Choosing a set list for Graham Gouldman must be a challenge. As the singer, songwriter and bass player of 10cc, he wrote some of the best-known songs of the 1970s, including I’m Not in Love, Dreadlock Holiday, The Wall Street Shuffle and The Things We Do for Love.
But his songwriting story began much earlier, in post-war Salford, where as a teenager he was already writing songs that would become hits for The Hollies, The Yardbirds and Herman’s Hermits.
Born in 1946, Gouldman’s father was an early source of encouragement, often coming up with ideas for songs and lyrics in the family home by looking at the lives literally on their doorstep.
Over Zoom while on tour, Gouldman explained to me: “My dad helped me with lyrics or came up with lyrics for a lot of the songs I wrote in the ’60s. I gave him a rough idea about a bus stop, and when I came home one day, he had written the first verse.
“As soon as I read the words, I heard the melody immediately. The song wrote itself very quickly; I wrote the middle section in my head while out of the house and rushed back to get my guitar to fit the two parts together.”
That song was Bus Stop, one of the records that helped define The Hollies during the 1960s. By then Gouldman was still a teenager, although not quite as young as one of the stories surrounding his early career has suggested.
Graham Nash and Tony Hicks came to the family home after Gouldman had written Look Through Any Window.
“They came to my family home and sat with me in my bedroom listening to my material. It was bizarre because I was a massive Hollies fan. The only detail Graham got wrong when retelling the story was thinking I was 16 at the time; I was actually 19.”
His father remained part of that process for No Milk Today, which concerned another domestic scene, perhaps not unlike something from a kitchen sink drama of the era. This time Manchester hitmakers Herman’s Hermits transformed the song into a Top 10 hit.
“That was another song inspired by my dad. He went to visit a friend who wasn’t in, turned on the doorstep, and saw an empty milk bottle with a note in it. When he suggested No Milk Today as a title, I told him it was a dreadful idea, but he explained that the empty milk bottle meant love had left the house. We wrote it together, though it was originally designated for Herman’s Hermits.”
His dream was to write a song for The Beatles but, when you have Lennon and McCartney already writing hit after hit, it makes sense to look elsewhere.
“I was a massive fan of both The Hollies and The Yardbirds. My manager originally suggested getting For Your Love to The Beatles, but I felt they were doing fine in the songwriting department.
“Our publisher ended up placing it with The Yardbirds while they were supporting The Beatles at the Hammersmith Odeon. Eric Clapton was a blues purist and wasn’t pleased about going in a hit-record direction, which contributed to him leaving the band.”
The songs written in Gouldman’s bedroom were now becoming hit records. Watching The Yardbirds perform a song written by him was an experience he remembers clearly.
“The only time I saw them play For Your Love live was at the Top of the Pops studio in Manchester. My band at the time, The Mockingbirds, was working as the warm-up act to entertain the audience while they set up camera angles and lighting. It was slightly bizarre watching them perform my song while we were warming up the crowd.”
The Beatles’ influence continued to loom large over Gouldman. He would eventually get to work closely with Ringo Starr, but before that he would go on to find success with 10cc, where he became involved in writing another string of hit records. Paul McCartney was a strong presence around the recording of their 1974 album Sheet Music, and in particular the hit single, The Wall Street Shuffle.
“Yes, while we were recording the Sheet Music album at Strawberry Studios, Paul McCartney and his brother Mike McGear were recording Mike’s solo album right at the same time, so there was a McCartney presence throughout. Having him around seriously affected the record. The song itself came about when we crossed Wall Street on our way to a gig in New York; someone mentioned the title Wall Street Shuffle, and we worked backwards from there with wordplay: ‘Need a Yen to make a mark’ and so on.”
The following year McCartney himself was said to be fascinated by the band’s hit record I’m Not in Love. 10cc had asked their secretary Kathy Redfern to look after him for a couple of hours over lunch, during which time he asked her about her famous line at the end of the song, Big boys don’t cry. Gouldman explains how the memorable end section of the song came about.
“Lol Creme suggested needing a girl’s voice saying: ‘Big boys don’t cry”. We brought our secretary, Kathy Redfern, into the studio, and she recorded it in two or three takes.”
Years later, the call came from Ringo Starr to join his All-Starr Band. “It was surreal and wonderful” admits Gouldman. “Ringo was charming and welcoming. I did two tours with them and wrote Standing Next to Me about the experience for my Modesty Forbids album, which Ringo actually played on.”
Something is revealing in the way Gouldman talks about family inheritance. In Salford, his father was writing and directing amateur plays, unable to make a professional career from it, while his son was beginning to find the musical language that would take him around the world.
Across the Pennines and around the same time, another young songwriter was growing up in Liverpool, with another father who encouraged his musical ambitions. Paul McCartney would become the benchmark against which so many British songwriters of the period measured themselves, and for Gouldman that presence was not only part of the culture he grew up with but eventually part of his working life.
Does Gouldman believe his musical talent is a gift handed down? “Oh absolutely, my dad was an amazing writing partner to have living in the same house. I think I inherited my musicality from my paternal grandmother and my lyrics from my dad.”
Graham Gouldman’s Heart Full of Songs, Pleasance Theatre on Friday 23 October 2026 at 7 pm
