1974Released
3:56

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about The Wall Street Shuffle. By Songfacts®.

10cc members Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart wrote this song. Gouldman told the The Daily Mail, May 27, 2007: "We were crossing New York's Wall Street in a cab one day and someone said, 'Do the Wall Street Shuffle.' That song just built from there." The someone was Lol Creme, who along with Kevin Godley rounded out the band. In a BBC Radio Wales interview, Eric Stewart explained: "We were crossing Wall Street in New York in a stretch limousine, celebrating the fact that we'd got in the charts with 'Rubber Bullets,' and we'd gone across the big financial district of America there, and just as we were going across the street, Lol said 'Wall Street! The Wall Street Shuffle!' And I said, 'Do the Wall Street Shuffle.' I had the melody in my head, but it was Lol's words. Wall Street Shuffle. And by that time I'd started writing more so I was getting a little bit more competent in what I was doing in, in the writing partnerships. And those things stay with you. If someone says a nice line to you or you hear something on radio, there's a part of your brain suddenly locks it in if it's good, and you'll never forget it. Until you get into the studio and start to write. And we got to the studio to, to start writing our second album, Sheet Music, and I said to Lol, 'Remember that idea, Lol, Wall Street Shuffle?' He said 'Yeah, yeah, it's a great idea, great title, but I don't think I really, I don't feel right like writing. I don't think I have anything to put in that in terms of words.' So I said, 'Well, anybody else want to write? Is anybody gonna go for this?' and Graham says 'Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, let's try and write it.'"

There is some financial parlance in the lyric, with a mention of "greenbacks," but the band didn't have any particular industry insights - they just used terms often bandied about on Wall Street. The line, "need a Yen to make a Mark" is a reference to currency trading, the Japanese Yen and German Deutschmark."

This was inspired by the downfall of the British pound that was happening at the time. Eric Stewart explained to NME in 1976: "It was a very heavy run and the mark and the yen were getting stronger, and all these words you could use in other ways. So it was just a comment really on the financial time."

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of The Wall Street Shuffle.
CKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
98BPM

Album

The album The Wall Street Shuffle is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released The Wall Street Shuffle.
Hipgnosis Songs
2007 Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited
2007 Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited

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