GRAHAM GOULDMAN | INTERVIEW
First, a little quiz. Who wrote For Your Love, Heart Full Of Soul, and Evil Hearted You? No, it wasn’t The Yardbirds. Bus Stop and Look Through Any Window? Nope, not The Hollies. Listen People and No Milk Today? Herman’s Hermits? Wrong again. Many assume those bands wrote those respective hits, but it was UK wordsmith Graham Gouldman.
Gouldman has gone his unassuming way for five decades, not only penning those aforementioned smash hits but going on to have eight more top 10 singles with 10cc. A singer and multi-talented instrumentalist, he’s released masterly solo albums filled with versions of his most recognisable tunes and has composed soundtracks. One of his most poignant love songs, Love’s Not For Me, started life in an animated television film, Animalympics.
He continues to tour as the only original member of 10cc, and also accompanied by friends. This 2014 Songwriters Hall Of Fame inductee can currently be seen live on his Heart Full Of Songs tour; his 2012 CD Love And Work has just been re-released on vinyl, with a brand new six-track CD, Play Nicely And Share, also out now.
Buzz: What’s new about the Heart Full Of Songs tour?
Graham Gouldman: I’m doing two new songs on the tour. The Love And Work album has been re-released on vinyl and the people putting it out wanted a couple of new songs as bonus tracks. I wrote this song called Let’s Get Lost, which was on a BBC Radio 2 programme called The Loss Of Lostness. One of the other songs I wrote with Iain Hornal, who I’m working with on the tour. Those two songs had to work really well because I’ve got so much material to draw on. It was kind of a luxury including them, but I figured they’re the sort of songs that people will get immediately.
How do you select from so many that you have?
I’ve changed things, I’ve dropped things, and I’ve added things. The songs that I choose need to work really well in a stripped-down version. Some songs, the production and instrumentation that’s used on the records is so integral that they just don’t work at all.
Why such big gaps between your debut album The Graham Gouldman Thing (1968), And Another Thing… (2000) and Love And Work (2012)?
I just wasn’t that interested in doing solo albums. What happened with And Another Thing… and Love And Work is you accumulate songs that, as a songwriter, you’re trying to place with other artists, but they get left by the wayside, and yet still have value. I wanted to record those songs and put them on an album because I thought they were worthy of it.
Love And Work is a fabulous album. There’s not a bad song on it.
Thank you. I really do like it. It got fantastic reviews and everything. Now that it’s on vinyl, it kind of warms it sonically a little, but it’s also nice to see the artwork at 12-inch size. The cover was designed by the late Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis, who said to me, “Why do you want to call it Love And Work?” Because what else is there in life that encompasses everything? It’s the two most important things that we do.
When he showed me the picture I fell in love with it, but I didn’t quite understand it. He said, “The little boy, that’s your new life, but your new life is based on what you are – which is an old rocker.” So that’s why it’s got the rocking horse and the little child on top of it. I thought that was so sweet and not obvious, which I like. You have to think about it. Even if you don’t think about it, but you know you like it, then that’s good enough.
The guitar in the beginning of Cryin’ Time Again is in a George Harrison-style. Then towards the end you’ve got the bluesy guitar and organ, and it’s more like Clapton.
Well, that’s very observant of you. When I wrote it, with a guy called Henry Priestman, I thought it was perfect for Clapton and asked my publisher to send it to him. Nothing happened, but he was definitely in my mind when we wrote that song.
A friend told me The Hollies’ Bus Stop is one of her all time favourite love songs. It’s one of mine, too. Most of the things you’ve written are little mini stories, aren’t they?
Yeah, they are. I mean, some of them are. Like Ariella [named after Gouldman’s wife] was… you know when people say, “How did you meet your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your husband or your wife?” I thought it would be neat to write a song about us based on fact, although there was a little bit of embroidery in there. [laughs] The first verse of that song tells exactly how we did meet; whenever anybody asks me, I just quote that verse.
On the instrumental, Black Gold, there’s a Shadows sound…
It’s an homage, really, to The Shadows. The sound is very much like that because Jet Harris used to use a six-string Fender bass, and that’s what I used on this track. I love that sound. You hear it in Wichita Lineman. The guitar solo on that is a similar sound.
I’ve also got another record coming out which is a six-track CD. It’s called Play Nicely And Share. I wanted to have something else to sell when we go on the road. I didn’t have time to do a complete album, but these days you’re allowed to make a four-track album or whatever. The title is something you would say to a child – “when you’re at little David’s house, play nicely and share!” My wife says it to me as a joke when I’m going out on the road. And if we can all play nicely and share, without being too hippy-dippy about it, that would be a very nice thing.
Even though I know you’ve spoken about this before, for the sake of our readers who may not know, I’d like to talk about your dad. When I first read about your father helping you with your songs and how he wrote himself, I just thought that was one of the most touching things that I’d ever read between a father and son.
I don’t know of anybody else who had that sort of relationship – I was very, very lucky that I had a lyricist in the house where I lived. It was fantastic. My dad came up with song titles as well, or little phrases, different ideas. He was happy to help me.
So he helped you with things like Bus Stop?
Yeah, Bus Stop. No Milk Today was his idea, his title and he wrote some of the lyrics for that as well. So, I have to give him full credit for his contribution.
Your parents didn’t seem to mind that you weren’t going to be the proverbial Jewish doctor or lawyer?
[Laughs] No. “Help! My son the doctor is drowning!” I was terrible at school. I had no time for it. I was dreaming about music all the time. Had I shown any sort of acumen in any direction other than music, they would have been going, “You know, you need to study and go to university,” but they recognised I had a musical gift. Both my parents were artistic. My mum is still alive, actually, at the grand old age of 98.
God bless. Before you started writing, did it look like you were going to follow your father into menswear?
I did work in an outfitter’s shop for a couple of years before I got the sack. I was fortunate enough to meet a guy called Harvey Lisberg who said, “That was the best thing that could have happened to you. I’ll pay you a retainer and come and write songs.” Within about six months, I had The Yardbirds record For Your Love.
On Memory Lane, you talk about your teachers. Your teachers really did tell your father, your parents, that you had no…
They actually did. I remember going to see the headmaster with my dad, who was asking if whether it was possible for me to get a scholarship to a music college. The headmaster really pooh-poohed the idea: “Well no, but there are two new factories opening in Salford, and I’m sure we can get him a good position there.” Not that there was anything wrong with working in a factory, but thank God we never went down that route.
With The Mockingbirds, you were one of the house bands for Top Of The Pops.
Yeah, the story is that one week we were the house band, and The Yardbirds were on doing [the Gouldman-penned] For Your Love, which was kind of surreal.
Did it make you envious that it wasn’t you up there singing your song?
I was really thrilled! I loved The Yardbirds. I’d seen them before I had written For Your Love and thought they were amazing. I saw them with Clapton and they just blew me away. So when they recorded it, I was absolutely delighted. It would have been nice had The Mockingbirds been a success, but I was quite happy being a songwriter. When we formed 10cc, that all changed. Then I was able to be part of a band where we were all writers, producers, musicians, doing everything that we wanted to do.
A musician was recently asked what makes a good song, and he said if you can dance to it or if it moves your heart. That’s what I’ve always thought. I’m a sucker for a beautiful song.
So am I. And my job is to make you feel like I feel when I’ve written it. And even if you feel just 50% of what I’m feeling, well, that’s great. If somebody came up to me at the end of a gig and said, “You played that song…” Actually, someone said that about Memory Lane. “It made me so happy.” I’d made them cry. It meant I’ve done my job.
words RHONDA LEE REALI
