Hits 21 - 1996 (1): George Michael, Babylon Zoo, Oasis

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Hits 21, the show that's taking a look back at every single UK #1 hit.You can follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hits21UKYou can email us: [e-mail] 21 DOES NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO ANY MUSIC USED IN THE EPISODES. USAGE OF ALL MUSIC USED IN THIS PODCAST FALLS UNDER SECTION 30(1) OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT 1988.

Hits 21 Hi there everyone, and welcome back to hit's 21, the 90s were me, Rob, me, Andy are looking back at every single UK number one of the 1990s. If you want to get in touch with us, please do email us at HITS21 Podcasts at gmail.com and you can Twitter us at HITS21 UK. Thank you ever so much for joining us again. We are now looking back at the year 1996. And this week we'll be covering the period between the 1st of January and the 23rd of March.

Hits 21 does not on the rights to any music in this episode. We use with all the music in this podcast, falls into section 30 clause one of the copyright in 1988. All right, then, it is time to press on with this week's episode and Andy, how are the album charts doing in the first quarter of 1996? Okay, not that many albums to talk to you about this week,

but there is an absolute titan that takes up most of this period, and that's why. We only had it a number one for one week in 95 when it was first released. It's cooked a bit, and now it's out of the oven, And boy howdy, is this a well-cooked pie? I don't know where I'm going with this. Somebody stopped me.

Anyway, it's Oasis with What's the Story Morning Glory, which goes to number one for six weeks, thankfully knocking Robson and Jerome off the top. Let's not forget. And it went 14 times platinum. And we've mentioned this before, but just to remind you, it is the highest selling album of the whole decade of the 90s.

But it's not the highest selling album of 1996. Not quite. Most of its sales were already out of the way by 1995, I think, and well, we'll get to it when we get to it. But yes, it's interrupted by one week by the blue tones with expecting to fly that went number one for one week and went platinum. Before it's another three weeks at the top for What's the Story, Morning Glory. So out of the 10 weeks that we're covering in this episode, it's nearly a straight run all the way through for Oasis, if not for that one week. by the blue tones. We are in Oasis Geddon here. The time is here. All right, so in the news around this time, and there are some pretty, pretty sad headlines about to come. So, might want to brace yourself for the memories if you have them. In Scotland, 16 children, and their teacher are killed in a shooting at Dunblane Primary School in Perthshire. The perpetrator, Thomas Hamilton, turned the gun on himself in the immediate aftermath. An eight-year-old old, Andy Murray, a pupil at the school, survives the shooting. The IRA carries out the London

Docklands bombing, which kills two people and ends a 17-month ceasefire before carrying out a second bombing on a London bus days later. In Royal Family News, Princess Diana agrees to divorce Prince Charles after being separated for three years. The European Union bans exports of British beef after an outbreak of BSE. In America, the Unabomber now identified as the Ted Gazzinski, is arrested in the state of Montana, and in football, England manager Terry Venables announces that he will resign after Euro 96. The films to hit the top of the UK box office during this period were as follows. Seven, heat, Jumanji, train spotting, and get shorty.

And in music news, take that, announce that they are to split up, setting up counseling hotlines for their fans, if needed, not a very happy time in the UK for millions of reasons of different severity. Ed, how are things in the US during this period? I won't be so tasteless as to say, oh, not much better. But let's just get this out of the way. I'll be honest, I'm glad that I was more attuned with the UK charts at the time. I'll put it that way.

Because looking at the US number one albums from start of 19. through to the 23rd of March. It's Mariah Carey. Then Mariah Carey, the fucking course. Then, waiting to exhale is back for five more weeks of breath-baiting hijinks. Before another return entry, a lot of those. And isn't it ironic that Alainis Morissette is back in the charts? No?

Oh, well, that never stopped her before. Then he's back, providing the biggest disappointment since neither version of revolution on the Beatles' white album turned out to be the one people had heard on the jukebox. Tupac Shakur offers not the good version of California love and far far too many songs on all eyes on me. Before, evidently, not yet a pagged, bitter jill. Oh, dear. It's Alanis at number one for another three weeks. Honestly, you know what it's like? It's like one. It's like one of one. I want to wash my hands, but there's no soap.

It's like when I go to the shops, and then I go the wrong way, and I end up in the countryside by mistake. The line that gets me in that song is that some of them aren't ironies. Some of them are ironies, but some of them are just absurd. Like, 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife. And I always just wonder, where is she? Like, she must be in, like, a spoon factory. Yeah, spoons, spoons are us.

Why is she, why does she need a knife, and why is she in a spoon factory? else could she possibly be? It's just an absurd situation to find something. It's like the peanut factory thing with the elephant in The Simpsons. It's like the one thing we don't want to happen. I mean, look, maybe if she'd just called it like misfortune

and poor planning, no one would be making a fuss, but I don't know that necessarily scans unfortunately. But look, right, that's it, because as there only seem to have been, five albums apparently released since June 95 in the States. Let's move

on to the singles where I'm sure we'll oh for the love of fuckery it's one sweet day by Mariah and the Mormons for the whole of January and the whole of February and nearly the whole of March then

you know just just making the cut off of this little remit we have one week of something else however that's something else is Celine Dion so does it really count? Oh, by the way, don't worry if you feel I've not said Mariah Carey enough,

there'll be plenty, there'll be plenty more opportunity for that, Rob. All right, then. Thank you, Ed, for that report, and thank you, Andy, for the report about the album chart before. So we are going to crack on now and give you the first song this week. Kindness in your eyes, I guess, you heard me cry, you smiled at me like Jesus to a child I am blessed I know

heaven sins heaven's stone who smiled at me like Jesus to a child and what have I Okay, I learned from all this pain, I thought I never feel the same about anyone or anything again. Okay, this is Jesus to a Child by George Michael, released as the lead single from his third studio album titled, Older. Jesus to a Child is George Michael's 18th single to be released in the UK and his sixth to reach number one

and it's not the last time we'll be coming to George Michael during our 90s coverage. Jesus to a child went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for one week. In its first and only week atop the charts it sold 110,000 copies beating competition from one by one by Cher, Sandstorm by Cast and Too Hot by Culeo. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Jesus to a child dropped one place to number two. By the time it was done on the charts,

it had been inside the top 104, 17 weeks. The song is currently officially certified gold in the UK. As of 2025, Andy, you can kick us off with George Michael. This is lovely. This is really, really good. We're in something of a peak creative era for George Michael here, I think. And that's saying something, because he started, you know, very quick out of the gates and was pop superstar right from the start through most of the 80s.

And you could really forgive him for trailing off like all of his contemporaries did, basically all of them. You know, there's like two or three names left of his contemporaries. But here he is with really interesting things to say, not just this week, but certainly with the song next week as well. that couldn't be more different to this he's really letting the juices flow here and I think the thing that impresses me the most about this song is just how tender and fragile and emotionally roar it is like there's a sense of vulnerability here

which kind of goes beyond what we would normally define as vulnerability in pop where I wouldn't say it's weepy I wouldn't say it's like bearing your soul to the nation but there's something about this that feels like like you're really tapping into something very deep in his psyche. And I actually went away and listened to the whole album because I was very taken with both

this and the song we're covering next week. And the whole album is like that. It's called older, despite the fact that he's younger than any of us when he released this. That made me feel very old. He's still just touching 30 here, which is ridiculous considering the career he's got behind him at this point.

But the whole album, it's like you really could be persuaded that he's got a terminal illness. or something, because he's so, so transfixed with the idea of regret and longing for better in life and not having time and, you know, all these things that feel very raw and existential and real. And with this, I think the way that comes out is through just needing someone, you know, just needing that particular person in a way that's kind of undefinable and not specific, but you just kind of need them in the way that a child needs a parent.

and that's a level of honesty and a level of depth that you don't often hear in pop music, certainly not in number ones. Combine that with this really sprawling runner length, which usually I would hate songs that are this long at number one, but it really uses it. It really takes its time. It really allows a lot of time,

particularly at the start, to let the atmosphere set in, and also combine it with the musical elements of this song, which are gorgeous. You know, it's got that. really soft, gentle instrumentation. It's got a chord sequence which is really ambiguous and keeps turning on a dime and you never quite know where it's going.

