858 The Yardbirds “For Your Love” 1965

“‘For Your Love’ was composed in the changing room of a men’s clothing shop where one of British pop’s great enigmas then worked. The originator of smashes, home and abroad, for The Hollies, Herman’s Hermits, Dave Berry, Freddie & the Dreamers and Wayne Fontana as well as The Yardbirds, Manchester’s Graham Gouldman was oddly unable to get far with his own groups, The Whirlwinds and then The Mockingbirds—whose 1964 version ‘For Your Love’ had been urned down by Columbia…At first, Gouldman’s manager Harvey Lisberg pondered sending the number to The Beatles—but as Graham himself would muse with a laugh, ‘They were doing all right in the songwriting department…but he still mentioned the idea to a publisher friend, who suggested that instead it should be offered to The Yardbirds as they were looking to break away from pure R&B and become more commercial” (Alan Clayson, The Yardbirds, 2002). 

The Yardbirds “For Your Love”