"Don't Look Back in Anger" | ||||||||||||
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Single by Oasis | ||||||||||||
from the album (What's the Story) Morning Glory? | ||||||||||||
B-side |
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Released | 19 February 1996 | |||||||||||
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Recorded | June 1995 at Rockfield Studios, Monmouth | |||||||||||
Genre | Britpop | |||||||||||
Length | 4:47 | |||||||||||
Label | Creation | |||||||||||
Writer(s) | Noel Gallagher | |||||||||||
Producer(s) |
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Oasis singles chronology | ||||||||||||
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12 tracks |
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"Don't Look Back in Anger" is a song by the English rock band Oasis. It was released on 19 February 1996 as the fourth single from their second studio album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995). The song was written by the band's guitarist and main songwriter, Noel Gallagher. It became the band's second single to reach number one on the UK Singles Chart, where it also went platinum. "Don't Look Back in Anger" was also the first Oasis single with lead vocals by Noel (who had previously only sung lead on B-sides) instead of his brother, Liam.
It is one of the band's signature songs, and was played at almost every single live show from its release to the dissolution of the band. It was ranked number one on a list of the '50 Most Explosive Choruses' by the NME, and was voted as the fourth most popular single of the last 60 years in the UK by the public in conjunction with the Official Charts Company's 60th anniversary.
Noel was so excited of the potential of the song when he first wrote it that he used an acoustic set to perform a work-in-progress version, without the second verse and a few other slight lyrical differences, at an Oasis concert at the Sheffield Arena on 22 April 1995. He said before playing that he'd only written it the previous Tuesday (18 April 1995) and that he didn't even have a title for it yet. The title was picked as a reference to the 1979 David Bowie song "Look Back In Anger" from the seminal art rock album Lodger, with Bowie's work being a massive Oasis influence.
Noel said of the song, "[It] reminds me of a cross between "All the Young Dudes" and [something] the Beatles might have done." Of the character "Sally" referred to in the song he 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. It's gotta guarantee somebody a shag off a bird called Sally, hasn't it?"