And the main sense it leaves you with is insecurity, which is exactly, I think, the impression that George wants to put across here. As a whole piece, it's just, like, perfectly put together. I don't, like, absolutely adore it, you know, to the heavens above because it is quite oppressive in a weird way to listen to because it's it's it is quite sad it is quite bleak and I have to be in a particular mood to really want to get into this but the time zone I've listened to this over the past few

weeks when I've been in the right mood for this oh this is absolutely soared it's been wonderful it's also been interesting for me to look back on but you know a few weeks ago and I was talking about fairground how we recorded that off the box and we recorded the Oasis songs that were out at the time and ain't what you do it's the way that you do it and mysterious girl and my dad recorded this this was on the box tape

and I always fast forwarded through it it was only on there because my dad was a huge fan of George Michael but I just found this really boring when I was whatever I was four or five years old and I think because of that I just I was always as I grew older

I kind of looked at the title remembered that I fast forwarded through it as a kid and I thought, oh, is this some kind of sojourn into Cliff Richard kind of territory that he did here? Is this like, is this weird religious thing that he only got away with because he's George Michael? And I'm just so happy that the opposite is true, that he got a platform to do something really interesting and creative here. Because he's George Michael, he got the platform to put something as, frankly, as uncommercial as this out there, but still get a number one with it and still get people's attention with it. that is the hallmark of a true master of pop who's at the peak of his craft here

yeah this is absolutely brilliant love this yeah yeah i have to say uh i feel very very similarly to you andy um this this is so many things i've found at once it is frosty but it's welcoming it's personal but it doesn't feel like i'm being pulled too close into intimate territory that I'm not entirely comfortable with. It's heartbreaking, but it's also life-affirming. It's long, but it isn't patience-testing. It doesn't really have much of a definable, obvious chorus, and yet all of it is memorable.

It doesn't really go for big shifts in dynamics, yet every new section feels new somehow. It's like George is wandering through a cloud of grief, yet he can always see the sun peeking through and always seems aware that he's going to make it through the darkness. And yet it doesn't seem like he wants to get out of grief just yet. He kind of wants to keep it around because as much as this is written as a love song to someone who is gone,

I think he's making the argument that he was grateful for the person to have come along anyway. That in the never-ending chaos of the cosmos, he was lucky enough to find someone, however briefly, that made him feel like he deserved to be around and that maybe life is worth living for that reason. This is spiritually, I feel like a bit of a sequel to a different corner. in a lot of ways because that song was also slightly frosty but welcoming,

had no obviously discernible chorus, but just kept building and building to something and remained memorable throughout. But the thing with Jesus to a child that maybe separates it from a different corner is that it feels like it's lived through all of the things that a different corner worries about, and it's realized that things are actually okay on the other side. You know, it's like a different corner worries about another person leaving

either through separation or death because George feels like he wouldn't, maybe wouldn't be able to go on. But with Jesus to a child, it's like, you know, he's lost that person through death and George has realized that he can still keep walking. Every step hurts a bit, but every step is, you know, it hurts a bit less each time. I think it's a very level-headed reaction to loss after time has healed the deepest cuts. So, like, tragedy's present in the song, but it's not like hysterical. I think, you know, it's understated and probably more realistic in that sense. It's weird how it avoids melodrama in that way.

I think what separates George Michael from another Michael last week is that he released this song for humanitarian reasons and never told anyone. We only found out in 2016 after he himself had died that he'd given all the money from Jesus to a child to child line. Never sought out the press. He never gave his sermon on the mount.

He just quietly got on and, yeah, George was a bit of a special pop star and I'm glad we get to discuss both sides of his solo career this year really, because we've got Jesus to a child, and then obviously we've got fast love coming up as well, you know, because he was really good at both of those things, you know, a unique presence and a gorgeous presence and a very interesting pop star and songwriter who wasn't afraid to nudge British audiences into slightly unfamiliar territory. I think I need to spend a bit more time with Jesus to a child

to really, really, really love it. I think the single edit may be preferable too, just because the six to seven minute version maybe slightly loses its hypnotic effect on me, whereas the four to five minute version, I feel like that makes me feel like I've walked into the middle of something only for it to leave before I get slightly fatigued by it. But that's all, it's a minor note. I think this is really tremendous, Ed, Jesus to a child. Yeah, it's, I was perfectly, I was about to say, but you put it so well, both of you, in terms of describing the feel of the song and the, the, how complex it is in terms of the emotions it's dealing with. It's not like, oh, someone is dead. I am sad. Or I am in love. This is

great. All of the flowers are singing. It's far more nuanced than that. And it is about somebody's sort of wondering who they are in the light of losing someone. And the more I think about the lyrics and what I say, it's a really faceted song. And I find it, especially, I didn't know the story until recently behind it or the purported story about the person he evidently had a really intimate close relationship with in the early 90s only to lose them to brain hemorrhage and obviously this wasn't really flagged up as anything in the media or anything at the time but it obviously had a potent effect and it's interesting and you said it is oppressive I'm or it can be. You didn't say it was just oppressive. You weren't really using it in those negative

terms. And it is certainly sad, especially when you learn the story behind it. And Rob, you said it's optimistic in spite of the grief and, you know, it can see a crack in the clouds. But oddly, I find, I find it quite a liberating song in a way. Like it is a celebration more than anything else because it's you know there's there's a line in the song that's um let me see if i can find it with your last breath you saved my soul now it's full of this religious imagery which in certain contexts could be seen as quite you know confrontational in a way and like oh you know it's it's using religious imagery and even a specific religious figure to talk about something you know perhaps carnal or all this but it's it is the only thing that probably seems to work to make that point

it is love as an elevation of like peaking your head below what you thought life could offer you and realizing what love actually is, you know, that it exists. It's bizarrely existential in that way. And I think it's like he wants to express that that person was almost like a gift that helped him find who he was. And so there's this sense of imparting a special message to him that opened his world. But of course, there's just got the, you know, the endless, you know, myasma that they're not around. But still, the impact is so potent that they are going to be there in all the decisions you make going forward.

but just as I say I usually write quite sparing notes because I have to move between a lot of notes I get confused the problem is that this one I had so much to write about that it ended up becoming a sort of disjointed novella

and now I'm going to try and fleetingly go back into my original notes and try and make it make sense don't worry I don't have as much to say on the other tracks. But Bosanova, which is this is had its heart of Bosanova

and some have implied that that's actually a reference to the fact that the partner in question, who apparently this was about, was Brazilian. I don't know how much of that was just instinctual in a way or whether it was deliberately like a direct reference

to that. Because there have been a lot of English ballads that have been in a sort of Boston Or Cod Bosanova style. But something about the Bosanova really cuts to the core with me for some very strange reason. I wasn't raised with this music. But when I started writing music, nearly everything I did seemed to be Bosanova. And in that rhythm and the sort of the jazzy harmonic movement, it made so much sense to me.

and it is a very intimate, very hushed genre, but it is also very raw. One of the things about this and about a lot of other Bosanova, most examples of the Bosanova, I think people, when they sing in the style, do this without even knowing it, it's one of the few genres that completely rejects vibrato and rubato and any sort of modification of the basic melodic note. It tends to be sung very, very cleanly, and so there is nowhere to hide for a vocalist. You have to have a very pure, clean, melodic touch, otherwise the bum notes show through solidly. And that in a way, I think, adds to the fact that it is so direct, it's so primarily musical.

And the fact that, as this song does so well, it often carries you through an array of different changes and an array of different harmonic motions but it's so smooth and slick you don't notice how far you've gone and I want to talk about well first of all yeah his vocals you know you've already

talked about both of you how unusual this is in terms of it being a big hit for something that's so uncommercial and so sort of subdued and quiet in a way And I mean, who, what big pop star would dare start a song so slowly and so quietly? There's almost no force behind his voice whatsoever.

