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Related: About this forumOasis - Don't Look Back In Anger (music video with Patrick Macnee + Rick Beato: What Makes This Song Great?
From the Wikipedia page on the song (and the entire page is an interesting read):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Look_Back_in_Anger
"Don't Look Back in Anger" is a song by English rock band Oasis. It was written by the band's lead guitarist and chief songwriter Noel Gallagher, and produced by Gallagher and Owen Morris. Released on 19 February 1996 by Creation Records as the fifth single from their second studio album, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995), it became Oasis's second single to reach number one on the UK Singles Chart, eventually earning a six times-platinum sales certification in the UK. 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 would later sing lead vocals on six other singles. The music video was directed by Nigel Dick, featuring the band performing at a mansion where a large group of women appears.
It is one of the band's signature songs, and was played at almost every live show from its release to the dissolution of the band in 2009. In 2012, it was ranked number one on a list of the "50 Most Explosive Choruses" by NME,[2] 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.[3] In 2015, Rolling Stone readers voted it the second-greatest Britpop song after "Common People" by Pulp.[4] 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.[5] In 2025, "Don't Look Back in Anger" became Oasis's second song to hit a billion streams on Spotify, after "Wonderwall".[6]
-snip-
Gallagher admits that certain lines from the song are lifted 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.[10] The piano in the introduction of the song strongly resembles Lennon's "Imagine", as well as "Watching the Wheels".[10]
-snip-
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.[27] 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. During filming, drummer Alan White met future wife Liz Carey, who was one of the models for the video. They married on 13 August 1997 at Studley Priory in Oxfordshire, but later divorced in 2004.
It is one of the band's signature songs, and was played at almost every live show from its release to the dissolution of the band in 2009. In 2012, it was ranked number one on a list of the "50 Most Explosive Choruses" by NME,[2] 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.[3] In 2015, Rolling Stone readers voted it the second-greatest Britpop song after "Common People" by Pulp.[4] 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.[5] In 2025, "Don't Look Back in Anger" became Oasis's second song to hit a billion streams on Spotify, after "Wonderwall".[6]
-snip-
Gallagher admits that certain lines from the song are lifted 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.[10] The piano in the introduction of the song strongly resembles Lennon's "Imagine", as well as "Watching the Wheels".[10]
-snip-
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.[27] 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. During filming, drummer Alan White met future wife Liz Carey, who was one of the models for the video. They married on 13 August 1997 at Studley Priory in Oxfordshire, but later divorced in 2004.
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Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger (music video with Patrick Macnee + Rick Beato: What Makes This Song Great? (Original Post)
highplainsdem
Thursday
OP
Noel's now involved with a woman named Sally and has dedicated the song to her at least once.
highplainsdem
Thursday
#3
Justice Brandeis
(88 posts)1. Sally can wait.
She knows it's too late.
highplainsdem
(57,406 posts)3. Noel's now involved with a woman named Sally and has dedicated the song to her at least once.
speak easy
(11,988 posts)2. What makes this song great?
It perfectly caputures the mood of dealing with grief ( [trying to] get your head together / look ahead / move on) without being too specific.
The lyrics are not linear, thay are a collage. IMO there is a reason Noel is referencing Lennon - John left England, never to return, and Noel wasnt going back to live in Manchester.
highplainsdem
(57,406 posts)4. That's possible. Noel was certainly influenced a lot by John.