“It was like that scene in The Fast Show, the MD, cigar in mouth, going ‘Come on guys, impress me’.”: Shed Seven’s Rick Witter on how the Britpop veterans made their make-or-break hit Going For Gold
Shed Seven are in the running for a Number One record in the UK Album Charts this week, a triumph that would cap off a winning 2024 for the Britpop veterans from York. Earlier this year, they hit the top spot with their sixth studio album A Matter Of Time with their latest, Liquid Gold, seeing Rick Witter & co. rework some of their classic hits with added orchestral flourishes. One such song to be given a sumptuous makeover is their 1996 hit Going For Gold. The song has long been one of their biggest anthems but, as frontman Witter told this writer a few years ago, when the group originally wrote it, they didn’t even think it would be a single.
“I remember it being one of the more difficult songs to complete off that album,” Witter recalled. “There were certain songs that were more of a struggle than others but around the time we were writing Going For Gold, we were also writing Getting Better and On Standby and Parallel Lines, which flowed a lot more easily. But with this particular track, it took a while. We were writing bits of it but we just couldn’t work out a way of completing it, making it a whole. When we eventually did demo it, I actually remember saying to the rest of the band, ‘this is a really good B-side’. We sat on it for a while and then re-recorded it and added all the brass, which then made it start to feel a little bit more like a single. We’d written a lot of the other songs by then and it seemed to fit better after we’d re-recorded it. Before that, it felt weirdly out on a limb compared to all of the other songs we were writing.”
Witter comically remembered the occasion that Shed Seven were summoned to their record label to play them some new songs and Going For Gold not even going for bronze. “We had to go to Polydor, who we were on at the time, and play three or four songs in front of the Managing Director,” Witter said. “It was like that scene in The Fast Show, very, very traditional, sat there in a long camel brown coat, cigar in mouth, ‘Come on guys, impress me’. It felt like career make or break, to be honest with you. Going For Gold was one of the four we played him… I don’t think he was that impressed.”
Turning his mind to the song’s themes, Witter said it has zero association with the 90s game show of the same name (incidentally, the theme tune for the programme was written by up-and-coming composer Hans Zimmer). “I can certainly put it to bed now that Going For Gold is nothing to do with Henry Kelly,” Witter clarified. “It’s about how if you want the treasure then I’m the treasurer – are you coming for me, are you going for gold? Most of the songs and lyrics I write are about me, and it’s either about love, loss, sex, all of the common feelings that you would feel as a normal person. I think that’s another reason why certain people zoned in on us because they can relate to it, because it’s every person you know.”
Witter recalled hitting the promotional circuit to support the single release and getting disparaging looks from Richard Madeley when they appeared on This Morning.
“We’d stayed in a hotel in Liverpool, got too drunk and ended up miming it in a ridiculous fashion in front of Richard and Judy’s faces, which was quite bizarre. We met them and said a quick hello. It was one of those classic bored band things, I think Paul and Alan swapped instruments. I don’t think the telly programme found out until we were long gone and it had been aired. I’m not sure whether they were very happy about it. We were never invited back, but these things happen!”
Listen to the new version of Going For Gold below:
Shed Seven – Going For Gold (Liquid Gold Version, Official Audio) – YouTube 