10CC -THE WALL STREET SHUFFLE - STORY, THEN SONG, 2ND VERSION FROM SOUL TRAIN

The Wall Street Shuffle starts with a rocking riff which is also played during the chorus. The vocals are really impressive in this song there are used many styles and ranges. There are also some really beautiful harmony vocals in some of the sections. The middle section with the piano reminds me of ABBA which is another very commercial band that had lots of progressive/ symphonic tendencies in their music.

The Wall Street Shuffle’ (Stewart/Gouldman) is easily the best known song on the album and has become one of 10cc’s most loved songs, even though it stalled at a lowly #10 on its first release as a single. If you’ve heard the excellent ‘The Producers’ special dedicated to 10cc then you’ll know how much work went into making this song sound so stupendous: Eric Stewart sings his lead in three-part harmony, all double-tracked; the guitar overdubs were endless and the backing tracks are full of dozens of splices where they switch from one section of the song to another, all lined up so carefully you can’t hear the join. ‘Wall Street Shuffle’ would be a great little pop song if it was down to the production alone, but there’s a great little riff at the heart of this song that effortlessly transforms itself from wobbly comical in the verses to an angry martyrdom in the chorus. It’s the lyrics, though, that make this song so special, saying in a few words what pretty much no one else (except maybe CSN) was saying on record at the time. Despite the Stewart-Gouldman writing credit, its was actually Lol Creme who came up with the title while 10cc were in the back of a limousine taking a shortcut through Wall Street to get to a gig, with the band staring out at the bankers going about their daily business and doing the same funny quick walk to get to their offices. This one off gag stuck in Eric’s head and was eventually turned into a song with help from Graham.

Focussing on the greed and avarice in the modern world, a land where bankers would ‘sell their mothers’ if it would get them a little bit extra, it’s actually asking why human beings developed a system that sees some prosper while others suffer. Given that the Cold War was still very much on in those days, if a little bit colder than it got in the 1980s and had been in the 60s, this was quite a censorious take on the capitalist way of life for the day (perhaps that’s why it sold so poorly). There’s also the question of whether money has ever really helped anyone, with a strong middle eight about reclusive millionaire Howard Hughes, so afraid of social interaction that he never got to spend hardly any of his riches (he’s have loved Amazon!) Emotion is lacking from those in charge, going about their daily business no matter whose lives are hurt by their decisions, but it’s not lacking from Eric’s deliciously bitter vocal which is one of his best with the band. 10cc try to hard the sheer danger in this song with their trademark ‘daft chorus’ made up of Lol’s falsetto and Graham’s comedy bass, but that’s not enough to cover what is, at heart, perhaps the most serious and angry song 10cc ever made. ‘Wall Street Shuffle’ sounded prosaic at the time – nowadays, some 40 years on, it sounds even more uncomfortably close to the truth about whose really running our planet for us. A truly remarkable song for it’s day and among the greatest moments in the 10cc canon.