When Oasis’ Noel Gallagher debuted ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger
If you were too young or not born yet in the 1990s, it’s difficult to convey just how huge Oasis was.
The rock subgenre Britpop exploded in the early to mid part of the decade, and Noel Gallagher wrote some of the most defining songs of the era. Along with bands like Blur, who had a heated and well-documented rivalry with Oasis, it was a new style of alternative rock that quickly caught the attention of fans and radio.
‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ arrived as the fifth single released from Oasis’ second studio album, What’s the Story Morning Glory. Written by co-vocalist and guitarist Noel Gallagher, it debuted as a single on February 19th, 1996, but was performed live for the first time during a show at (the now named) Sheffield Arena – or Utilita Arena Sheffield the previous year.
As Gallagher recalled in Hitlåtens Historia, a segment produced for Swedish public television about the night he debuted the song: “He (lead vocalist and brother Liam) needed a rest in the middle of the gig. So I would do a couple of acoustic songs. There’s 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, but no footage of it exists. There’s no recording of it. So we can never tell if it was any good or not. There was a polite ripple of applause. That was it.”
But footage of the song’s initial live performance was eventually unearthed, as seen in the video clip. It’s not professionally captured, but it’s a definitive moment in Oasis’ history.
Since he performed the song as a work in progress that night, there were differences in parts of the arrangement and lyrics from the final production. Before the song’s performance, he told the audience he wrote the song on Tuesday, April 18th. He didn’t even have a title yet!
But as a band that is seemingly constantly mired in controversy, Oasis has been criticised for the intro to ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ being starkly similar to John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. For example, the use of the major and minor voicings of the IV chord in the same song was a go-to in John Lennon’s songwriting.
Noel commented, “I mean, the opening piano riff’s ‘Imagine’. Fifty per cent of it’s put in there to wind people up, and the other 50% [are] saying, ‘Look, this is how songs like ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ come about. Because they’re inspired by songs like ‘Imagine”.
“And no matter what people might think, there will be some 13-year-old kid out there who’ll read an interview and think, ‘Imagine’? I’ve never heard that song.’ And he might go and buy the album, you know what I mean?”
One thing is abundantly clear, though. The song has resonated with audiences across the world since its release. It’s frequently on playlists at weddings, even funerals. Noel Gallagher has even referred to it as a hymn.
After breaking up in 2009 in Paris, with the help of Noel’s daughter Anais, Oasis is reuniting this year. They begin their reunion tour at Principality Stadium on July 4th, 2025, before moving on to other dates around the United Kingdom.
