SIMPLY RED, SIMPLY SPEAKING
Even though Simply Red’s breakthrough #1 hit “Holding Back The Years” is an international success, not everyone believed that the song would be a big hit from the start. In fact, the tune had been languishing in lead singer Mick Hucknall’s songbook since the late 70s before the group dusted the song off and recorded it.
SIMPLY RED, SIMPLY SPEAKING
David Aron
Even though Simply Red’s breakthrough #1 hit “Holding Back The Years” is an international success, not everyone believed that the song would be a big hit from the start.
In fact, the tune had been languishing in lead singer Mick Hucknall’s songbook since the late 70s before the group dusted the song off and recorded it. According to the band's keyboardist Fritz McIntyre, Hucknall first wrote the song when the singer was fronting an English punk group called the Frantic Elevators.
“We recorded ‘Holding Back The Years’ in June of ’85. It was in the last group of songs we recorded. Mick had done it in different ways, going all the way back to his punk days with Frantic Elevators,” he said. Not only was “Holding Back The Years” reworked and reinterpreted, it wasn’t even the first release off their album, Picture Book. The first release was a remake of a song called “Money’s Too Tight To Mention,” which was written by the Los Angeles area group the Valentine Brothers. It was only after “Money’s Too Tight To Mention” failed that the band decided to go with “Holding Back The Years.”