Oasis | Don't Look Back in Anger
Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger” - how Noel Gallagher wrote the Britpop anthem, borrowed from John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and created Manchester’s song of defiance after the 2017 Arena attack.
Oasis | Don’t Look Back in Anger
Meta Description: Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger” - how Noel Gallagher wrote the Britpop anthem in 20 minutes, borrowed from John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and created Manchester’s song of defiance after the 2017 Arena attack.
Story Behind “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
The Tuesday Night Inspiration in Paris
April 1995. Noel Gallagher was in Paris with Oasis, playing a show with The Verve. After the gig ended and strippers took the stage at the venue, Gallagher returned to his hotel room on a rainy night. What happened next would change everything. As he later told Esquire magazine, “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.’”
Days later at Sheffield Arena on April 22, 1995, Gallagher was so excited about the song’s potential that he performed it during his acoustic set before 12,000 fans. “I’m gonna play a brand new one - I only wrote it on Tuesday! No one’s heard this before,” he announced, adding, “I haven’t got a title for it yet either.” The original inspiration for the melody had come from visiting Paul Weller at The Manor Studios in Oxford, where Weller played his song “Wings Of Speed.” From that spark, Gallagher crafted what would become Oasis’s defining anthem.
The Bargaining Tool That Gave Noel His Moment
The recording at Rockfield Studios in May 1995 created one of rock’s most famous sibling negotiations. Noel played both “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” for Liam, offering him the choice of which to sing. Liam demanded “Wonderwall,” which was exactly what Noel wanted - he’d used it as a bargaining tool to ensure he could sing “Don’t Look Back in Anger” himself. The track became the first Oasis single with Noel on lead vocals rather than his younger brother, marking a crucial shift in the band’s dynamic and proving Noel’s capabilities as a frontman.
“Don’t Look Back in Anger” Recording and Production Details
Rockfield Studios and the Gallagher Brothers’ Battle
Producer Owen Morris and Noel Gallagher co-produced the track at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, Wales, during May and June 1995. The sessions were notoriously volatile. According to Morris, Liam invited around 30 locals from The Old Nag’s Head and The Bull pubs back to the studio. When Noel arrived hours later to find strangers playing his guitars, he kicked them out. A punch-up ensued, and Noel chased Liam out with a cricket bat. The next morning, Noel had left, and nobody knew if he’d return. The album sessions were dead for two weeks until he came back.
The band recorded using Rockfield’s Coach House studio, which featured a Neve VR console with flying faders and two Studer A820 multitrack machines. Alan White had recently replaced Tony McCarroll on drums, bringing more rhythmic dynamism to the recording. Noel later told Q magazine that the realization McCarroll wasn’t good enough came from his contribution to this song, noting he couldn’t even play the drum fill going into the last chorus in a straight line.
The “Imagine” Piano Intro and Beatles Homage
The song’s iconic opening piano riff deliberately echoes John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Gallagher openly acknowledged the homage, explaining that 50 percent was “put in there to wind people up, and the other 50 percent is saying, ‘Look, this is how songs like Don’t Look Back in Anger come about—because they’re inspired by songs like Imagine.’” He borrowed the phrase “the brains I had went to my head” from Lennon’s tape-recorded notes for a memoir he was planning before his death, and the line “So I start a revolution from my bed” references Lennon’s famous 1969 bed-ins for peace.
Notes About “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis
Release Date: February 19, 1996
Duration: 4:47
Genre: Britpop / Rock / Alternative Rock
Album: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (2nd studio album, track 4)
Producer: Noel Gallagher, Owen Morris
Label: Creation Records
Chart Performance: #1 UK Singles Chart, #10 US Modern Rock Tracks
Sales Certification: 6x Platinum in the UK (over 3.6 million sales/streams)
Chart History: 10th-biggest-selling single of 1996 in UK; returned to UK Top 40 (#25) in 2017 following Manchester Arena attack
Oasis “Don’t Look Back in Anger” Era Band Details
Album Details
Album: (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?
