England went out to Brazil. The single stopped at two
On 21 June 2002 England lost 2-1 to Brazil in the World Cup quarter-final. The BBC closed the coverage with Stop Crying Your Heart Out. Big Brother had released the single in Britain on 17 June, and in the United States on 28 May. On the chart dated 29 June it was number two. It did not reach number one.
Noel Gallagher wrote it. Oasis produced it. Mark Stent mixed it. The band recorded it at Wheeler End in Buckinghamshire and at Olympic Studios in London, the same rooms as the rest of Heathen Chemistry. Liam sings. Noel plays electric guitar, Gem Archer acoustic guitar, Andy Bell bass, Alan White drums. Mike Rowe plays piano. The London Session Orchestra supplies the strings. The song sits in B minor, around 76 beats a minute, and runs 5:03. Jason Fox, reviewing the album in NME, heard a return to the plain comfort of Don’t Look Back in Anger. The piano figure and the long chorus are built for a room that already knows the words.
Heathen Chemistry followed on 1 July 2002, on Big Brother. The single had done its chart work first. Elvis Presley’s A Little Less Conversation, in the JXL remix that had been the other record of that tournament, held number one. Oasis entered at two and fell to four the next week. Italy put Stop Crying Your Heart Out at number one. Canada reached the top ten. The BPI certified the single silver on 12 July 2002, for shipments over 200,000. The CD added Andy Bell’s Thank You for the Good Times and Noel’s Shout It Out Loud. A DVD included a demo on which Noel sings the song himself, plus a short film from the 2001 American dates with the Black Crowes.
Looked at in the sober light of day, it’s nothing but a lachrymose slur through the Big Noel Book Of Emotional Cliches and some truly shameless piano, but you just know that come closing time, it could make a breeze block cry.
(Victoria Segal, NME, 2002)
W.I.Z. directed the video, the same director who had shot The Hindu Times that spring. The song kept a life after the tournament. It plays over the end of The Butterfly Effect in 2004. In 2009 Leona Lewis recorded a cover for her album Echo, sang it on the final of The X Factor, and reached number 29 in Britain. The original’s week was already specific. Shops reported a rush on the Friday after the Brazil match, and the single still could not pass Elvis.
The record people bought in June 2002 is a five-minute ballad from Wheeler End and Olympic, strings on the chorus, Liam in front, Alan White on a slow backbeat. The Hindu Times, the album’s first single, had gone to number one that April. This was the follow-up, and the one the football coverage used. England were out of the competition. The single stayed at two. Italy was the country that actually gave it a number one.
