the heart to tell her that it wasn't, so he said yes anyway.[39]
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Composition and structure
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The piano in the introduction of the song strongly resembles Lennon's "Imagine".[23] As Oasis are often criticised for borrowing parts of other artists' songs, Gallagher commented on the intro's similarity to "Imagine":
In the case of "Don't Look Back in Anger"—I mean, the opening piano riff's "Imagine". Fifty per cent of it's put in there to wind people up, and the other 50% is saying, "Look, this is how songs like 'Don't Look Back in Anger' come about—because they're inspired by songs like 'Imagine'." And no matter what people might think, there will be some 13-year-old kid out there who'll read an interview and think, "'Imagine'? I've never heard that song." And he might go and buy the album, you know what I mean?[40][23][41]
In an interview for Q in 1997, Gallagher said he took the main riff from David Bowie's "All the Young Dudes", saying: "Absolutely. Course. I've had two songs out of that now: 'Don't Look Back in Anger' and 'Stand by Me'. And he's still not sued me yet."[42][43][15] Many commentators have noted that the song uses Johann Pachelbel's 17th century "Canon in D" chord progression throughout,[44][45][46][47] with a slight variation in the final bar. The chord progression of "Canon in D" is the following: I, V, vi, iii, IV, I, IV, V, while "Don't Look Back in Anger" is the following: I, V, vi, iii, IV, V – omitting the I and IV from the second bar.[48]
As part of his "What Makes This Song Great?" series, Youtuber, musician, and producer Rick Beato notes in his video about "Don't Look Back in Anger" (around 4:40) how Gallagher finishes particular phrases in the song—an initial rising tone before falling off towards the end—for the words "mind", "find", and "play" in the first verse, which he describes as "caps". He explains "if it didn't have those, it wouldn't sound like each individual phrase had come to an end, it's like a little concluding, it's the punctuation that finishes each phrase." He again notes the style for the words "been" and "seen". Beato also notes that the vocal melody of "All the Young Dudes" in Bowie's song of the same name is also appropriated using guitar in the chorus and outro of "Don't Look Back in Anger".[4] NME noted the solo is taken from Primal Scream's "Damaged", which was itself heavily inspired by 1960s Rolling Stones recordings.[49]
In the early 1990s, Gallagher had been invited to record with Paul Weller at The Manor Studio in Oxford, to perform on his track "I walk on Gilded Splinters". Gallagher said of his time there: "He played me his song, Wings of Speed, and that was the feel I tried to get on Don't Look Back in Anger."[50] Gallagher has also said of the song, "It reminds me of a cross between "All the Young Dudes" and something the Beatles might have done."[37] Musician, historian and cultural researcher Ari Katorza described the song as a "surrealist dream-like song with Beatlesque diatonic descending chords sequences".[51]
"Mystery chord"
Over many years, a chord in the pre-chorus of the song was a source of debate as multiple sources provided different interpretations of the chord.[52][53] The chord in question comes after Noel Gallagher strikes a G Major during the line "Stand up beside the fireplace". The following line, where Gallagher sings "Take that look from off your face" is described as a G# diminished in the official Oasis songbook,[52] however this was challenged by critics as lacking the dissonance of the chord played in the recording. In a 2020 video, YouTuber and music commentator James Hargreaves analysed live performances of the song, and claimed the chord was an E7 with a G# in the bass, written as E7/G#.[54] On 7 June 2023, Gallagher appeared on a video with That Pedal Show on YouTube, which featured him playing the song.[55] Guitarist and YouTuber Chris Buck posted a video three days after That Pedal Show's video, in which he analyses Gallagher's fingering of the chord, confirming "It's an E dominant 7 with a G# in the bass", which is indeed written as E7/G#.[52][56] Buck also commented that the official G# dim never sounded totally right to his ears.[52]
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Cover art and release
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The single's picture sleeve contains a photo by Brian Cannon. He intended the cover as a homage to an incident where Ringo Starr, having briefly left the Beatles in 1968 during the recording of the White Album, was persuaded to return and George Harrison decorated Starr's drum kit in red, white and blue flowers to show their appreciation.[57] Michael Spencer Jones, Oasis' photographer,[21] said: "Noel thought this would make an interesting idea for a cover, and so we had the band's equipment covered in thousands of red, white and blue flowers, the colours of the union jack. It was going to be an overhead shot and I had a scaffolding tower erected but I decided to shoot it at eye-level so that the bass drum with its Union jack swirl could feature more prominently. The white piano was a reference to John Lennon."[19] Cannon notes they had 10,000 carnations imported from Holland and dyed 3,000 of them blue for the shoot.[19]
The B-side "Step Out" was originally intended for the (What's the Story) Morning Glory? album but was taken off after Stevie Wonder requested 10 per cent of the royalties as the chorus bore a similarity to his song "Uptight (Everything's Alright)". Because of this, Wonder, Henry Cosby and Sylvia Moy received credit for writing the song, along with Noel, who decided to release it as a B-side.[58]
