"Back for Good" is a song by English band
Take That
Take That are an English pop group formed in Manchester in 1990. The group currently consists of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. The original line-up also featured Jason Orange and Robbie Williams. Barlow is the group's lead singer ...
from their album ''
Nobody Else'' (1995). A ballad, "Back for Good" was written by lead singer
Gary Barlow and released on 27 March 1995. The song hit number one in 31 countries, including the UK. At the
1996 Brit Awards, "Back for Good" won the
Brit Award for British Single of the Year.
Background
"Back for Good" is a "triumphant ballad...ruminating on life, love, and second chances". It was written by
Gary Barlow (who also sang lead vocals) and engineered by keyboard player Phil Coxon of OMD. Barlow has said that he wrote the song in fifteen minutes. It was unveiled at the 1995
BRIT Awards, and there was such demand for the song that its release date was brought forward.
"Back for Good" was made available to the media an unprecedented six weeks before release.
Just prior to the release of "Back for Good", the group had done a photo shoot for ''
Vogue Italia'' with designer
Gianni Versace
Giovanni Maria "Gianni" Versace (; 2 December 1946 – 15 July 1997) was an Italian fashion designer, socialite and businessman. He was the founder of Versace, an international luxury-fashion house that produces accessories, fragrances, make-up ...
. The clothing range given to the band by Versace is featured on the single cover.
Release and chart performance
"Back for Good" was released on 27 March 1995
and entered the
UK Singles Chart at number one. The single sold nearly 350,000 copies in its first week, making it one of the fastest-selling singles of the year. "Back for Good" sold almost as many units as the other songs from that week's Top 10 combined.
It was included on the album ''Nobody Else''.
"Back for Good" remained at number one in the United Kingdom for four weeks. The song has received a double platinum sales status certification in the United Kingdom, and is also still regularly ranked high in United Kingdom based favourite ever songs polls. It is Take That's biggest selling single from the 1990s and second overall behind "
Rule the World", with UK sales of 1.2 million as of September 2017.
The song won
British Single of the Year at the
1996 Brit Awards.
"Back for Good" would later reach number seven on the United States
''Billboard'' Hot 100, spending a total of thirty weeks on the chart, sixty-six weeks on the US Adult Contemporary chart, and 30 weeks on the Top 40 US Airplay chart. It reached number one in 31 countries.
Critical reception
Steve Baltin from ''
Cash Box
''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', is an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...
'' stated Take That had "a massive hit on its hands with this very straight-ahead blue-eyed
soul
The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Great Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Eur ...
." He described it as a "nice, soothing track", adding that "Back for Good" "won’t revolutionize music, but it shows a young band very good at what it does." Chuck Campbell from ''
Knoxville News Sentinel'' said that the song "features a fine melody line and background vocals that decorate the song with perfect finesse" and called the song "a great pop confection". He also asserted that "Back for Good" was, by far, the best song on the ''Nobody Else'' album. In his weekly UK chart commentary,
James Masterton called "Back for Good" "one of the most breathtakingly brilliant pop singles that had been heard in a long long time" and added that it was "arguably the band's masterpiece". "If it touches people, it's a good song," remarked
Noel Gallagher in an interview with ''
Mojo''. "You know, people go on about Take That – but 'Back for Good' ''said'' something to me. And if it touches me…"'
Pan-European magazine ''
Music & Media
''Music & Media'' was a pan-European magazine for radio, music and entertainment. It was published for the first time in 1984 as ''Eurotipsheet'', but in 1986 it changed name to ''Music & Media''. It was originally based in Amsterdam, but later m ...
'' commented, "With a romantic 'film ballad' like this, Take That trespasses
Wet Wet Wet's territory, which opens the possibility to crossover to an older audience–the female 25+ demo?–for the first time". A reviewer from ''
Music Week
''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future.
History
Founded in 1959 as ''Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music We ...
'' gave the song a rating of five out of five and named it Single of the Week, writing, "Take That play it safe opting for a nice-not naughty
MOR pop number which will pick up sales outside their usual fanbase. With more than a month of radio support behind it, an instant, and long lasting, number one seems certain". The magazine later added, "Expect to hear this beautifully-arranged, classic
pop ballad on the radio and jukeboxes for many years to come". Ian McCann from ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' said, "'Back for Good' is just too classy, too like a
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is a British singer and actor. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and, as of 2012, was the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart histo ...
Christmas adult ballad about how he misses the wife he's never actually had, and what a painful divorce, which he's never actually had, is." Another ''NME'' editor, Johnny Dee, praised it as "a peerless piece of classic pop". Gerald Martinez from ''
New Sunday Times'' called it "a beautifully produced love ballad."
