Don’t Look Back in Anger: The Oasis Song a City Sang in Defiance

By Dan Cohen · Published 2026-06-27

Don’t Look Back in Anger, from Oasis’s 1995 album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, is in some ways the warm, wise older sibling of the band’s catalog. Notably, Noel Gallagher took lead vocals on it himself rather than handing it to his brother Liam — a sign of how personal it was to him. It addresses a figure named Sally and counsels, in its title and its chorus, the hard discipline of letting go of resentment.

A message that was waiting to be needed

The song was always a beloved singalong, but in 2017 it took on a meaning no one wrote into it. In the aftermath of the bombing at a concert in Manchester — Oasis’s home city — grieving crowds began spontaneously singing it in the streets, turning a Britpop anthem into a collective act of defiance and comfort. A song literally about refusing to be consumed by anger became the way a wounded city said exactly that, together.

Why it held that weight

It could carry that moment because its message was already there: keep going, don’t let bitterness win, look forward. Few pop songs are built sturdily enough to bear real communal grief. This one was, and now it’s inseparable from that act of resilience.

What it measures like

On our measurements it’s a steady, anthemic build — mid-tempo and warm, rising toward a chorus engineered for a whole room to lift at once. Full profile on its song page.

Don’t Look Back in Anger appears on Oasis’s 1995 album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, with Noel Gallagher on lead vocal. Its spontaneous communal singing in Manchester in 2017 is a matter of public record, recalled here with respect. No lyrics are reproduced.