But the real wonder of this song is in the phrasing. And I mean, it's almost, it sounds like a jazz standard in many ways. And the way he kicks about the, you know, the meter of the lyrics. I know I'm not using the right terminology there. But every time it does that, every single memory. memory. It's like, that's such a, you know, it gives me, it makes my spine tingle a bit, because it has a conversational style to it that the best jazz vocalists have where they can sketch and skew. And I think part of the reason that boss and over music in general,

but a lot of the more complicated chart hits in general, like if you even go back to Baccarac, for instance, the reason they are capable of being so complicated, but so accessible is that they follow the rhythms of conversation in their lyrics and the way they're delivered. And I've always found that you can take people in some very weird and wacky musical directions if you have a thread of talking in a way through it. If it seems to support the movement, the natural rhythms and flow of conversation, you can go all over the fucking shop. You can end up as many sections as you want, but I think it says something, if you'll forgive the pun, to people, to have it in that conversational style. It must

bypass something that some pop music doesn't, where you're instantly invited in because it has that conversational element. But just moving into the song and the themes a bit more, as in the more I've listened to this, the more I've found one pack. I mean, Rob, you said, it's about, you know, it's covers so many different feelings. And it's, it's sexy, it's intimate, it's tender, it's sad, it's tortured, it's also glad and completely in control of itself. There's no histrionics here about it. It's full of a sort of a profound resignation.

And while there is tremendous sadness there, there is always the ability, to actually see the grief in a balanced way. And I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it is really such a pure love song. It's not a song that signifies love, like a lot of pop songs. They were all the idea of love. Again, I've made that fucking comment earlier one about, you know, the singing flowers, oh, and everything, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's like, that feels like a Hollywood accompaniment to the idea of what love is supposed to feel like.

Whereas this, like a lot of the best songs about sex, I think, and I don't know if there are that many of them, this seems to swim contentedly in a feeling that in its own way transcends normal understanding, but it's trying to offer you a way in and it'll do it through a series of images rather than just, you know, love is like a big explosion of horns because is it? I'm not sure. Not only is this a gift to George, I think, from a departed lover, the emotion carried in this. I think this is his, you know, just wanting to put that marker down on the earth and in the sand to say, this is what this person did for me, and this is what love can actually do. And it is not facetious and it's not crass.

And it's not kind of, you know, Madonna religious bear baiting to say that this is a religious experience and it's the most profound one you can get and it seems a totally logical and respectful comparison to make. I'm not a religious man. I don't necessarily know. I'd like to think that Jesus wouldn't have a problem with this. I'm not a Christian, so I don't speak for Christians. I don't speak for Christianity or any particular sect of it at all. But I like to think that true Christians would actually really, really appreciate the symbol. here would really support it, like you said, because it's the whole thing, you know, God is love that, you know, you find God when you find love, that it's a similar kind of

feeling. It's, it's, it's an act of faith at the end of the day, you know, putting it. And I think there's nothing that hooks you into the religious experience more than sort of unconditional love. So I would like to think that this is the kind of blasphemy, if you like, that's not blasphemy. It's, it's in keeping with the foundations of Christianity. you. It draws together things that are often, you know, kept asunder, but it's all, you know, in many ways, it's just, it's all love. And it's the only, I think for him, it's the only comparison that feels apt. And it's not doomy. And it's not hanging over with, with religious guilt or shame. It's just like, this is what a truly loving, guiding hand must feel like. And I feel like I've experienced it. And so, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I completely agree. The only, as I say, I really don't mind the length of this either because it just, it swims so organically.

It, I don't know. It's just, it's just unhurried. It exists in its own space and it takes its own time. So I don't really care that it's about six minutes long. But the only slight knock against it, and I'm quite willing to be argued with here and actually have my mind changed. The final line of the song. when he turns it from like Jesus to a child, which after this song, it's been about some quite abstract imagery that relates on an emotional level, but he's talking about something that's fundamentally transcendent. It's everything, but it's beyond standard models of description on earth. And he ends it with he was Jesus to a child. And I'm a bit like, it feels a little bit blunt,

and it feels a little bit literal, and like he was looking for a way to just say, are but this is the symmetry at the end it's like and though even the way when you phrase it like that he was Jesus to a child it doesn't even sound quite correct it sounds a little bit clunky in a way um like he's saying oh well the real Jesus was the children we smiled at along the way ooh but that's really such a minor such a minor knock I just think it's a little bit unnecessary because part of I think you said Rob used the term mesmeric or hypnotic one of the two you know they have a kinship and I think part of the appeal of this like a great

you know song about sex or something is that it is kind of tantric and sort of cycling it circles round it's not like a big explosion and it falls off you know I think they you know it's It's about being lost in a moment of meditation one way or another. And I think bringing it down to earth in that way, I just, I don't know. It feels a little, it feels a little blunt for a song that just is so wonderfully rhapsodic and natural. But that's just a minor little quirk. I'll just leave it on this. I said in the chat earlier on, and this is just an excuse to raise a ban I love that never gets enough attention.

This is quite unique, this, what would be described as quote unquote, Sophistipop, delivered so earnestly, you know, with such a sense of questing insight in a way that the only person that I could think of who has this sort of same aura to a degree is Paddy McAloon from Prefab Sprout, who, you know, they had certainly their moments of artifice, the clues in the name. They like a lot of very artificial textures on their music. But he's another incredibly gifted vocalist who is totally unshoey with it, but wrote songs that sort of phrased relationships in a slightly different way. I mean, this reminds me, perhaps most of all, of a very lovely, bittersweet, but just very kind love song that came out and didn't

really do much business in the early 90s called If You Don't Love Me. And it's not, there's nothing threatening about it. It's just, it's like a different way of looking at a pact between two people. Because like, if you don't love me, I will know is the main lyric. And it's just to say like, you know, this is such a, you know, I know you're trying. I know you want this to work. But I will know if you're not feeling this anymore. And at that point, it's not worth it for either of us. And it's

this big kind of lush. So it's even got a bit of a like a pet shop boys bounce to it. But it's, you know, applied to this big kind of kind, very intimate encounter from, again, a singer who can, you know, convince you that he's not, in fact, one of the greatest of all time because he never shows off. And that in some ways is the same as George Michael. It's not like a massive fucking show off in his vocals. But when he needs to go to 11, as they say, it's there and you know you can just throw something in if it's needed if not you won't fucking do it but yeah that's just basically me saying hey listen to the prefab sprout they're good but that's distracting attention from the fact that i've been waffling on about this my other reviews

will be much shorter but i fucking adore this song i think it's an incredibly special track that when i was a kid and you you mentioned this and i didn't get it at all when i was a in single figures, it just, it was a song that was, it was adult music, wasn't it? You know, as Lizzie said, it was, oh, it was just mum music, wasn't it? And it's like, as much as I love ballads, this was a step too far, maybe because it was so subdued and it did have that, that quiet melancholy hanging over. It's a bit hard for a child's process what's happening here. But, yeah, by the end of my late teens, this is the kind of thing I was aiming to do with my music. This is what I wanted it to be.

and to be able to communicate like this. And yeah, I just thank you, British public, and my mum, actually, who bought the single of this, even though she never bought singles, for getting this to number one. So we can rhapsodise and, you know, wax lyrical about it now because I think this is fucking gorgeous. And I'm going to say,

I'm not only going to put it in the vault, just telling you it straight off the bat, I think, can we get some extra pillows and things in for it? Just want to make sure it's not leaning up against a hard wall or anything. Because this is a really special, wonderfully contemplative and mature number one. And I think it's, I think it's brilliant. Right, if I say, that's me done, I think. Wonderful stuff.

