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Deep Cut Friday: 'Cast No Shadow' by Oasis (Spin magazine). Lyric video + article excerpt + live in Cardiff, 2025 [View all]
https://www.spin.com/2025/08/deep-cut-friday-cast-no-shadow-by-oasis/
In the constantly shifting landscape of popular music, headliners and opening acts can trade places in the space of just a couple of years. In fact, that’s exactly what happened to a pair of Greater Manchester bands 30 years ago. The Verve released its debut album A Storm in Heaven in 1993 and played several shows supported by a new band called Oasis that hadn’t yet released its first single. By April 1995, Oasis had become wildly popular, and the Verve opened a couple of their shows in Essex and France.
Over the following months, Oasis and the Verve each released their sophomore albums, and their trajectories continued in opposite directions. The Verve briefly broke up weeks after the release of A Northern Soul, while (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? went supernova, becoming the biggest British rock album of the decade. But even as Oasis feuded with Blur and many other Britpop contemporaries, they remained good friends with the Verve. In fact, Noel Gallagher wrote one of Morning Glory’s most moving songs, “Cast No Shadow,” about some difficult times that Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft was going through. Ashcroft returned the favor, dedicating A Northern Soul’s title track to the Oasis guitarist.
The two bands’ roles reversed again, at least briefly, when the Verve reconvened and recorded the 1997 smash “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” and the band’s third album Urban Hymns actually outsold Oasis’s Be Here Now. Then Ashcroft embarked on a solo career, and Oasis carried on successfully, but rarely played “Cast No Shadow” on their post-’90s tours. Fast forward a couple decades, and a reunited Oasis have one of the biggest tours of 2025, with Ashcroft opening all the U.K. shows. And “Cast No Shadow” has made a triumphant return to Oasis’s setlists, with the band frequently dedicating the song to Ashcroft.
Over the following months, Oasis and the Verve each released their sophomore albums, and their trajectories continued in opposite directions. The Verve briefly broke up weeks after the release of A Northern Soul, while (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? went supernova, becoming the biggest British rock album of the decade. But even as Oasis feuded with Blur and many other Britpop contemporaries, they remained good friends with the Verve. In fact, Noel Gallagher wrote one of Morning Glory’s most moving songs, “Cast No Shadow,” about some difficult times that Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft was going through. Ashcroft returned the favor, dedicating A Northern Soul’s title track to the Oasis guitarist.
The two bands’ roles reversed again, at least briefly, when the Verve reconvened and recorded the 1997 smash “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” and the band’s third album Urban Hymns actually outsold Oasis’s Be Here Now. Then Ashcroft embarked on a solo career, and Oasis carried on successfully, but rarely played “Cast No Shadow” on their post-’90s tours. Fast forward a couple decades, and a reunited Oasis have one of the biggest tours of 2025, with Ashcroft opening all the U.K. shows. And “Cast No Shadow” has made a triumphant return to Oasis’s setlists, with the band frequently dedicating the song to Ashcroft.
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