The song's chart success coincided with its usage at the end of the final episode of the BBC television drama Our Friends in the North.[59] The show's producers had included the track without knowing it was going to be released as a single.[60]
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Critical reception and legacy
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"Don't Look Back in Anger" was generally met with critical praise and it became a commercial hit. However, critic David Stubbs from Melody Maker attacked the song in 1995, "It's Oasis at their least incandescent, another outing for the chamber orchestra, supposedly elegiac but actually coming across as jaded and shagged. The chorus sounds like a Mott the Hoople reunion gig."[61][62][63] while Andrew Harrison from Select praised it as "superior" and "sung beautiful by Noel." He felt the song "captures a wistful mood of confusion and loss, but you're never sure what it's all about."[64] Leesa Daniels from Smash Hits gave the single five out of five, writing "Noel's turn to have a go at the singing lark, and by God it's fantastic! A rip-roaring, fist-punching-the-air type of anthem."[6]
In 1996, editor Helen Lamont, also from Smash Hits, gave the single five out of five. She named it "a new rock 'n' roll classic, imagine that."[65] Larry Flick from Billboard said: "Noel Gallagher reveals a deft sense of timing and craft that turn his improprieties into masterful pop gems."[66] while The Stud Brothers of Melody Maker stated, "From its 'Imagine' intro to its storming conclusion this is, as we all already know, a very good song indeed."[67] Music Week rated it five out of five and named it Single of the Week, writing, "Cheekily opening with John Lennon's "Imagine" riff, another Beatles-inspired single which will turn on the fans on Brits day."[68] In December of that year, Melody Maker ranked "Don't Look Back in Anger" number 31 in their list of "Singles of the Year".[69]
Legacy
In a 2006 readers' poll conducted by Q magazine, it was voted the 20th-best song of all time.[2] In May 2007, NME magazine placed "Don't Look Back in Anger" at No. 14 in its list of the "50 Greatest Indie Anthems Ever".[5]
In 2012, it was ranked number one on a list of the "50 Most Explosive Choruses" by NME,[70] and the same year it was voted the fourth-most-popular No. 1 single of the last 60 years in the UK by the public in conjunction with the Official Charts Company's 60th anniversary.[71] In 2015, Rolling Stone readers voted it the second-greatest Britpop song after "Common People" by Pulp.[27] In 2016, The AU Review rated it at number 88 on their list of 101 best songs of all time.[3] On 29 May 2017, Absolute Radio 90s broadcast a programme counting down the top 50 songs written by Noel Gallagher to mark his 50th birthday, with the song being voted No. 1. In August 2020, the song was voted as the greatest song of the 1990s by listeners of Absolute Radio 90s as part of celebrations for the station's tenth anniversary.[72]
In a 2023 interview with Radio X, Noel compared the song to 'Hey Jude' by the Beatles in terms of its impact: "You’re kind of obliged to at least give it a go. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ – I don’t think I’d be allowed out of the venue if I didn’t play that. It’s kind of like my ‘Hey Jude.'"[73]
Australian National University's School of Music professor Samantha Bennett commented in 2024: "I think 'Don't Look Back in Anger' is one of their most accomplished songs from a writing perspective". She continued: "It is an anthem and features what Dr Ruth Dockwray calls ‘unifying’ attributes. Its huge, ascending chorus top-line follows the last descending line of the bridge, ‘burn my heart out’. So there’s a sense of both music and lyrics fading out before a massive rise, which has a hugely uplifting effect."[7] In 2025, "Don't Look Back in Anger" became Oasis's second song to hit a billion streams on Spotify, after "Wonderwall".[74]
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Chart performance
The song reached No. 1 in the singles charts of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and it was a moderate success by reaching the top 60 in various countries. The song was the 10th-biggest-selling single of 1996 in the UK. It is Oasis's second-biggest-selling single in the UK (after "Wonderwall"), going quintuple platinum in the process.[75] The song returned to the UK charts in 2017 following Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland's cover version at the One Love Manchester concert, reaching No. 25. "Don't Look Back in Anger" is Oasis's sixth-biggest Billboard hit in the US, reaching the No. 10 spot on the Modern Rock Tracks for the week of 22 June 1996.[76]
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Music video
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The accompanying music video for "Don't Look Back in Anger" was directed by British music video and film director Nigel Dick and features Patrick Macnee, the actor who played John Steed in the 1960s television series The Avengers, apparently a favourite of Oasis. It was filmed at 1145 Arden Road in Pasadena, California on 4 December 1995.[78] It features the band being driven by Macnee in a black cab to a mansion similar to the Playboy Mansion and performing the song there; a group of women dressed in white also occasionally lip sync to the lyrics.