Thank you. Yeah, I know that was an amazing breakdown and really wonderful analysis. Yeah, thank you. So, our second song, this week, is this. Space man, I always want you to go into Space man, and to go into Space Man, I always want you to cry. Space man, I always want you to go into space me. Your smells they consummate my home Beyond the black horizon

Trying to take control See my girl, she shippers in her bones The sun ends and it's rising Trying to take us on There's a fire between us So where is your god There's a fire between us I can't get off the carousel

I can't get off the carousel I can't get up the carousel I can't get up this world The sign and taste homophobic jokes Images the fascist votes Be me a kiss I can't please Spaceman

I always wanted you to go into the X-ray-Eyes-Man Space Man is Babel by Babylon Zoo Released as the lead single from the band's debut studio album titled The Boy with the X-ray Eyes Space Man is Babylon Zoo's first single to be released in the UK and their first to reach number one. However, as a 2025, it is their last. Space Man went straight in at number one as a brand new entry.

It stayed at number one for five weeks. Across its five weeks, atop the charts, it sold 893,000 copies beating competition from the following top 10 entries. Whole lot of love by Goldbug. Anything by 3T Slight Return by the Blue T Street Spirit by Radiohead Not a dry eye in the house by meatloaf

No fronts by dog eat dog Lifted by Lighthouse family I just want to make love to you by Etta James One of Us by Joan Osborne Do You Still by E17 I want to be a hippie by Technohead I got five on it by Lunez Open Arms by Mariah Carey

Children by Robert Miles stereotypes by blur and hyper ballad by Bjork. When it was knocked off the top of the chart, Spaceman fell three places to number four. By the time it was done on the charts, it had been inside the top 100 for 16 weeks. The song is currently officially certified platinum in the UK. As of 2025, Andy, Spaceman Babylon Zoo.

Yeah, well, I've also gone and listen to this. album this week. I mean, the odd position of three out of four of the songs this week, I either knew the album already, as will become obvious with another song, or have gone and listened to it this week. So I've kind of got context for three out of four of them, really. And with this one, the reason I

did that was because this is so unknowable, this song. You know, there's so much of a sense of mystery and, like, who are these people? Like, what is this? Like, is all of their music like this? And I just, I had to dig deeper. I had to learn more.

The album, I will say, is disappointing, unfortunately. Like, it's got that sort of cod grungy sound to it, but it also leans very heavily into David Bowie. And when you combine those two influences together, combine it with a lot of 90s psychedelia type stuff as well. What you sort of get is like an early wishy-washy Kasabian. So it wasn't really my favorite thing ever, to be honest. And this is certainly the standouts,

because that gimmick with the intro, gimmick that it is, it's still very striking. And I tell you what, I think basically every conversation I've ever had in my life about this song with that either someone else has started or I've started it has been about if you've actually listened to that song

and like people will express either delight at what happens next after the intro or huge disappointment at what happens next. I've definitely had both those conversations where people who are really into like, you know, early 90s, rock music will say, hey, once you get past that intro, that's a really great song. And then all the people on the complete other side of the coin who say, oh, I'd listen to that

Spaceman song in full. It's nothing like the intro. It's rubbish when you get into it. I don't think it's either, you know, fantastic or rubbish. I think it's right down the middle and that it's just a really bizarre combination of two completely different sounds that is not signposted at all by putting in right at the beginning with no cue at all that this is not going to be a kind of, you know, what sort of sounds like what would later become known as like a scooter sounds. You know, the idea that it's not going to be that and it's going to quickly turn into this kind of quite plodding,

like trudgy type thing with a very, very different sound. I think they're just so strikingly different that it works, but it doesn't really leave me fully satisfied on either side. And like, I've really gone back and forth with this. I really have... There was a time where, you know, I was going to give this like a 9 out of 10 and was going to slam this into the vault. And then there was a time a few days ago where I thought, actually, this is just stupid. This is just a stunt.

And I was going to give it like a 3 out of 10. And I just, I can't quite figure it out. I can't quite square the circle with this, to be honest, which I know I'm not alone in that. You know, we've had a few conversations about this. But I think as a way of putting yourself on the map and being like, oh, listen to this. This is going to surprise you. It succeeds. because it does surprise you

and basically every time I listen to it I'm taken away with how stark and how much of a movement it is to go from the intro into the main song and back out to the outro again. It's really quite unique but I'm not sure that that's wholly a good thing but obviously they're doing something right

I mean the success of this is absolutely insane not just all those weeks at number one but I was looking into some of the other stats And fastest selling single since Can't Buy Me Love in 1964, this, which is just crazy. The 74th highest selling song of all time in the UK. This random debut single from these guys from Dudley doing a bit of a genre clash thing, and it's like a great sort of totem pole of the 90s in terms of sales. Wow, they've done something right with this.

but I do ultimately think that I'll never really appreciate to be on the kind of shock factor and I don't think it's all that if I'm honest but it's hugely refreshing and hugely unique and anything that's as different as this

I have to give points for that but I'm talking myself down to a lower score as I speak I still can't quite settle you're just going to have to catch me in a good mood and when we do the super secret scores you're just going to have to catch me in a good mood with this one It's pretty weird This, it's weird, yeah

Ed, how about you? Yeah, what he said. Seriously, I cannot add to that. That's pretty much exactly how I feel about this song. It's weird. I'm not entirely sure it works. It's mostly novelty. It's so,

the debt, you know, to Bowie and the fucking in the verses is something else. It's basically just take your protein pills and put your helmet it on. and it's you know the verses they do sound a bit like a song wars entry by adam and joe or flight of the or flight of the concords i've not decided which one yet

but it is basically it's it's a it's a wonderful mess and it's stupid and it doesn't quite fit together i'm not putting this in the vault as charming as i find it because it does take itself entirely seriously and i think that's that's to its credit actually in this case it'd be really a normal if it found itself funny but I just the reprise at the end I'm all about the framing elements to be honest here Andy

I do like the speedy upy bits and I wish it lasted longer at the end of the song so it didn't just come back in and then just immediately fade out it's like oh come on I agree on that I agree on that yeah yeah I wish we heard more of it

I wish there was more of a distinct sections rather than just a tiny bit at the beginning of the end yeah it is I mean but it does it does make the song unique again I mean, who is I, even where the sped up bits are mixed in, it's like, there's no logic. And that's part of what makes it so weird and such a palate cleanser oddly. It can't transcend just being a novelty song for me.

But I can maybe shed a bit of light onto why it was such a big hit. It's because it was, and I can't believe that looking at it, this advert came out. In 1995, the Levi's advert is. burned into my head that used this song with like, I remember the slow motion and somebody mowing the fucking lawn. It doesn't sound like much, but this music just really, it struck a cultural chord. Everyone loved this. It was a big deal and they used the best bloody bit of it in the advert. I mean, if you just hear this with the intro and then the space man, I was It's like, what the fuck was this in 1996?

It was cool. And the advert was weird and unearthly as well. And it just felt it felt right. And yeah, I still don't really know if I like this as a complete song, but glad it exists and glad we can talk about it. Until about five years ago, I didn't know the full story of Babylon Zoo and Space Man. I knew the first 30 seconds, because I feel like that's the bit that stuck with everybody ever since, but the rest of the song and the whole context had passed me by till I was about 25.

And then I decided to listen to the full thing, and I was shocked that the first 30 seconds, which sound like the prodigy have moved in for a second, weren't the whole song. There was this whole placebo slash suede slash muse thing going on, slash Bowie. And I'd never had any idea. and then you start looking into why the public kept this at number one for five weeks and yeah, I imagine the first week of sales and maybe the second week, they were driven by the excitement of owning what was on that Levi's advert, only to then realize that only about 30% of that was the whole experience, you know, but the remaining three weeks

surely must be because people liked the rest of it as well. And I think there is a lot here to like, you know, this is totally Babylon Zoo. This is the Chungwit, the Biffbough, and the Puff Pastry Hangman. It starts a bit space oddity, but it has that same kind of space oddity, mid-century eye on the future, even during its grun sections. You read into the lyrics and it seems to be about a guy wanting to leave Earth because he's sick of homophobia and fascist folks, which, okay, yeah, I can dig that, you know, and even what he's saying

is obscured slightly by all these futuristic effects, which means it does have more in common with the last 30 seconds and the first 30 seconds that I think it's given credit for. I like the story being told here that an outsider to society in

the Great White World has decided that it's beyond saving so he wants to accelerate technological progress so that he can leave. I think there's something in the fact that the singer and writer, Jasmine, man was a Punjabi British Indian with Sioux heritage and at something of a remove from Britain emotionally and that that probably led him down the path of using something of an alien persona

in his work of this Brit pop era I've always been more drawn to the weirder slash queerer side of it all and I think Babylon Zoo fit in that mould along with suede and pulp and radio head and placebo and yeah even those early muse records I found out that Jazzman's first band were called the Sand Kings, and they named themselves after a bunch of short stories written by none other than George R.R. Martin. So, this is 1996, remember? So I'm always going to be drawn to songs made by massive nerds who are slightly effeminate. I think 1996 is the year that the first Song of Ice and Fire novel gets published.