In December 1995, ''NME'' ranked "Back for Good" number 47 in their list of "''NME'' Writers' Top 50 Singles of 1995". In 2015, ''
Idolator'' called the song a "pop masterpiece". In 2018, it was ranked eleventh by
''Billboard'' critics in their compilation of the "100 Greatest Boyband Songs of All Time". In 2020, ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' ranked the song number 15 in their list of "75 Greatest Boy Band Songs of All Time".
In 2003, ''
Q Magazine
''Q'' was a British popular music magazine. It was founded in 1986 by broadcast journalists Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, who were presenters of the BBC television music series ''The Old Grey Whistle Test''. ''Q'' was published in print in the ...
'' ranked the song at number 910 in their list of the "1001 Best Songs Ever".
Music video
The music video for "Back for Good" was shot in black and white on 27 February 1995 and directed by British directors
Vaughan Arnell and
Anthea Benton. It shows the band walking and dancing in the rain. Most of the outdoor footage was filmed at the backlot of
Pinewood Studios. "Back for Good" was also the last Take That video to include
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, ''Life thru a Lens'', was re ...
until 2010. A 1958
Chevrolet Impala and a 1951
Mercury Custom were used in the video. Because they filmed the video in cold and wet conditions, several members of Take That caught the flu.
The "Back for Good" video has often been an influence in the band performing the song live, as the band often makes use of artificial rain when performing it. It also appears on the DVD release, ''
Never Forget: The Ultimate Collection'' and was made available on Take That's official
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
channel in 2009.
Usage in media and cover versions
The song was a big hit in
Brazil
Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
during 1995 and 1996, thanks to
soap opera
A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...
''
Explode Coração'': the song was one of the main songs on the television show's soundtrack.
In an effort to mock his boy band roots, group member turned solo artist
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, ''Life thru a Lens'', was re ...
performed a 'hard rock' live version in the style of the
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1975. Although their initial career lasted just two and a half years, they became culturally influential in popular music. The band initiated the punk movement in the United Ki ...
, which was a
B-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph record, vinyl records and Compact cassette, cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a Single (music), single usually ...
to his single "
Angels" (1997). Williams performed this arrangement of the song with
Mark Owen
Mark Owen (born 27 January 1972) is an English singer and songwriter best known for being a member of pop group and band Take That; as of 2024, the group have sold 14.4 million albums and 14 million singles in the UK. In Owen's solo career, he h ...
, as the encore at his record-breaking
Knebworth Park concerts and eventually performed this version with Take That, upon receiving his
Brit Icon Award in 2016.
The song was featured on the final episode of the second series of ''
Spaced
''Spaced'' is a British television sitcom created, written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, and directed by Edgar Wright, about the comedic, and sometimes surreal and action-packed, misadventures of Daisy Steiner and Tim Bi ...
'', in which Tim, Brian, and Mike, along with Mike's
Territorial Army buddies, attempt to play the song for Marsha, a la the boombox scene from ''
Say Anything...'' It also featured in the final episode of
Ricky Gervais
Ricky Dene Gervais ( ; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, writer, television producer and filmmaker. He co-created, co-wrote, and acted in the British television sitcoms ''The Office (British TV series), The Office'' (2001–2003) ...
and
Stephen Merchant
Stephen James Merchant (born 24 November 1974) is an English comedian, writer, director, and actor. He was the co-writer and co-director of the British TV comedy series ''The Office (British TV series), The Office'' (2001–2003), and co-writer ...
's ''
The Office
''The Office'' is the title of several mockumentary sitcoms based on a British series originally created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant as '' The Office'' in 2001. The original series also starred Gervais as manager and primary charac ...
'' as a love theme for characters Tim (
Martin Freeman
Martin John Christopher Freeman (born 8 September 1971) is an English actor. Among other accolades, he has won two Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Freeman's most ...
) and Dawn (
Lucy Davis). It's featured in British hospital comedy series ''
Green Wing'' as a dream sequence with
Julian Rhind-Tutt's character Mac enacting all members of Take That.
Gary Barlow stated on
ITV1
ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the ITV (TV network), Channel 3 ...
's ''An Audience with Take That Live'' broadcast on 2 December 2006 that there were 89 versions recorded by other artists.
Faith No More
Faith No More is an American Rock music, rock band from San Francisco, California, formed in 1979. Before September 1983, the band performed under the names Sharp Young Men and later Faith No Man. Bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist/rhythm guitarist ...
covered the song on their 1995 tour for the album ''
King for a Day... Fool for a Lifetime''. The song also was covered in a
hip hop
Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...
/
dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots reggae, roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2 ...
style by
Born Jamericans on their 1997 album, ''
Yardcore''.
"Back for Good" was covered by
Boyz II Men
Boyz II Men ( ) is an American vocal harmony group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, best known for emotional ballads and a cappella harmonies. Formed in 1985, they have been a trio composed of baritone Nathan Morris, tenor Wanya Morris, Wanyá Mo ...
for their ''
Love
Love is a feeling of strong attraction and emotional attachment (psychology), attachment to a person, animal, or thing. It is expressed in many forms, encompassing a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most su ...
