"Don't Go Away" | ||||||||||||
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Single by Oasis | ||||||||||||
from the album Be Here Now | ||||||||||||
B-side |
Cigarettes & Alcohol (live) Sad Song Fade Away (Warchild Version) |
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Released | 19 February 1998 (Japan) | |||||||||||
Format | CD single | |||||||||||
Recorded | April 1997 | |||||||||||
Genre | Rock, Britpop | |||||||||||
Length | 4:48 | |||||||||||
Label | Creation / Sony Music Japan - ESCA-6948 | |||||||||||
Writer(s) | Noel Gallagher | |||||||||||
Producer(s) | Owen Morris, Noel Gallagher | |||||||||||
Oasis singles chronology | ||||||||||||
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12 tracks |
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"Don't Go Away" is a song by the English rock band Oasis from their third album, Be Here Now, written by the band's lead guitarist Noel Gallagher. The song was released as a commercial single only in Japan, peaking at number 48 on the Oricon chart, and as a promotional single in the United States, Japan and Europe. In the United States it was a success, hitting #5 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart in late 1997. It was the band's last major hit in the United States until 2008's "The Shock of the Lightning".
Although "Don't Go Away" appears for the first time in 1997, its origins date back to 1993, when Oasis spent time with The Real People at their studio in Liverpool. "Don't Go Away" was included in a batch of songs written under the wing of the Griffiths brothers (which also included "Columbia", "Rock 'n' Roll Star", "Rockin' Chair" and others).
Liam Gallagher claims to have cried whilst recording the song, as a result of dwelling on "a certain thing". He said, in a 1997 interview, "I just thought 'fuck that, I can't be singing this song' and I had to go away and sort myself out". Listening back to the song he admits to being very proud of his vocal performance.
In a 1997 interview promoting Be Here Now, Noel Gallagher had the following to say about the song: "It's a very sad song about not wanting to lose someone you're close to. The middle eight I made up on the spot -- I never had that lyric until the day we recorded it: 'Me and you, what's going on?/ All we seem to know is how to show/ The feelings that are wrong.' It's after a row. Quite bleak."
"We put Burt Bacharach horns on because he was the master of break-up songs. I did all the string arrangements. I tried to keep them as simple as possible. I like the way Marc Bolan used them on Children of the Revolution. People do remember string parts as separate hooklines, you know. You just don't want to use them slushily."