So he's not even really moved into that realm for what he's known for. He's still kind of a short novelist in the, in the, in the, 80s and 90s. I think Jasmine was guilty of taking himself a bit too seriously. I think the brass eye bit that I quoted before, I think he put that theory that is a bit up his own ass in black

and white, basically forever. He's never sung an age and he doesn't know if he'll ever write a spherical song, okay. But I think being slightly kooky and then taking that kukiness a bit too seriously is always interesting, even if the recorded footage of you makes you look like a bit of a bell end. Because

pop is ultimately made up of bell-ends, looking like Bellins and taking themselves a bit too seriously. So I'm unsure how different jazz was really. And I will say too that as much as the bait and switch of the intro kind rubs me up the wrong way sometimes, the fact is it is part of the song. This is Babylon Zoo trying to do to grunge what refused did to punk a few years later with their randomly sampled jazz breakdowns and electro passages. The thing that's apparently wrong with Spaceman is still a feature. It's the thing that makes it interesting. And honestly, there is a mix of the song that's just the first 30 to 40 seconds replayed about six times.

And it gets pretty tiresome after a minute or two. You need that neon injection at the start. But then you need to go on your mission to space before slamming back down to Earth with that intro being repeated. So yeah, I do like this. I am a fan of it. I would even say I was a big fan, to be honest. And it's kind of got me thinking as well that even in the 2000s, we didn't seem to get many number ones, if hits at all, but we're about looking into the far future

and imagining what it would be like and sound like and where technology would be. It feels like something has vanished from pop culture as a whole where even films have stopped trying to guess what phones and TVs are going to look like in the future. We don't get many films that are explicitly about the future anymore. It feels like the 90s was the last time we tried to imagine what the millennium would bring.

You know, there's a thousand years left of the millennium nearly. And it seems like we've just stopped imagining. It's like the millennium happened. The vision of the future turned out to be very similar to the ideas of the past. And then it kind of fizzled out. And now we just make movies about now or the past. You see this expressed actually in Adam Curtis's most recent dokey series, Shifty, where at the very end, apologies for spoilers,

but it's just a documentary. It's history. You can just Google it. He focuses on the Millennium Dome, which was going to host and display ideas about Britain's future. and so much of the footage at the end of the documentary is these organisers arguing because they have no fucking idea what to do

because there is no idea for Britain's future. The future was just going to look like the past. I've spoken about this before when we covered LaRue's bulletproof when the wacky designs of mobile phones in the 2000s was quickly killed off by Apple and Google and Samsung all designing the exact same phone. I feel like the wild west of mobile phones in the 2000s

is the last time there was a genuine race for innovation to try and predict the future, keep things progressing, let's have things develop really, really fast. It feels like we reached a point where every camera was HD, every phone looked like an iPhone, every television was flat screen, and that's about as far as we've gone. AI, that's what's, I really think that's what's happening with AI now,

and it's going to flatline, I think. I'm going to put my, you know, line in this hand here, I think it's going to flatline just as suddenly as phone development did. I think history is repeating itself with that. But even then, I don't even feel like AI is a race to innovate. It's just, I think it just feels like it's being pushed by tech bros who just want to make money. They don't want to, they don't want to shape the future necessarily.

They just want to line their pockets. They keep saying things like, oh, we're going to shape the future with AI. And it's like, but it's deliberately vague. They're just trying to find fast ways to climb the ladder and then get off the planet before it burns. I think we've stopped dreaming. I think we've stopped imagining what the 21st century will bring and that it might bring untold progress. And I think we've stopped allowing songs like Spaceman to get to number one

because that isn't in our appetite anymore. We don't have, we don't look at the future. We don't really give a shit. I think that like we've kind of decided that whatever future there will be, the planet will be too hot to live on. If you know what I mean. And so I feel like listening to Spaceman, I've realized that, like, that kind of arty-farty gazing off into the future,

what if your television had a giant bubble around it? And that was what the screen was. Like, and I think that, yeah, that's the last time I ever really remember anything like that kind of going on. So, yeah, Space Man has been more valuable to me, thanks to hindsight, I guess, which I know nobody had in 96, but, hey, you know, we're doing a show in 2025. So, yeah. I just, I just wanted to mention this. the brass eye interview.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love, love Brass Eye and the day-to-day. And I think, you know, far be it for me to really kind of criticize anything that those shows do because they're genius. They really are. And Chris Morris is a genius. But I think that interview with Jazz Man is like maybe one of the only times in Brass Eye or the Day to Day where I just feel a little bit sorry for the participant. Because he's a young man whose debut single has gone.

nuclear, all down to, you know, the idea of the song. Of course he's going to think that he's, you know, this artist who's in the making, you know, and he actually gives a relatively restrained answer to one of Chris Morris's questions where he says, are you a genius? He says, I think I could become a genius. It's like, oh, yeah, you've just had this massive breakout immediately after the first thing you've released. That's, I can see why a young person might think, oh, I'm on my way to becoming a genius.

you know it's not and yeah he starts talking crap like spherical songs and stuff but I think part of that it's because of his ego is being stroked so massively and also he might feel like an idiot for not knowing what a spherical song is

so he's just going with it because he thinks he's supposed to be putting himself across as a potential genius of the future I just think anyone whose fame has gone to their head which is basically all young famous people it's kind of reacting the same way to those questions as he did

so I don't know I think it was a little bit unfair the way he comes across in that interview. That's not to say he's not super pretentious and not up his own ass, because I'm sure that was the case. And still is, by the sound of it. Yeah, but I don't think that interview proves that. I think it's just putting a young man in the spotlight who's going to say stupid things.

Unlike a lot of the other interviews, which are just people on telly who you are supposed to take seriously, but in fact they don't know what they're doing and what they're talking about, it's a bit like in this case if they got the, you know, the chairman of the monster raving loony party on And it's like, it kind of isn't quite the same thing, is it? It's like, oh, look at this wacky person. Let's make him say some wacky shit. It's not like getting some apparently, you know, straight-laced and correct and confident TV presenter who's in fact a total fucking schmuck to do it.

Because that's funny. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that's the more unexpected angle. You know, if you get someone who's actually a star, who might be a rising star, I just think that's kind of low-hanging fruit for something like Bress-Eye, so yeah. All right then, so our third song this week is this. play

You said that you've never been But all the things that you've seen You slowly fade away So I start a revolution From my bed Because you said the brains I had went to my head Step outside

Summertime's I stand up beside the fireplace Take that look from off your face You ain't ever gone and burn my heart out And so Sally can wait She knows it's too late As we're walking on by A stone slides away

But don't look back in anger I heard you say Okay, this is Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis Released as the fifth single from the band and second studio album titled What's the Story Morning Glory? Don't Love Back in Anger is Oasis's 10th single to be released in the UK and their second to reach number one. And it's not the last time we'll be coming to the Brothers Gallagher's during our 90s coverage.

Don't Look Back in Anger went straight in at number one as a brand new entry. It stayed at number one for one week. During its first and only week atop the charts, it sold 250. 1,000 copies beating competition from Perseverance by Terror Vision, Disco's Revenge by Gusto, and Falling Into You by Celine Dion. When it was knocked off the top of the charts, Don't Look Back in Anger, dropped one place to number two. It originally left the charts in July 1997, but has since made re-entries in 2017, 2024 and 2025. By the time of recording, the song has been inside the top 100 for 60 weeks and I think I'm about to say a record on Hit 21 here.