'' album, by
the Wedding Present
The Wedding Present are an English indie rock group formed in 1985 in Leeds, England, by members of The Lost Pandas. The band has been led by vocalist and guitarist David Gedge, the band's only constant member.
Closely linked to the C86 scene ...
for their ''How the West Was Won'' album, by
McAlmont & Butler in 2002 for the "
NME in Association with War Child Presents 1 Love" charity album, and by
the Concretes on the ''
Guilt by Association Vol. 1'' compilation.
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer and percussionist Will Champion, and manager Phil Harvey (band m ...
performed the song with Gary Barlow at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London in aid of
War Child in 2009. Barlow also performed the song with
JLS at the
O2 Apollo Manchester date of his
2012 concert tour.
Track listings
* UK 7-inch vinyl
(74321 27146 7)
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "
Sure" (Live) – 3:16
# "Back for Good" (TV Mix) – 4:03
* UK cassette single
(74321 27148 2)
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "Sure" (Live) – 3:16
# "Back for Good" (TV Mix) – 4:03
* UK CD single 1
(74321 27146 2)
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "Sure" (Live) – 3:16
# "Beatles Tribute" (Live at
Wembley Arena
Wembley Arena () (originally the Empire Pool, currently known as OVO Energy, OVO Arena Wembley for sponsorship reasons) is an indoor arena next to Wembley Stadium in Wembley, Greater London, England. The 12,500-seat facility is Greater Lond ...
) – 11:40
* UK CD single 2
(74321 27147 2)
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "
Pray" (Radio Edit) – 3:43
# "
Why Can't I Wake Up with You" (Radio Edit) – 3:37
# "
A Million Love Songs" (7" Edit) – 3:53
* European CD single 1
(74321 27963 2)
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "Sure" (Live) – 3:16
* European CD single 2
(74321 27964 2)
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "Sure" (Live) – 3:16
# "Beatles Tribute" (Live at Wembley Arena) – 11:40
* Japanese CD single
(BVCP-9852)
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "Sure" (Live) – 3:16
# "Pray" (Radio Edit) – 3:43
# "Why Can't I Wake Up with You" (Radio Edit) – 3:37
# "A Million Love Songs" (7" Edit) – 3:53
* US CD single 1
(07822-12880-5)
# "Back for Good" – 4:03
# "
Love Ain't Here Anymore" – 3:57
# "Back for Good" (Live From
MTV's Most Wanted) – 4:10
* US CD single 2
(07822-12880-2)
# "Back for Good" – 4:03
# "Love Ain't Here Anymore" – 3:57
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "Back for Good" (Urban Mix) – 4:02
# "Back for Good" (Live from MTV's Most Wanted) – 4:10
* US cassette single
(07822-12880-7)
# "Back for Good" – 4:03
# "Love Ain't Here Anymore" – 3:57
* US 7-inch vinyl
(07822-12880-5)
# "Back for Good" – 4:03
# "Love Ain't Here Anymore" – 3:57
* US 12-inch vinyl – Jukebox release only
(TAKEBFG1)
# "Back for Good" – 4:03
# "Back for Good" (Radio Mix) – 3:59
# "Back for Good" (Radio Instrumental) – 3:59
# "Back for Good" (Urban Mix) – 4:02
# "Back for Good" (Urban Instrumental) – 4:02
Personnel
*
Gary Barlow – lead vocals
*
Howard Donald
Howard Paul Donald (born 28 April 1968) is an English singer, songwriter, drummer, pianist, dancer, DJ and record producer. He is a member of the pop group Take That. He was also judge on the German reality talent show ''Got to Dance'' from 20 ...
– backing vocals
*
Jason Orange – backing vocals
*
Mark Owen
Mark Owen (born 27 January 1972) is an English singer and songwriter best known for being a member of pop group and band Take That; as of 2024, the group have sold 14.4 million albums and 14 million singles in the UK. In Owen's solo career, he h ...
– backing vocals
*
Robbie Williams
Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, launching a solo career in 1996. His debut studio album, ''Life thru a Lens'', was re ...
– backing vocals
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Certifications and sales
Release history
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Back For Good
1995 singles
Brit Award for British Single
Number-one singles in Australia
RPM Top Singles number-one singles
European Hot 100 Singles number-one singles
Number-one singles in Germany
Irish Singles Chart number-one singles
Number-one singles in Israel
Number-one singles in Norway
Number-one singles in Scotland
Number-one singles in Spain
UK singles chart number-one singles
Take That songs
1990s ballads
Pop ballads
Songs written by Gary Barlow
Torch songs
Black-and-white music videos
Music videos directed by Vaughan Arnell
Music videos shot in the United Kingdom
RCA Records singles
Bertelsmann Music Group singles