Billboard #1 Hits: #601: ‘Holding Back The Years’- Simply Red. July 12, 1986. #1 for 1 week in Billboard Hot 100.

• Single: ‘Holding Back The Years’- Simply Red
• Record Company- Elektra
• Genre: Pop Rock
• Written by Mick Hucknall and Neil Moss
• Time: 4:04
• B-side: ‘Drowning In My Own Tears’
• Album-Picture Book
• Grade: A-
• Peaked at #1 1 week in Billboard Hot 100. #2 in UK Singles Chart. #1 in Ireland.

Simply Red were a British soul and pop band from Manchester, England. The band had 5 Top 40 singles in the US-including another #1- ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’ in 1989.

from wikipedia-

Frontman of the group Mick Hucknall wrote the song when he was 17, while living at his father’s house. In a 2018 interview, Hucknall said the song was inspired by a member of the teaching staff at Manchester School of Art where Hucknall was a fine-art student: the lecturer suggested the greatest paintings are produced when the artist is working in a stream-of-consciousness which Hucknall then tried to apply to songwriting – “Holding Back the Years” was the second song he wrote using this method.