An Insight into "No Regrets"

Now we're going to talk about "No Regrets," which was written in the summer of 1997.

Background on the Song

Just to give you a bit of background on this song:

• We had just completed the first album, Life Through A Lens.
• Rob had been to rehab and had come out of it.
• Prior to this, I had been in a band many years before called The Lemon Trees.

The Lemon Trees Experience

I made the classic bad mistake of messing up my second album with The Lemon Trees. Here's a quick recap:

• The band did a first album which performed well; all of the songs got airplay.
• We sold about 30,000 copies, which for an indie band is not bad going.
• When we made a second album, we switched producers, changed our whole sound, and made that classic mistake of going in a different direction.
• Ultimately, we got dropped by the record company, and I was left on my arse.

I never forgot that humiliation and lesson. So, when it came to the Robbie Williams world, I knew we had to act quickly after finishing the first record.

The Importance of the Second Album

I told Rob, "As soon as you get out of rehab, we need to start working on the second record straight away." My goal was clear:

• The second album needed to be just as good as the first, hopefully even better.
• We took any opportunity to write together.

The Birth of "No Regrets"

This song started at a barbecue in a friend's garden. I always had my guitar with me. One of the wonderful things about an acoustic guitar is that:

• You don't have to plug it in.
• You can play it anywhere, even in the garden, with no need for power.

The Creative Spark

The song started with a riff. I probably just played that a couple of times, and then Rob began singing these words almost immediately:

"Tell me the story. We all change. We live our lives together. We're not astray."

I thought, "Wow, what's this story?" Rob expressed he wanted to write a song about Take That and the pain he felt about the band's breakup. I was onboard.

Emotional Significance

I knew this would be quite an important song because Rob hadn't properly dealt with that history yet, musically speaking.

From there, we moved to the line:

"I didn't lose my mind; it was mine to give away."

This particular lyric is my favorite Robbie lyric that he's ever written.

Musical Influences

I've since thought about the influences behind this song. I believe that the next section was inspired by a song by Burt Bacharach, which goes like this. You might have heard it in an advert or in a film, perhaps in one of the Austin Powers films.

Chord Comparisons

The chorus for this song has some similarities to that melody.

• If we try it through "No Regrets," it doesn't quite work, but:
  • Bacharach's chords move from G minor to C minor.
  • Our chords, however, move from F minor to C minor.

F minor 11 is quite an unusual chord. In pop music, it doesn't appear often, but it creates a lot of tension and paints a sad yet compelling picture.

Production Choices

When we produced the record, we deliberately moved away from the very sad, ballad-like guitar vibe you're hearing now. Our aim was to create a more defiant, uplifting song, which is why:

• There are drums on it.
• A lot of rhythm was added.

It still retains that underlying sadness, but it's a song that's moving somewhere.