“Holding Back The Years” by Simply Red

Mick Hucknall was just 17 and still living in his father's house when he wrote "Holding Back the Years", the ballad that became the third single from Simply Red's 1985 debut album, Picture Book. The idea behind it came from art school: a lecturer at Manchester School of Art, where Hucknall studied fine art, argued that the best paintings happen when the artist works in a stream of consciousness, and Hucknall tried the same trick on songwriting. This was the second song he wrote that way, and he shares the credit with Neil Moss, a friend from his first band, the Frantic Elevators.

Its first UK release stalled at number 51, but second time around, in 1986, it topped the Billboard Hot 100, reached number two at home and picked up a Grammy nomination.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.