The song is currently officially certified six times platinum in the UK. It is sextuple platinum as of 2025. I think that is the biggest selling song that I've ever mentioned. the sales figures for on this podcast that was at least released in its decade. You know, because Bohemian Rhapsody may have sold more, but it was, you know, we did it in the 90s when it was released in the 70s. So, yeah, I think we may be in uncharted territory there. So Ed, Oasis, don't look back in anger.

I've tried not to like this song. Look, it's just, it feels like a song. I shouldn't in some ways I know that sounds a very insecure thing to say but I'm surprised that it holds up for me in many ways and I was trying to break down just why I think

it was almost, it was one of the sing-alongs that for someone like me felt okay to belt along with because it didn't have that kind of fucking come on then hooligan battle song vibe that some of Oasis's stuff do where he's supposed to look really cool

while you're doing it. Because this isn't a quote-unquote cool-sounding song. I mean, it's still doing the, like, the, you know, the T-Rex slash My Sweet Lord guitar shit in the background. But, and the drummer is, as much as nice as his feels are. They're a bit much, I think, but that's another issue. But this is very much a pop song. And it feels very, you know, this is where their love of the,

of Lennon's ballads for the Beatles particularly. I don't think there were ever much of a McCartney, a McCartney group, to be frank. But, and I don't know. It just, it felt sweet and it seemed to capture the imagery of it, although it's, you know, apparently nonsense. I don't necessarily think that matters. You know, I am the walrus is technically complete fucking nonsense.

Not when I'm comparing these on quality or interest level, all. I think I am the warruses, whatever you may think of it, a far more interesting and bold song than this. However, there is the sense of just a cluster of images that represent something to the artist, even if they can't put them into a nice, conscious, linear order. Because, you know, there's, I remember reading Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the head book, which is a fantastic book. The first book I ever read about the Beatles, actually. which is, it basically goes through all of their songs, the recording sessions behind them, but also offers a bit of, you know, critical analysis on them. And, you know, it pleased me at the time when I was like 15, that it wasn't just following the party line. It was challenging it.

It's like, you know, it's clear that he wasn't, like, as massive on, like, the Abbey Road suite and things like that. And I'm like, oh, so it's not just me. But anyway, he mentions when he's talking about I Am the Walrus that there are little references throughout, as there were in a lot of their songs of this era, including like Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, little references to Lenin's childhood and things like, you know, I'm crying, and he's got these lots of authority figures wagging fingers in these songs, and it's almost taking him back to a primal state. And I do recall, as much as they might claim, it's just, oh no, it's just fucking crap. It's just made it up. It's just made it up and put it out. Now, I do recall an interview with Noel where he was saying, you know, I don't know.

This might have been bollocks at the time. You might have just been making up a story to justify it at the time, but he was saying, like, you know, I remember being fucking told off by my dad after we'd like crept in pissed or something and standing next to the fireplace kind of try and not to. laugh, which is where they take that look from off your face comes from. And this song is full of like, you know, suburban sadness in many ways, channeled in a different way than a lot of their other stuff, because there's a lot of that. You know, there's a lot of, you know, cigarettes and alcohol. I'm a fucking star, even though I've got nothing vibe to it. A lot of it is, you know, bragging and hubris, you know, I'm going to take on the fucking world. But this, this feels like a sort of a lived family home, oddly, and there's all sorts of movement going around. And although it

doesn't add up to anything, really, in terms of a narrative, it adds up to stuff in terms of a feeling. And even when it doesn't, I'll say this, I have not given Oasis credit as much as I've fucking criticised some of their lyrics, not given them enough credit for how memorable the lyrics are. Regardless of how dumb you think the lyrics are, it's amazing how much of this album that I've always been lukewarm on it's not like my most heard album or anything has stuck in my head because i think noll has always known how to pick a good poetic turn of phrase and sometimes that's just enough you know some of my favorite lyrics are just bollocks but they work because they fit with the song they're musical and they fit the vibe of the music and in many ways that's more complimentary

than using the music to do something, you know, a bit more complex, you know, lyrically, it's like it's, it just becomes another instrument. And speaking of another instrument, that's probably another reason why I, you know, have a little bit of a soft spot to this. I mentioned the kind of, you know, come on then, fucking hooligan vibe that comes off on some of these. And yeah, at the time, a lot of that was Liam, you know, it was very much his sort of in-your-face vibe, whereas Noel would sit at the back kind of frowning a bit,

sitting on an amp with his big guitar or something. And so I have Noel, who doesn't have a particularly strong voice singing this, but also knowing that he wrote it, it does add an extra element of vulnerability that I think appeals, even though, again, not really sure what he's trying to say, but I feel it is quite evocative in its own way. And it's, you know, you could also say a lot of these lyrics, they resemble other lyrics from other songs.

It's a little bit of a grab bag of 50 years of rock pop, you know, lyricism, just with a little twist to it. But there's a nice little bit of northern humour in it as well, I think, with the said the brains I had went to my head. I mean, that's a nice little, a funny line. Yeah, it's just like, it's overall, it's just a bit of a feeling. It's a bit of a vibe. It's a little bit, it's a little bit sad, but it's a little bit resigned,

and you can, you know, it's got a nice belting energy to it in a way. I also like the use of strings here more than what they would do with them later because it's just like resonant, almost like a bloody synth line that follows the tonic note of whatever chords playing. But it just works as a kind of makes the song hum a little bit more because it could theoretically be a little bit flat. Whereas by the time you get to the next album, because they can and because they're off their tits on Coke. They're just like, let's overdub an orchestra seven times and have them getting

louder and louder and doing all these different parts. And it's just excess. This is quite a restrained like string quartet approach to, to, you know, strings, which is very Beatles in a way. You know, very, very ill and a rig beam. And again, I've always got to say this disclaimer because it's fucking oasis. I am not complaining comparing this. on quality terms to Eleanor Rigby. But what I will say is this. This is a really solid, catchy, kind of plaintive pop rock song.

And I actually still really like it. I think it's a good song. So Andy, what about you with Don't Look Back in Anger? Yeah, this is actually surprisingly given my history with Oasis and that they were, you know, teenage me, you know, absolutely adored them. this is kind of my one that I have not very much to say about to be honest back when I was a huge huge oasis fan and particularly a huge fan of What's a Story Morning Glory

this was kind of one of my least favorites this and Wonderwall were like the two that I tended to slightly skip over a bit I was something of a hipster Oasis fan which is a weird thing but I guess when you're 16 that's kind of where you'd try and slot in you'd try and look at Oasis in a bit of a different way but what I have to say about this is is pretty much entirely about things that it's made me feel rather than things that it does, to be honest.

And I think that's very apt. That's Oasis all over, and that's this song all over, is that this song is about vibes. It's not about content, really. It's about how the listener and, more specifically, how the crowd feels when this comes on. And it's particularly interesting what's happened with this song in recent years, well, not that recent,

in the last 10 years where I moved to Manchester in 2013 and then the arena attack happened in 2017 so I do remember a time where I was getting to know the city getting to sort of get to grips with like what the Manchester culture is

and you know where I fit into it I remember a time where that all happened without the specter of the arena attack behind it when that happened don't look back in anger was sort of instantly transformed into like the anthony

anthem of Manchester and the anthem of Manchester people and the anthem of, you know, how we would all get over it. And I must say, at first at least, I actually found it an immense source of comfort. I really, really went with it because I felt real grief and real fear and real anger in the aftermath of the arena attack. I felt very scared that it happened right on our doorstep. Ambulances had gone past our flat to deal with, you know, the attack. I felt, I felt it very, in a very raw way and when I started going to gigs again after the attack

hearing the crowd always sing this massive thousands of thousands of people all at once singing and don't look back in anger it did provide a real sense of comfort it made us feel really united and it really made me feel part of the city

and as one of these people and like I was home to some extent so you know regardless of what you might say about howases and about how they've been commodified into this absolute, you know, supergroup, like, beige nothingness thing that's happened over the cast last like two or three years, particularly with the reunion tour, I'll be damned if I don't admit that

this song has really made me feel quite good and really made me feel quite at home and part of something in the past. And so it's got to get lots of points for that. Of course, the problem with this song, as far as I'm concerned, is the lyrics, which are just absolutely batch it. You know, it's a week for dense lyrics, you know, whether it's George Michael who had extremely well-thought-out, extremely heartfelt and very intricate lyrical content in Jesus to a child, whether it's Space Man, which is just fucking weird, or whether it's this, which is word salad. And, you know, Noel Gallagher is on the record as saying this song isn't about anything that he looks at the lyrics and just think, what the fuck is that? like it's just complete nonsense and I don't quite buy that to be honest I think any song that's got as many different images

in it as this and is so powerful on the vibes as this has to sort of be about something so I think maybe he's just forgotten what it was supposed to be about or maybe he's being a little bit disingenuous and trying to keep some mystique with it but there are certainly large portions of the song

where he's just like what are you going on about but I do think the gist of it comes across as quite simply, it's all going to be all right. That's kind of what this song has always felt like it means, and particularly for Manchester people now, and what it means now is, it's going to be all right. It's all going to be all right. Like, everything's okay in the end.

