Stand By Me at 29: Facts about the Oasis single

22 September 2026, 19:59 | Updated: 22 September 2026, 20:33

The lead artwork for the 1997 Oasis single Stand By Me. Picture: Brian Cannon/Press

By Jenny Mensah

We mark the 29th anniversary about the Be Here Now single, by delving into its backstory.

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Stand By Me is officially 29 years old.

The classic Oasis track was released on 22nd September 1997 as the second single from the band's third studio album Be Here Now.

It's up there among the band's most-loved tracks on the record and it was played on every night of the Manchester band's Live '25 tour, but do you think you know everything about its history?

Watch the official video for the Stand By Me and find out more about the single below...

Oasis - Stand By Me (Official Video)

1. The opening lyrics to Stand By Me were inspired by Noel Gallagher's bout of food poisoning

Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday
I’ve got a lot of things to learn

- Stand by Me - Oasis

The first line to the song are a reference to the Oasis guitarist and lyricist suffering from food poisoning after making himself a Sunday roast. Ironically, he only cooked himself the traditional British end of week dish because his mother Peggy would phone him constantly and urge him to take better care of himself.

In a 1997 interview promoting the album, Noel revealed: "It starts, 'Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday'. When I first moved to London me mam kept on ringing up and asking was I eating properly. Yes, Mam. So I tried to cook a Sunday roast and puked up for two days with food poisoning. It was back to Pot Noodles after that."

2. It peaked at No.2 on the UK singles chart

The song was hit just shy of the top spot in the charts in the uK and ireland and entered the Top 10 in Finland, Iceland, Italy, Sweden and Norway.

3. The cover stars on the artwork are a real-life couple

Microdot founder Brian Cannon and the man behind many of the bands 90s artworks revealed that the front of the Stand By Me features a real life couple, but they are NOT his parents - as is often claimed. Although his parents do feature on the cover of D'You Know What I Mean? Some Might Say and The Masterplan.

In fact, the couple were his ex-girlfriend's grandparents. "They had a picture knocking about that I thought was amazing that fitted the sleeve and that's why I chose it," said Cannon. The photo was taken by his ex's dad Barry Johnston, who was incidentally a photographer, whose work can be found on the front of a number of the band's live show brochures.

That's not the only link Cannon's ex-girlfriend's dad has to Oasis either. In the centre of the vinyl version of Be Here Now, Brian Cannon creates a collage of Jill Furmanovsky-shot photos. While he's not credited on the album, the designer also revealed that Johnston was the one who took the the photo of this collage.

Explaining in a Microdot YouTube video what the front cover symbolised, Cannon remarked: "I would have thought this was blatantly obvious. The single is called Stand By Me and the inference is this couple who are obviously in love by the way they looking at each other, you know, they stand by each other".

On the back of the artwork and the inner-sleeve are images of a mass wedding event, which Cannon procured from a photo library, which he said was very rare of him. There's no one credited on the sleeve, but the ceremony featured members of the famous cult The Moonies, who were otherwise known as the Unification Church.

Watch Brian Cannon explain the the artwork for Stand By Me and its affiliated imagery below:

Oasis - Stand By Me - Who Are The Couple & The Artwork Explained

3. Its music video was a reworking of a famous ad campaign

The Stand By Me music video - which was shot in Feltham, West London, was a reworking of a famous series of adverts for The Guardian newspaper entitled The Whole Picture.

The adverts depicted people who appeared to be engaging in anti-social behaviour, who it turns out were in fact helping people.

Oasis - Stand By Me (Official Video)

4. Stand By Me wasn't always a favoured song of the band...

It's a well-known fact that Noel Gallagher wasn't a huge fan of Be Here Now as an album. Though Stand By Me is considered one of its stand-out singles, it wasn't often performed by the band with its last live outing for a pre-reunion Oasis taking place in 2001. However in recent years, the Gallagher's fondness for the single seems to have grown... as has its popularity.

In 2019, Liam performed the song for the first time as a solo artist, backed by his former Oasis bandmate Bonehead as part of an acoustic set for an MTV Unplugged. It was later released on a special live album the following year and Liam often included the song in his solo sets.

Noel - who had been going solo with the High Flying Birds since 2010 - also began singing the song live from 2022 and the brothers of course went to include the track as part of their Oasis Live '25 set.

The song's renaissance very much reflects its sales and streaming history. After being certified gold in 1997, it went on to reach platinum status in 2019 and double platinum status in 2025.

This was no doubt helped by the band's reunion and the fact the song featured in an advert for British bank Halifax between 2021 and 2023.

Remind yourself of their campaign, dubbed It's A People Thing, here: