“Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis was written, at least the beginnings of it, by lead guitarist and primary songwriter Noel Gallagher on Tuesday, April 18, 1995, in Paris.
“It was after a show that we did, and we’d been to a strip club. I remember being drunk, and I remember writing it. I remember getting up the next morning and my guitar was lying on the floor, and the lyrics were on a kind of table in the hotel room. And I played it, played it back to myself, thought could be good, could be pretty good,” said Gallagher.
A few days later, on Saturday, April 22nd, Oasis was playing the last show of the Definitely Maybe Tour at the Sheffield Arena in South Yorkshire, England. This was the biggest gig the band had ever had.
Oasis headlined the show with The Pulp as the special guests. Originally it was supposed to be The Verve, but guitarist Nick McCabe had his knuckles broken in a fight in Paris the night before.
“12,000 people there, and I was about to play them a song that no one had heard. No one in the band had heard it. I’m not sure what possessed me to do that,” recalled Gallagher.
The doors opened at 6:00pm, and Oasis took the stage around 9:00pm. At the 57-minute mark, around 10:00pm, the first ever live performance of “Don’t Look Back in Anger” was played.
“Going to play a brand new one. I only wrote it on Tuesday, so no one’s heard this before. I haven’t got a title for it either,” said Gallagher during the show.
Oasis was already recording songs for (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? at the famed Rockfield Studios in South Wales, which has also housed Led Zeppelin, Queen, Black Sabbath, Iggy Pop, and The Stone Roses.
“That was a good moment when we recorded that in the studio. I remember thinking, ‘Fucking hell, this is going to be brilliant,'” said Noel. “That was written in a hotel room in Paris, right? We were just on the way to Sheffield Arena to play our first-ever arena gig… I was doing it in the soundcheck, but I wasn’t singing the ‘So Sally’ bit. Then [Liam] came up to me in the soundcheck and said, ‘Are you singing “So Sally can wait?”‘ I said, ‘No.’ And he goes, ‘You should be fucking singing “So Sally can wait,”‘ which is the truth.”
“Don’t Look Back in Anger” was recorded in May 1995 on day four of these sessions, and the album was released on Monday, October 2, 1995. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” was released as a single on Monday, February 19, 1996. The song has become an anthem for many, particularly resonating in the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing.
“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,” said Gallagher. “I’m never going to write a song that connects with people as much as ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ has.”
A chance meeting and kindness saved Oasis
Melissa Lim, a fan from San Francisco, was at Oasis’ US debut show at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco on Tuesday, September 26, 1994, for their album Definitely Maybe.
Lim recalled, “He [Noel] came over and sat down next to me… I had never been backstage before, so I asked him, ‘Where’s the after-party?’ And he goes, ‘What after-party? Can I hang out with you tonight?'”
Oasis folklore has it that Gallagher and Lim made a connection.
A couple of days later, on Thursday, September 29, 1994, Lim was also present at the Whisky a Go Go show in Los Angeles. This show is widely considered to be one of the band’s worst performances due to the consumption of crystal meth instead of cocaine.
During this show, Liam Gallagher threw a tambourine at brother Noel, after which he had enough of the band and its antics. Noel boarded a plane to San Francisco and decided to stay with Lim at her apartment in Lower Nob Hill.
Gallagher stated, “I was in a fury. I left a little bit of me on that stage that night. I met this girl at an Oasis gig I must have phoned her. I got on a plane and flew off to San Francisco it was quite a traumatic time but talk tonight was written about those few days.”
“He was very upset,” Lim said. “I took him in, fed him and tried to calm him down. He wanted to break up the band. San Francisco has a reputation of being a place where bands come to die, like the Band and the Sex Pistols. I wasn’t going to let it happen on my watch. I told him, ‘You can’t leave the band – you’re on the verge of something big.'”
“She was saying what you’re gonna leave and what you’re gonna do and i guess at that point i’m thinking oh my gosh that’s a fucking good point what am i gonna do i can’t sing i wasn’t a singer then i’m not front man i just needed a bit of time out i guess,” recalled Gallagher.
Lim saved Oasis.
Noel headed to Austin, Texas, where he reconnected with the band and recorded at The Congress House Studio. On October 7 and 8, 1994, Oasis recorded “Half the World Away” and “Talk Tonight,” the B-side to the single “Wonderwall.”
Gallagher and Lim would speak on the phone, with Lim greeting him with a line “What’s the story, morning glory?” (from the film “Bye Bye Birdie”). They also briefly met up during the video shoot for “Supersonic” at the Cabazon Dinosaurs in Southern California, but soon after the relationship ended.
“Our ‘relationship’ fizzled out after a couple of months, as he met Meg Mathews. During one of our transatlantic phone conversations I greeted him with, ‘Hey, what’s the story mornin’ glory?’ I’m also responsible for being the gal with the Snapple Strawberry Lemonade obsession in Talk Tonight. Unfortunately, after a disappointing reunion with Noel backstage at the Fillmore in San Francisco, in my naively wishful state I also told him that I wouldn’t look back in anger with everything that’s happened between us and that I hoped to remain friends. I heard that song while grocery shopping in Safeway,” said Lim.
Oasis played at The Fillmore in San Francisco on February 1, 1995. “Don’t Look Back in Anger” was written on April 18, 1995.
“On the definitely maybe tour I’ve met this girl in America. When we would meet she would say, ‘Hey, what’s the story morning glory?’ Right now I don’t, I don’t know what the fuck ever ever meant, and I was talking to some American journalists yesterday and I said, ‘What does it mean?’ They’re like, ‘Well I’ve never heard it before.’ I was like, ‘I thought it was like an American like top of the morning to you,’ you know I mean, something like that. Again I thought ‘what’s the story morning’ and uh I shoe owned it into that tune. Why, why it’s ended up as the title of the album I don’t know,” recalled Gallagher.
