Songfacts®:

• This Liam Gallagher song is described by his brother Noel as "a kind of lost-and-found story."
• Noel Gallagher told the story of how this song came to be on the album to Mojo magazine August 2008: "We'd not started recording, but we'd started gathering together tunes that had a certain feel to them. I was doing the Electric Proms with The Coral, who'd recorded their album at my studio, and it turns out they'd come across a hard drive in the Pro Tools that said New Oasis Stuff, and they'd had a sneaky listen. So (Coral Singer) James Skelly, a bit sheepish, asks me, 'Are you gonna do that tune Soldier On?' Now I don't remember it, Gem doesn't remember it, Liam certainly doesn't remember it, but the other lads in The Coral are, 'You've gotta record this tune, it's f---ing boss!' So I ransack this hard drive, can't find a track called Soldier On. So we get to Abbey Road and we're chatting away, and Andy Bell goes, 'Soldier on? Brilliant! I've got a CD of it in my bag.' Turns out he recorded it with Liam, but Liam still doesn't remember it. 'Well,' says Andy, 'you were pretty f---ing pissed.'
  So we stick it on. Like all Liam's songs it's got one verse and one chorus just repeated, but it's ended up being the last track on the album. It reminds me of a guy walking through sand, carrying a big block on his back, and it just goes on for ages. It goes quite dubby at the end, and I play melodica on it, in the reverb chamber that The Beatles used!"
• This is one of three songs that Liam Gallagher wrote for the album. He also contributed "I'm Outta Time" and "Ain't Got Nothin'."
• Noel Gallagher described this to Q magazine October 2008 as, "A metaphor for ones-day-to-day existence."
• Noel Gallagher: "It would have been easier, and more obvious, to put an uplifting song at the end of the album. When I hear 'Soldier On,' I imagine a guy with a big f--king rope and lump of concrete on his back: as if someone has told him right – there's your baggage. Take it through your life, that's why it was last on the album. I really, really love that song."