Don’t Look Back In Anger – Oasis

-

 

 

Don’t Look Back In Anger – Oasis

Oasis were another turning point in my musical journey. Matt from work brought in a cassette tape of their first album and my ears pricked up straight away, suddenly my generation had it's own guitar band, proper sing along lyrics and attitude. Brilliant.

I had always been envious of other eras in music, when the crooners were out run by the rock 'n' rollers, leading to glam rock and punk, dance and hip hop. The movement that became called 'Indie', all these independent record labels fighting the big labels for better chart positions. This is back in the day before you could release tracks from computers in your bedroom, never mind streaming. We even had chart battles with the likes of Oasis vs Blur, I should have been on Blur's side, I'm an Essex boy after all. I did like them and bought their albums on CD, but Oasis won out for me, cooler and nearer to my idols like the Stones and the Beatles. Bands with four or five members all stood on stage in that well formed formation of drum, bass, guitars and vocalists. Polar opposite to my Saturday night out dancing in a night club.

Oasis came out with this anthem, it's another song that's become bigger than it's original meaning. Noel Gallagher just wrote a simple lyric, laid it over the top of John Lennon's Imagine intro. But with the message in the title, it's risen above being a pop song, in the last few years it's been associated with the tragic Manchester Arena terrorist attack. Like Imagine and others these songs almost become modern day hymens. Noel in my opinion is the best songwriter of that generation. I was lucky enough to see Oasis at Wembley stadium which turned out to be one of their last ever gigs, never seen so much chaos.

I thought this song was appropriate for posting at the end of a horrible year, the pandemic has crippled the world and our old way of life. All I can suggest is we need move into 2021 with new hope and leave this tragedy behind us, when we look back on 2020 we will always feel cheated and confused. But it's healthiest to leave the pain in the past.

Favourite lyric : But please don't put your life in the hands / Of a rock and roll band

Location: Rayleigh, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wherever You Will Go – The Calling

-
Image
    Wherever You Will Go – The Calling  No idea where this one came from, total American power ballad, it's well chessey but I love it. I'm a sucker for sentimental songs like this, all about always being with the one you love. But it's not really a happy song, apparently it was written about a husband who had lost his wife of over 50 years. The songwriter, Aaron Kamin , was at his grandmother's best friends funeral and the idea for the song came to him. How the husband who was left behind would have followed his beloved if only he could have. Can he now exist without her? The words almost say that they would come back to haunt you if that was possible, love that strong can't be broken. The need to be together is so strong. But like all good songs, you can take it's message in so many different ways. Also most listeners don't delve to deep into the meanings of songs, they just catch onto the suggested obvious tone of the chorus. The general understanding of
Read more

I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic

-
Image
  I Am, I Feel – Alisha's Attic I remember this one from 1996, it came back to my mind yesterday as I was on a songwriting course co-hosted by Shelly McErlaine (born Poole), one half of Alisha's Attic . The group was a duo made up of Sheely and her sister Karen Poole , who happen to come from close to where I grew up in East Essex, UK. They have a famous father, Brian Poole who had a band called Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, they had major success in the 1960s. Shelly is married to Ally McErlaine , from the band Texas , they now have an country band together called Red Sky July along with Charity Hair. Shelly is now a songwriter/producer/talent scout and is an amazing person to listen to about how to craft a song. It seems she has worked with so many huge names, but the biggest thing that came across was her absolute love of music. The song itself is a sorry tale of how a man is taking a girl he's with totally for granted. The lyrics are a very clever reply to how he
Read more

Running Bear – Johnny Preston

-
Image
    Running Bear – Johnny Preston I love this song. It's another one from my childhood, it sounds like a kids song, lots of chanting and takes a bit of imagination to get what's going on. It's actually a love song about two Indian's from different warring tribes, they're not allowed to be together.  This is a proper story song, loads of words, total tongue twister. Songs like this were big in the 50's, it's not an obvious setting to write a song about, I guess Westerns were very popular around the time and Cowboys and Indians were a real hit with the public. All sounding very exotic to us over here in the U.K. anything that shouted American was fantasy. Even as a kid listening to this song as a 45 single on a record player 30 years later, it really caught my ear. It was like listening to a bedtime story in three minutes. Running Bear is a cool Indian name, it gives such a strong image of a powerful fast huge guy and Little White Dove gives the impression of
Read more