Release Date: October 2, 1995
Label: Creation Records
Producers: Owen Morris, Noel Gallagher
Recording Location: Rockfield Studios, Monmouthshire, Wales (May-June 1995)
Album Sales: 22 million copies worldwide, 5.4 million in UK (18x Platinum)
First Week Sales: 345,000 copies (record-breaking at the time)
Chart Performance: 10 weeks at #1 on UK Albums Chart, #4 US Billboard 200
Band Members
Noel Gallagher - Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar, Songwriter
Liam Gallagher - Backing Vocals
Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs - Rhythm Guitar
Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan - Bass Guitar
Alan White - Drums (replaced Tony McCarroll before these sessions)
Production Team
Owen Morris - Producer, Engineer
Noel Gallagher - Co-Producer
Nick Brine - Engineer (Rockfield Studios)
Production Notes
Final album of Britpop’s peak era (1994-1997)
Recording interrupted by two-week hiatus after Gallagher brothers’ fight
Album won Best Album at 1996 Brit Awards
Named greatest British album since 1980 at 2010 Brit Awards
Released during height of Oasis vs. Blur rivalry
Single’s B-side “Step Out” originally intended for album but removed after Stevie Wonder requested royalties for similarity to “Uptight”
Interesting Facts About “Don’t Look Back in Anger”
Manchester’s Anthem of Defiance
On May 22, 2017, a terrorist attack at Manchester Arena killed 22 people attending an Ariana Grande concert. Three days later, during a minute of silence at St. Ann’s Square, a 32-year-old woman named Lydia Bernsmeier-Rullow spontaneously began singing “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” The crowd joined in, creating a moment that left Noel Gallagher speechless. “I was sat at home watching the minute’s silence when they started singing, and for the first time in my life I was fucking speechless,” he said at Glastonbury 2017. The song re-entered the UK charts at #25, and became what Gallagher called a “hymn” - an anthem of defiance against terrorism. Shortly after, he told Radio X’s John Kennedy: “That song is more important than I’ll ever be.” The track was performed at the One Love Manchester benefit concert by Chris Martin and Ariana Grande, and by 50,000 people at a Courteeners show two days after the attack.
The Sally That Never Existed
The song’s character Sally has sparked endless speculation, but Gallagher has consistently said she doesn’t exist. “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,” he explained. The name actually came from Liam during the Sheffield Arena sound check. As Noel strummed the chords, Liam asked, “Are you singing ‘So Sally can wait?’” Noel later said, “I wasn’t singing anyway, I was just making it up. And our kid said that - and I was like, that’s genius!” Gallagher has joked that the character “Lyla” from their 2005 single is Sally’s sister, confirming both are purely fictional creations that happened to fit the melody perfectly.
Common Questions
Q: Who sings lead vocals on “Don’t Look Back in Anger”? A: Noel Gallagher sings lead vocals, making this the first Oasis single to feature him rather than his brother Liam on lead. Noel had previously only sung lead on B-sides. Liam provides backing vocals on the track.
Q: What song inspired “Don’t Look Back in Anger”? A: The piano intro deliberately echoes John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Noel Gallagher openly acknowledged borrowing from Lennon, including the line “the brains I had went to my head” from Lennon’s memoir notes and “So I start a revolution from my bed” as a reference to Lennon’s 1969 bed-ins for peace.
Q: What does “Don’t Look Back in Anger” mean? A: Gallagher explained it’s about not being upset about things you said or done yesterday, looking forward rather than backward, and having no regrets. He described it as a song of defiance about a woman metaphorically seeing her life pass by and thinking “I have no regrets” while raising a glass to it.
Q: Why did “Don’t Look Back in Anger” become Manchester’s anthem? A: After the May 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack, mourners spontaneously sang the song during a vigil at St. Ann’s Square. The track’s message of not looking back in anger and moving forward resonated as a defiant response to terrorism, transforming it from a Britpop anthem into a symbol of Manchester’s resilience.
Q: How successful was “Don’t Look Back in Anger”? A: The song reached #1 in the UK and Ireland, became the 10th-biggest-selling single of 1996 in the UK, and is Oasis’s second-biggest-selling single after “Wonderwall” with over 3.6 million sales and streams in the UK. It achieved 6x Platinum certification and returned to the charts in 2017 and 2024.