Holding Back The Years

Mick Hucknall has explained the song himself, in an article in the Guardian today:

I wrote the song in 1978, while I was a teenager.

I didn’t realise what it was about until I’d finished it. It’s about that moment where you know you have to leave home and make your mark, but the outside world is scary. So you’re holding back the years.

The line “Strangled by the wishes of pater” is my dad screaming at me: “When are you going to get a decent job? Tidy up after yourself!” The line “Hoping for the arms of mater” rhymes with pater, but I didn’t know what it was like to have a mother. My mum left when I was three and my dad never remarried.

After Holding Back the Years became a hit, my mum tracked me down, but I thought: “My dad was there every day. Cooked my meals, wiped my arse and where were you? You think you can walk back into my life and it be OK?” My seeing her was making my dad unhappy. I realised that there was no future in it.

People strive for success, but it’s very lonely at the top. Now I realise the ultimate prize is a family. I’m married with a kid, and the last 10 years have been the happiest of my life. My father was never that supportive of my pop career, but I understand now that he was trying to protect me. A working-class bloke who worked in a barber’s for 35 years couldn’t have imagined his son would sell millions of records. Even after the second album, when I was already very wealthy, he was a bit drunk after a show once and said to me: “You realise you’re still gonna have to get a decent job after all this, don’t you?” Oh, Dad.