Noel Gallagher plays a 1983 Wine Red Epiphone Riviera guitar in the video.[77] In addition to the Beatles references in the music itself, he also wears John Lennon-style round glasses with red lenses.[79][80][81]
In a 2022 promotional film, Noel recalled director Nigel Dick's vision of Alan White "[looking] like he was playing drums floating in the swimming pool". After seeing the scene for himself, Noel noted "Right, because to me it fucking looks like he's just sat on a white table." Dick responded "Yeah, but it won't look like that when we finish". Noel continued: "Of course, when it was finished, he looks like he's playing drums on a fucking white table."[77]
There are two uploads of the music video on YouTube. One was posted by the band themselves in 2008 with over 310 million views,[82] and another posted in collaboration with Vevo in 2014 with over 160 million views.[83]
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Live performances
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The song became a favourite at Oasis's live performances and has been played at nearly every Oasis show since its release.[84]
Noel Gallagher encouraged the crowd to sing along and often kept quiet during the first chorus, allowing the fans it sing instead while he played the song's guitar part. During the Dig Out Your Soul Tour, Noel abandoned the song's previous, full-band live arrangement in favour of a much slower, primarily acoustic arrangement. From 2008 through to Oasis's break-up, the song was performed by Gallagher on his Gibson J-200 acoustic guitar backed up by Gem Archer on electric guitar, Jay Darlington playing keyboards and Chris Sharrock playing tambourine. On 11 and 12 July 2009, during performances of the song at London's Wembley Stadium, Gallagher did not sing a word; instead, he stood back, played guitar, and allowed the crowd to sing the entire song.[85] Since 2011, he has alternated between the acoustic version and the original arrangement when playing the song with his solo project, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.[86]
In June 2017, Liam Gallagher performed an a cappella version of the song at Glastonbury, making it the first time he had performed the song rather than Noel.[87]
During the bands Live 25 tour it was the second song played in the encore and the final song sung by Noel.[88]
Manchester Arena bombing
So, it starts off as a song about no regrets, and then it's ended up as this anthem of defiance about not being dragged down to the level of terrorists.
Noel Gallagher, 2018, Interview with wxpn[29]
Following the Manchester Arena bombing on 22 May 2017 in the band's hometown of Manchester, the song was used by the people of Manchester in remembrance of the bombing's 22 victims and to show the city's spirit. The song became an unofficial "anthem" for the city.[8][89][90] The song was sung by students of Manchester's Chetham's music school on 23 May, and on 25 May it was spontaneously sung by the crowd gathered for a minute of silence in the city centre. The woman who started the singing told The Guardian, "I love Manchester, and Oasis is part of my childhood. "Don't Look Back in Anger"—that's what this is about: we can't be looking backwards to what happened, we have to look forwards to the future."[91] The song re-entered the charts, along with Ariana Grande's "One Last Time", which was No. 1 on the iTunes single charts as of 26 May.[92] On 27 May, the song was performed as a tribute by 50,000 audience members of a performance by the Courteeners in Manchester.[93]
It was performed by Coldplay's Chris Martin and Jonny Buckland on either side of Ariana Grande at the One Love Manchester concert on 4 June 2017.[94] Martin introduced the song by saying "Ariana, you've been singing a lot for us, so I think we in Britain want to sing for you. This is called "Don't Look Back in Anger", and this is from us to you".[95]
It was also performed by the military band of the French Republican Guard on 13 June 2017, at the France versus England football match at the Stade de France, as a tribute to the victims of the attacks in Manchester and, more recently, London.[96]
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Track listing
All songs were written by Noel Gallagher except where noted.
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Personnel
Oasis
- Noel Gallagher – vocals, lead and acoustic guitars, Mellotron, EBow
- Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs – piano, rhythm guitar, Hammond organ[103]
- Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan – bass guitar
- Alan White – drums, percussion
Additional personnel
- Owen Morris – Kurzweil strings[104]
Charts
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Certifications
Release history
References
External links
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