For reasons only he knows, Gallagher does not recall the name of the girl he stayed with in San Francisco, saying, “If I close my eyes now I can’t even picture the girl. I can’t remember her name. It’s a bit of a blur.”
Lyrically: Don’t Look Back In Anger by Oasis
During an interview, Noel Gallagher said, “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.”
Slip inside the eye of your mind
Don’t you know you might find
A better place to play?
Merriam-Webster describes the ‘mind’s eye’ as “the mental faculty of conceiving imaginary or recollected scenes.” The opening lyrics suggest this song is a trip of self-discovery, an escape that one can experience when realizing an open mind can enhance the moment. This trip is unexpected, perhaps packed with hallucinogens, as you discover a better mental state.
You said that you’d never been
But all the things that you’ve seen
Will slowly fade away
The person being spoken to has never experienced this better place to play, this new mindset or perspective. The idea that the things you’ve seen will “slowly fade away” suggests that the memory will diminish over time.
So I’ll start a revolution from my bed
‘Cos you said the brains I had went to my head
Oasis frequently referenced and were captivated by The Beatles, and these lyrics were inspired by John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous Bed-In protest for peace in 1969. During the bed-ins, Lennon recorded messages of peace in their hotel room while in bed, and the idea of starting a “revolution from bed” honours this movement.
Lennon once mentioned that he liked a remark someone made about George Bernard Shaw, stating, “I liked that remark some woman made about Bernard Shaw, that his brains had gone to his head.”
“Some of the lines come from John Lennon. I got this tape in America 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 bed, because they said the brains I had went to my head.’ Thank you, I’ll take that. 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,” recalled Gallagher.
Step outside ’cause summertime’s in bloom
The lyric “Step outside ’cause summertime’s in bloom” suggests that leaving your comfort zone allows you to experience all the colour that life brings, with “summertime” and “bloom” symbolizing an opportunity for growth that encourages positivity instead of dwelling in anger.
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain’t never gonna burn my heart out
“Stand up beside the fireplace / Take that look from off your face” is a memory Gallagher has from when he was growing up in Manchester and his mum Peggy used to make him stand next to the fireplace and have photos taken.
“All my songs will have one or two lines in that mean something specific to me growing up or my life at the point. ‘Stand up beside the fireplace’ was, I remember as a child my mom would always take photographs of us on our birthdays or and send them to my gran, and it would always be stand in front of the fireplace. I vividly remember saying, ‘You take that stupid look off your face,'” stated Gallagher.
And so Sally can wait, she knows it’s too late as we’re walking on by
Her soul slides away, “But don’t look back in anger,” I heard you say
These are the most recognizable lyrics in “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” Gallagher stated, “Nobody knows who Sally is. I don’t know who Sally is, you know, and it’s a song of no regrets, you know what I mean? It’s a woman toasting her life thinking, you know what, I fucked it up somewhere along the line, but you know, I’ve got no regrets.”
This character Sally seems to be waiting in indecision. The “we’re walking on by” now reveals there is at least one additional person in the scene, perhaps now including Meg Mathews, Noel Gallagher’s future wife. Melissa Lim saw them at The Fillmore and said to Gallagher that she “wouldn’t look back in anger with everything that’s happened between us.”
Take me to the place where you go
Where nobody knows if it’s night or day
This is a mysterious, timeless place, or state of mind, where one can find clarity from life’s challenges.
Please don’t put your life in the hands
Of a Rock ‘n’ Roll band
Who’ll throw it all away
This declaration is more of a plea for Sally, or anyone interpreting the lyrics, to take control of their life and to find someone or something stable.
“Some people live their life, they worry about the destination, where is it going to be, what is, you know, they worry about where they’re going. I enjoy the trip. You get where, wherever you’re going is where you’ll end up. Don’t worry about that, enjoy the scenery on the way,” said Gallagher.
The remainder of the lyrics generally repeat, apart from the back and forth of the balanced “My soul slides away” and “Her soul slides away.”
But don’t look back in anger, don’t look back in anger.”
I heard you say, “at least not today.
The final set of lyrics brings everything together. If you live for today, without regret, your life will work out the way it’s supposed to.
“Everything’s gonna be fine. Stay optimistic. If there’s dark clouds coming, they’ll leave again. They always do. The world is round. Everything is round. The biggest invention of all time, the wheel, is round. Things pass, nothing will stay the same forever. No matter how big a pile of shite you’ve gotten yourself into—be it drugs, financial problems, fucked up relations—you will get over it. It will go away just like the weather. The sun is round, so is the planet we live on, as are marriage rings, and our eyes through which we see the world,” stated Gallagher.
“The greatest gift that I ever got from ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ was the song itself. You know, that in quiet times, when I’m at home, I play that song to myself to sing it to myself, you know what I mean? That’s the greatest reward,” said Gallagher.
“The way that I used to write and the way that I write sometimes is that I don’t write stories. I just write lines, and if the previous line is very good then the line that comes after it has to rhyme with it, right? And the lyrics, quite simple and generally about nothing really, but I suppose people just make up their own interpretations.”
“It’s a fucking good song even though the lyrics don’t really mean anything, you know what I mean? It’s just the feeling of it, you know,” stated Gallagher.
“The great songs that I’ve written, they all just fall out of the sky… Listen, if you wrote, if you’d wrote that song, you’d want to play it every night as well because, uh, it’s become, it’s, it’s for, for a song that technically speaking is not that extraordinary, is an extraordinary song because the people made it extraordinary. So, it’s a pleasure to play it every night,” said Gallagher.