And I don't think we have enough songs to feel like that anymore. Weirdly, I'm coming back to Rob's point about Spaceman, that I do think there's a certain sense of nihilism and hedonism that's got into pop music where we don't often talk about, you know, sheer joy and hope that much in this unguarded way that people do when these things don't look back in anger.

So I think there is real value to that and I think it's worth celebrating. I think musically it's actually really, really well written. It never pauses on one thing for too long. You know, the verses, although they're same melodically, they are different to each other. There's different things happen with the drums. Noll is singing them in a different way. The melody

is just so sing along and catchy all the way through. It's got that anthemic quality to it with the choruses and I think it's one of Noel's best vocal performances in Oasis as well so you know tick tick tick on that front I just think the lyrics are just stupid got to hand it to it

the guitar solo in the middle is I mean it's obviously a rehearse one but I think that's really nicely done it creates a whole new sort of melodic shape for a section that's already been in the song so credit to him I think it's a lovely little

a little lovely little break and a little dramatic change there yeah yeah but I mean the overall kind of you have to come to is exactly the same as I felt about Wonderwall when we had to rate that for Born to Run Up and we had to rank it alongside of the song, which I found extremely difficult

because it's like asking someone to review the Mona Lisa in 2025. Like, who knows whether it's the best thing ever or whether it's overrated? It's too famous and too omnipresent for you to know. Who could make a determination of whether the Mona Lisa is good?

Who could make a determination of whether the Wizard of Oz is any good? You know, it's like, or Harry Potter even, it's like these things are too omnipresent in our lives as media for us to make any real judgment about how good they are. But I can certainly say, I really appreciate what Don't Look Back in Anger does. I really appreciate what it means to a lot of people now. And I think, again, that has real value and that should be respected. And I've certainly been taken in by that to some extent as well. Oasis in general these days I'm not keen on, but I get it with this.

I do get it with this. I'm going to extend an apology to Lizzie, I think, because she'll be listening to this, hoping that one of us really turns on it. And I'm Lizzie's last hope for someone on this podcast to really turn on it. And I'm sorry, Lizzie, I'm not going to turn on it. Jesus, H. Christ, strap in, guys. This might be my longest analysis. I'm going to try and get through it as fast as I can.

My thoughts on this song have gone back and forth so many times over the years. You start out going along with everyone else, just accepting that it's a classic. Then you reach a rebellious teen phase, and you decide it's shit, and nobody knows what they're on about. Then you reach your 20s, and you start writing your own music, and you appreciate the songcraft of this, so you soften on it. But then you reach your late 20s, and you're a bit more discerning, so you start seeing the issues with the lyrics being like a series of relatively interesting, but ultimately non-sequiters, and the instrumental cribbing a bit too much from Imagine. but then you reach your early 30s and you realize that literally everything you have ever thought about

about this song is actually true all at the same time. It does crib too much from Imagine. The lyrics are a bit of a non-sequitur mind field but the songcraft is impressive and this song just does something to people that can't be quantified. So you just accept the fact that it's a classic

and sort of, as Oasis would say, acquiesce, because the song is nearly 30 years old now and what's the harm sort of thing? And hey, some of the non-secretors in my head actually conjure up interesting images. So, okay, fair enough. Oasis are far less interesting when Liam's not singing, but Noel sounds like he's actually attempting to find the vulnerability within himself in this, which is a big problem I have with a lot of Oasis's material that they don't try to find that often enough.

He comes up slightly short for me in terms of finding that vulnerability, but only slightly, I appreciate the effort that he made with this, and there is something about it that reduces growing up to tears. So, okay, fine, you win, no. But, oh my God. I mean, my relationship with this song has never been the same since 2017,

May 2017, the bomb attack at the arena. I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before on the podcast, but I was outside the arena in a cab when the bomb went off. I know you two know, Andy. Ed. And okay, I'll just start from the beginning. So, yeah, I was outside the arena in a taxi just after the bomb went off. And so I kind of drove into the carnage. And oh, my God, I will never, ever, ever forget that night or the 24 hours afterwards. I lived around the

corner from the arena at the time. I'd moved from Stockport into Manchester for uni. And so I was driving back in this, I've been out to see a friend. We've been hanging out in Manchester and I'd walked her back to a flat in Hume and I got a cab home. We're driving up, normally what you do is you drive up Trinity Way in Manchester. You turn right over Victoria Station and then you go Angel Street. And I lived on Angel Street and Naples Street at the time, which if you Google it is right next to one Angel Square, the big co-op building. I lived kind of on the edge of the green quarter. And so we're driving. up Trinity Way and there are thousands, like thousands of people in the street, kids and their

moms mostly, just standing there. A few people are walking, like not milling about like you do after you've come out of a gig, like they were just like walking away. But there were a lot of people just standing there. There's no one selling merch or buying merch in the street. If you come out onto Trinity Way after a gig at the arena, there's normally bloke's with t-shirts on the floor going like that for five pounds, two pounds, ten pounds. There's none of that going on. I look out the window and I'm in the back of the cab and I see they're all wearing Ariana Grande T-shirts and I say to the driver, oh, I wish I'd known she was playing. I like Ariana's music, but like the crowd is huge, bigger than it usually is outside the arena after a gig. No one's

going anywhere. They are standing in the street. So me and this cab driver, we've got to find a way through to the other side because you cannot drive through this crowd. No one's moving. No one's looking. No one gives a fuck that they're in the road right now. So we have to drive through a car park on Berry New Road and we have to get through that way. And as we're driving through at like two miles an hour, there are mum's crying with two phones, like one phone in each hand. There are kids crying, everyone's crying. There are friends like hugging each other and looking up and back at the arena. I have no idea what's going on. But I know, by this point that something, something bad's happened. I don't know what's happened. My initial

thought was that maybe there'd been a stampede or a crush or anything can happen in a crowd of large people. So I get back into my flight eventually about kind of 20, 30 minutes later and I put the news on, nothing. I look on Twitter, not much. I look on Facebook and there's a post in the group for the building that I lived in made about five minutes before I got in and it just says, heard a big explosion coming from Victoria Station and the arena hope everyone's okay and that's when it dawns on me

what's actually gone on here I will never ever forget the GMP publishing that statement after midnight because I knew people who were at the gig and we've the original rumor was that a balloon had exploded and caused a crush

but we knew that people were dead my parents are in New York at the time and I'm not not sleeping. And they're just on holiday. So I phone them at three in the morning. It's 10 p.m. New York time. And so they get a phone call from me at 10 p.m. New York time. Like, what the fuck's going on? And I have to tell them what's happened. I find out pretty quickly that one of my best friends from school lost one of his best friends in the bombing. That was that Martin Hetlad who, whose name got known after. My friend, AJ,

still on his phone he has a text to Martin that was never delivered just heard about the arena I hope you're okay I find out that one of my work colleagues is related to that Saffy girl the youngest victim

her partner through like a previous marriage I found out in the weeks afterwards that some of the friends of mine went to school with the attacker years ago you know God I just it's very very

very, very too close. I don't normally get affected by things like this. I mean, obviously I get affected by terrorist incidents, but not to this degree where I just felt so ill for fucking weeks afterwards. Like, I wake up the next morning and the entire city is deathly silent. I wake up and like fucking Donald Trump is on the news like talking about something that's happened like half a mile away or less than half a mile away from my flat. The whole area in the city around the arena is completely, he's deadly silent. The only thing, I remember, the only thing I could hear was ticker tape, police tape, flickering in the wind. And I walked across town the next morning. I was going to meet some friends at the Waldorf pub near Piccadilly. And if you want to Google

