Don’t Look Back in Anger: Who’s Sally?
Oasis’ second album was released in the autumn of 1995. (What’s the Story?) Morning Glory went on to become the fifth biggest selling album of all time in the UK, approaching five million sales as of June 2025. It hit the shelves as the Britpop phenomenon was in full flow and included two number one singles, one of which was Don’t Look Back in Anger, written by Noel shortly before the band achieved major success.
It famously mentions a woman called Sally and is, according to Noel, about not worrying over the opportunities that have never come your way and embracing the life you have.
Noel said of the song in an interview: “That was written in a hotel room in Paris when we were just on the way to the Sheffield Arena to play our first ever arena gig. I was doing it in the sound check and the ‘So Sally’ bit, I wasn’t singing that. [Liam] came up to me and said, ‘Are you singing ‘So Sally can wait’?’”
When his brother said that he wasn’t, Liam replied: “Well you should do.”
The identity of Sally has been the subject of some speculation over the decades, but as Noel told Dermot O’Leary in a interview: “I don’t know who Sally is… and it’s a song of no regrets.”
