Noel Gallagher has spoken about how different generations have attached meaning to ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ in an interview with Radio X.
Noel spoke to John Kennedy for a special programme celebrating his life and work, set to air in full on Radio X this Sunday at 8pm, on the eve of his 50th birthday.
Interview transcript
NG: Noel Gallagher
JK: John Kennedy
JK: With ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ - singing that, did that make a big difference to you? Singing the song, getting that song recognised and admired and loved?
NG: Not at the time. At the time, it was just another song on our second album. Honestly as the years have gone by, it’s like that song is now more important than I’ll ever be. You know, there’s footage on the internet now of people singing it in Manchester with candles and all that and you know, it’s kind of, it is incredible to think that a few generations now have attached some kind of importance to that song. There was mine, and it was passed on to another generation and that song now has become a hymn to something or other. You know I still play it – whether I play acoustically to 100 competition winners or I play it to 70,000 people at a festival – it still works. There’s not many songs you can say that about. I certainly can’t say that about all my songs.
And you just sit there sometimes and think, ‘you know, I probably only have to introduce it and play the first chord. I could probably walk off then and nobody would notice’. You know, because there’s just people with their eyes shut, crying and stuff, and it’s like a… It’s an amazing thing. It’s something I never kind of take for granted either, you know.
JK: Does it make you feel humbled? Can Noel Gallagher feel humbled?
NG: It makes me feel – is it proud, the word I’m looking for? I don’t ever sit there and think that I wrote that, you know. I think it came from somewhere else. I think it was a song that was there somewhere, and if I hadn’t have written it, you know, Bono would have written it. You know, it’s like those great songs, ‘One’ and ‘Let It Be’ and yeah, I did just compare myself to Paul McCartney there. You know, they’re there. If they fall out the sky and land on your lap, then lucky you.
To hear Noel Gallagher’s interview with John Kennedy in full, tune in to ‘What A Life! Noel Gallagher at 50’ on Radio X, Sunday 28th May at 8pm.
