Noel Gallagher ‘Reignited’ by Use of ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ at Manchester Memorial
Noel Gallagher has said his faith in music was “reignited” when he heard Oasis' “Don’t Look Back in Anger” being sung during a memorial vigil for the victims of the Manchester concert bombing in May. Gallagher, who donated the song’s royalties, recalled sitting at home watching news coverage of the aftermath.
“[T]here was the minute silence in St. Ann’s Square, and just a lone girl started singing [“Don’t Look Back in Anger”] and the crowd joined in,” he told Rolling Stone. “I don’t get speechless [but] I’ve gotta say, I sat there and I was like, ‘Holy f---.’ Then, as the weeks passed, it kind of reignited my faith in music – because regardless of whether it was my song or not, I was like, ‘F---, it is important, man. These people are rallying round this song.’"
"I’m still speechless about it," he continued. "I wrote that song so long ago… and it’s taken on a different meaning now. It’s been adopted by the people like a flag of defiance.”
Gallagher recently released Who Built the Moon?, the third album with his band the High Flying Birds. Revealing that he’d drawn inspiration from early Genesis, among other sources, he reported that he’d often had trouble expressing joy in music. “I always found it kind of difficult,” he said. “It’s very easy, particularly in this day and age, to write about angst and how life is so difficult. To find a f---ing joy in the world and then to kind of crystallize it into music is difficult, and not many people can do it.”
But he was pleased to say that he’d achieved it with his latest work. “It's unashamedly a f---ing pop record,” he said. “It's about the joy of beautiful women, nights out and nights getting f---ing high, and all the things that we live in life. All the things that the f---ing terrorists hate. I reckon if I went to Syria and played it for ISIS, it'd all be f---ing over. I reckon it'd even turn [Donald] Trump around.”