Don’t Look Back In Anger

One of the finest songs Noel Gallagher ever wrote was “Don’t Look Back in Anger”.

I rediscovered it yesterday and it is stuck in my head and won’t leave me alone.

I was a fan of Oasis in their early days.

Then they lost it and they lost me. I was only interested in the music and not in bickering siblings.

It seemed that Noel and Liam were only ever fighting.

It’s a wonder they achieved anything at all.

They should have followed their own advice about anger.

It would have made it all a lot more pleasant and possibly held my interest in them for longer.

I was reading about the inspiration for the song.

Apparently John Lennon had a hand in it all. Obviously, his singing style was used and even his words, revolutions in bed and that sort of thing.

“Imagine” was also borrowed for the introduction.

So there is not a huge amount of originality there.

I guess it’s particularly difficult to write something which is 100% original in pop music today. There are always going to be derivatives. You are essentially limited by the number of chords you have to play with.

It’s strange because classical composers never seemed to have the same problem and they had to work with the same set of notes.

Maybe we musicians should all stop listening to one another.

When Beethoven had his heyday there was no radio. He couldn’t throw on a record, spin a CD or tap his iPod. If he wanted to hear someone else’s work he would have had to go to a concert.

He wouldn’t have had the opportunity to listen to it over and over again. He wouldn’t have been able to dissect a tune, take out the good bits and reinvent it as his own work.

It seems the more accessible music becomes the less original it is. There is probably some form of scientific equation you could come up with.

Oasis certainly needed to offset their lack of originality by diverting our attention away with their brotherly squabbles.

It probably had a major hand in their success.

Otherwise we would have seen through the thin veil of their copyright breeching creations. I’d better stop there. Otherwise I’ll have Noel coming down on me.

He seemed to have an answer for all his critics. It must have something to do with the years of practice he had with our kid, his little brother.

In the end, it appears the show was just as important as the music. It’s a complete package.

Even so, I’m sure Beethoven is rolling over in his grave and shaking his head at all of us.