Maps it and see the route I walked, it was from one angel square to the Waldorf pub. And I remember thinking at the time that it was like someone had finally shut Manchester up. The whole area around the arena was so quiet, no cars, no people, just silence. And no, like, even in the city, like, in the bits that were still open to the public, like, no one was talking to each other. No one was even looking at each other. There were TV journalists and reporters from all over the world using our building, the building I lived in for cigarette breaks, and we had to tell them to fuck off repeatedly because they were chucking cigarette ends into the entrance of the building. It was horrible that those weeks afterwards were awful. I remember there being reports of

bombs being left in Victoria Gardens, outside the station, Piccadilly Gardens. I remember the next day being in walking through town when hundreds of people came running and crying out of the Arndale Food Court because they thought there was another bomb in there could someone had left a bag behind by accident. Like it was, like you were saying, Andy, the fear,

like I've never ever known Manchester get like that ever. Like, I've never ever grieved something like this where I've not lost anybody personally. But like when you start hearing, about people that you know were there and they lost friends who were there and work colleagues who've lost like distant like you know kind of second removed stepdaughters and think it's like oh my god i normally find a lot of it like the response to a lot of terrorist attacks shirad isn't the right word but it always kind of tips over into jingoism and i always get

very uncomfortable about it but i remember very quickly martin hatt's brother coming out and immediately setting a narrative that manchester was not going to turn on its muslin brothers and sisters. And I found myself going to all the memorials and flower drops in St. Anne Square. And like, I never, ever do anything like that. Like, I normally tried to stay away from it and kind of form my own. But I just, I did not know. I did not know what to do. And there was me and a friend, we'd both just gone through pretty intense breakups as well. And we leaned on each other a lot, going to all of these shows of grief and love and stuff like that. And One of the very few that we missed in St. Anne Square was the famous one when that woman started singing, Don't Look Back in Anger.

And hearing that and watching that video again this week and having everybody sing, oh God, it was like after a whole week of like silent shock and fear in the city center and not knowing what to do. It was like Manchester had found his voice again, just a quiet voice in the darkness, but like, you know, a voice all the same. And at the time, I didn't like, don't look back in anger. And I've always found Noel Gallagher to be a bit of a bell end with horrendous politics. But I just sat there in tears at this entirely human expression of grief where I don't even think she picked an appropriate song to sing. It was just probably the most suitably melancholic and the first thing that came to her mind. And for that reason, I appreciated it. It was just an instinctive reaction to people not knowing what to do.

She didn't know what to do. So she just opened her mouth and tried to help. And it worked. And then there was the love concert that Ariana did and life starts functioning again. And you know, you carry on. You remember the anniversaries and all that stuff. And then five years later in 2022, five years to the day of the attack, my team, I was watching my team, Manchester City, go for the Premier League title against Aston Villa.

And we were 2-0 down with about 15 minutes left. and the title was heading to Liverpool instead. And, like, I'm aware of what day it is. I've been thinking about it all morning. And at half time, they put a message on the scoreboard to mark the anniversary. And I'm just thinking to myself, like, fucking hell, lads, like the city team. Like, you know what day it is. How can you have fucked this up on the day when a certain section of people from Manchester needs this?

And anyway, we scored three goals in five minutes. Place goes ballistic. There's a pitch invasion. A bit of a friend. our fans even managed to break the goalpost in half, like it's an American end of year college football game. But then everyone goes back to their seats and the PA system just starts playing through a selection of city songs. And normally City's Oasis tunes are Wonderwall and roll with it. If we draw or lose, it's Wonderwall. If we win, it's roll with it. But I think the

PA guy knew what to do and he starts playing Don't Look Back in Anger. And Noel Gallagher has a box at City that's right next to where I've sat for about 20 years. And he emerges from his box just to listen to the song. And everybody realizes, so everyone around me turns towards Noel Gallagher with their arms raised. And we all sing it to him and he sings it back to us. And then they put the bee on the big screens to remind everybody of the Manchester B on the big screens. And oh, God, I was fully gone. And even just remembering it, I'm just like, oh so like I'm glad that Ariana Grande's song one last time got to be the big hit nationally because you know it was her gig and that's the way the country coped with the attack and that got

to be the biggest song and that's fine but don't look back in anger is how Manchester coat with everything as you were saying Andy so yeah I I've gone back and forth over this song and now it's like I've kind of acquiesced on it and then it gets attached to Honestly, one of the worst summers of my life, like, living in Manchester during that period was fucking horrible. I mean, I moved away less than a year later for various reasons, but like, oh, being, calling a place home that is so close to something so awful that, like, you see it every day. Like, you know, I'm interested in 9-11. I'm interested in the 7-7 bombings. I mean, I just have a morbid interest in these things. But like, I don't have a morbid interest in the arena attack

because, like, I know everything about it than I need to know. Like, I was too close to it for me to be able to deal with it. And don't look back in anger kind of being, I don't know, whenever I hear it now, I just, yeah, I just, I can't not think of it. I don't know, Ed, I don't know if you want to come in or something. I need to stop. I was in Solford. when all of this went down. I'm very aware of it every time I go to Victoria Station, but they still kind of have the shrine in the corner. But I, you know, maybe it is because I came in from the outside.

I was never, you know, part of that central, you know, the community struggle there. And so I just want to say thank you for putting that in a lot of perspective because I didn't really know a lot of this context outside the fact of the matter. Andy, Jesus to a child, space man, and don't look back in anger. How are we feeling? Jesus to a child, more like song to a vault. Absolutely. Yes, that's going in the vault for sure. Space man by Babylon Zoo, it was at one point this week, it was going to be a vault man, but instead it's just a down-on-earth man. It's not going anywhere for me, unfortunately. And don't

look back in anger oh good morning he twisted my arm stick it in the vault yeah okay all right then

so Ed George Michael Babylon Zoo and Oasis well as I say with George Michael you already know my thoughts about that I think it's

suitably divine so it goes into the vault if we're applying a sort of up and down heaven and hell traditional religious binary thing

to this as for the for spaceman um I'm happy it exists but I again I just don't think it can transcend novelty for me so unfortunately it's not quite enough

to carry it into the vault really and yeah I surprise myself you know with this one but stand up inside the vaulting place but you can take that look off your face Noel because don't mistake my weakness for this song

for me giving a remote shit about anything you have recorded, said or done since 1995. But I do like this song. This just makes it into the vault. So, yeah, for me, it is a triple vaulting week. Which, yeah, I don't know. That may not be the last this year. I think 96 is a really strong year and it gets off to a pretty strong start.

Well, actually an incredibly strong start. I think we've had three songs that are all just about as interesting. as each other for different reasons which has been a great way to start 96

so thank you this is a hell of a year we're going to have a ride on this year yeah yeah yeah god thank God

thank God we weren't Americans at this point because Jesus Christ yeah oh god so yeah that is it for this week's episode

so yeah we will see you next time and thank you very much for for listening I think I'm going to leave you

with the rendition that was done in St Anne Square I think on that that week in 2017. So yeah, see you later. Bye-bye. Bye now. I'll come to burn my heart out

Stars I lick her way She knows it's too late as we're walking on high Her soul smiles away Oh, they say Come on, sing off. Come on, sing off. He knows it's too late as they're walking on the house. The soul splashed away.

Come on the back in, I know I've heard to stay. The song, it's a little road. Thank you. Thank you.