1996 Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger

Since providing my comments regarding time and place on 'Some Might Say', I've been pondering whether, had I been born ten years later, I'd have taken Oasis to my heart as readily as the rest of that generation did. And in all honesty, I don't think I would. When I was actually that parallel universe age, then the mile wide streak of snobbery burning inside me would have turned me off them before the needle even hit the groove (I didn't really 'do' popular at that age - yes, my loss I know). But more than that, I think that in order for them to have broken through my firewall I'd have needed a whole different musical education from an early age (or none at all) so as to come at them as a blank page. Because my main criticism then was the same as the one I make now - I'd already heard it all done before and done better to boot.

But whatever, I was who I was and I can remember taking an instant dislike to 'Don't Look Back In Anger' on first hearing, with most of my negativity based on Gallagher's lyrics. "Slip inside the eye of your mind", "So I start a revolution from my bed, cos you said the brains I had went to my head" - I knew of Noel's self confessed love of The Beatles and I could kind of see what he was aiming for - i.e. the sort of off the wall Lennonisms that don't quite mean anything but invite us, the listener, to fill in the gaps. The problem is, we don't. At least, I don't - whereas a Lennon or a Bob Dylan could wrap an enigma within a lyric to leave you wanting more, those aren't the sort of courses 'Don't Look Back In Anger' plays on; it's too stiff and self conscious in its formality to let in any daylight between the words to be a member of that club.

In fact, it puts me in mind of mid-period Dire Straits where Mark Knopfler manfully laboured under the delusion that working with Dylan was enough of an association to be able to write like him.* In Gallagher's case, being a rabid Lennon fan was never going to be enough to be able to ape him with any great success and true to form, the end result is a set of sloganeering imagery that strives for the meaningfully surreal within a defined cultural ambit but instead comes with a central rigid backbone that sabotages the elasticity of expression and meaning that they're aiming for; it reduces them to a pedestrian plod when they so want to fly. Oh what the hell, let's cut to the chase - the lyrics to this are awful. There, I've said it.

And what those rotten lyrics do is to ensure that, for a song that tries hard to wear its heart on its sleeve, the organ it displays is an empty vessel unconnected to any beating life-force (Noel's nasally flat lead vocal hardly extends a helping hand either - better by far to have let Liam sing this one). True, the soaring "Soooooooo Sally can wait" of the chorus invites a wistful, regret based nostalgia that can bring a lump to the throat, but so does the "Ohhhhhhh what happened to you, whatever happened to me? What became of the people we used to be?" hook of the 'Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads' theme that it's so obviously based on.

For my money, it's a chorus that makes 'Don't Look Back In Anger' the Britpop 'Auld Lang Syne' - a great song to have on a pub jukebox for an arms linked, closing time bellow with your mates. And yes, I've bellowed along with the best of them in my time. But outside of that context it has a Meccanno 'build your own anthem' quality that I find rather cold and unlovable; try as I might, I simply cannot distil any emotion from 'Don't Look Back In Anger'. Truth be told, I have the same problem with most of Oasis's output - all I hear is a magpie collection of riffs and traces (the opening piano motif is a lift from Lennon's 'Imagine' and the shift from verse to chorus is pure 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds') played by rote in all politeness by a covers band overly respectful of the material they're covering. Which is a damning criticism for a band who wrote their own material. In many ways, 'Don't Look Back In Anger' neatly encapsulates everything I don't understand about Oasis and their popularity - I won't say 'everything I don't like' because I have no major beef with either the song at hand or the band in general, but their pick and mix approach to the past only makes me want to switch it off and go back to the source.


* I offer up some lines from 'It Never Rains' from the 'Brothers In Arms' album as an example: "I hear the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Terrible Twins came to call on you. The bigger they are babe, the harder they fall on you". I could devote an entry to just what's 'wrong' with all this and why it's so awful, but that's for another time and another place.