Obituary: Bill Martin, Glasgow-born songwriter who crafted enduring pop hits

Songwriter Bill Martin has died at the age of 81 (Picture: John Devlin)

Bill Martin, songwriter. Born: 9 November 1938, in Glasgow. Died: 26 March 2020, in London, aged 81.

One half of one of ­Britain’s most ­successful songwriting partnerships of the 1960s and 1970s, Bill Martin co-wrote the chart-toppers Congratulations, Puppet on a String and the 1970 England World Cup song Back Home, even though he was born and bred in the shadow of Ibrox.

He attempted to redress the balance four years later by writing Easy, Easy for the ­Scotland World Cup squad. That proved over-optimistic – England reached No 1 in the charts and the latter stages of the World Cup. Scotland peaked at No 20 and famously went out in the group stages ­without losing a match.

Martin even had a spell as a professional footballer ­himself and his father would boast that his son played for Rangers, without specifying that it was Johannesburg Rangers rather than Glasgow Rangers, or so Martin said. He was a great storyteller, as well as a great lyricist.

Bill Martin co-wrote the Bay City Rollers’ hit Shang-A-Lang (Picture: BBC)

Well, great lyricist might be pushing it. “Yabba dabba doo, we support the boys in blue… Yabba dabba day, we’ll be with you all the way” and “We sang shang-a-lang and we ran with the gang, Doin’ doo wop be dooby do ay” was never going to put Martin in contention with Bob Dylan to become the first songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

But he had a sense of rhythm and what made a hit record. And he could mine deeper emotions, drawing on the heartache of relationship breakdown for Surround Yourself with Sorrow, a top five hit for Cilla Black in 1969, and My Boy, which took Elvis into the top five in 1975, although on that occasion Martin was translating from the French original by tragic heart-throb Claude Francois. Often ­Martin wrote the words, while his partner, Phil Coulter, wrote the melody, though they fed off each other.

After leaving school at 15, Martin took up an apprenticeship at Alexander Stephen’s shipyard in Govan and he said he drew on the actual sound of shipbuilding for the Bay City Rollers’ hit Shang-A-Lang. “I couldn’t use clang, clang, clang… it became shang-a-lang,” he said. ­However on another occasion he said that “shang-a-lang” was what he said when his mother was around and he wanted to swear.

Martin was born William Wylie Macpherson in 1938 in a tenement in Govan, “nine yards from the Fairfield Shipyards”, according to his official website. His father worked there all his life. The young Macpherson went to Govan High School, where Alex ­Ferguson was a contemporary. He claimed he was writing songs by the time he was ten, but added: “You couldn’t tell anybody in Govan you were writing songs.”

There was more street ­credibility in football. He played for Blantyre Celtic and had trials for Partick Thistle. After marrying his childhood sweetheart Margaret, he ­relocated to South Africa, where he played for ‘Rangers’ and started writing songs ­professionally.

Hoping to advance his songwriting career, he returned to the UK and set about ­finding music publishers in London. “I thought Tin Pan Alley was an actual street so I spent a week not knowing I should have been looking for Denmark Street,” he said. He changed his name because he did not want to be pigeon-holed as Scottish. It was a ­decision he later regretted.

He was a regular visitor to Mills Music, where Elton John worked. Martin was learning the ropes as a songwriter, while he recalled that Elton, who was still Reg Dwight at the time, was working in the storeroom. “He wore an overall, was a lovely guy, always nice, and would open the door for you,” he said. Martin also remembered telling him not to play piano at the Christmas party because he was not good enough.

A brief writing partnership with Tommy Scott produced songs for Serge Gainsbourg and Van Morrison, for whom Martin also played ­tambourine. His partnership with Phil Coulter proved more enduring. Puppet on a String was a 1967 Eurovision ­winner and UK No 1 for Sandie Shaw.

They also provided the UK with its next Eurovision song. Martin recalled Coulter came up with five bouncy opening notes and the suggestion that they should be accompanied by the line “I think I love you.” Martin suggested instead the single word “con-grat-u-la-tions”. Cliff Richard took the song to second at Eurovision, but was to become the soundtrack for celebrations down the ­decades and ­provide ­Martin and Coulter with a healthy salary for life.

Coulter and Martin also set up a successful music publishing company and Martin worked as a producer too. At one time he owned John ­Lennon’s former mansion in Surrey. As well as writing a string of songs for the Bay City Rollers, Martin and Coulter provided hits for Slik, including their 1976 No 1 Forever and Ever, and for Kenny, including the song The Bump, which provided teenagers with an excuse to bump ­buttocks in 1974 and happy lifelong ­memories.

They were never going to get any awards from the NME – they even turned Dick Emery’s catchphrase “You are awful, but I like you” into a hit single in 1972. But Martin won five Ivor Novello Awards and was made an MBE in 2014 for ­services to music and charity.

His first marriage ended in divorce. He is survived by his second wife Jan, to whom he had been married for 48 years, and by four children.

BRIAN PENDREIGH