Dreadlock Holiday

By 1978, 10cc had already spent six years stacking up hits from their own Strawberry Studios in Stockport, with five consecutive UK top-ten albums behind them and a lineup reduced to two after Godley and Creme departed in 1976. It was in this period that Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman wrote "Dreadlock Holiday", a reggae-styled track that became the lead single from the album Bloody Tourists.

The song drew on real experiences. Stewart and Moody Blues vocalist Justin Hayward had been through something similar in Barbados, while Gouldman had his own episode in Jamaica. Stewart remembered watching a white man try to look cool in front of a group of Afro-Caribbeans and get reprimanded for it, a moment that turned into a lyric about showing some respect. Another line came from Gouldman asking a Jamaican whether he liked cricket and receiving the answer, "No, I love it!" Gouldman later admitted that some of the experiences in the song were true and some were only fairly true.

The single topped the charts in the UK, Belgium, New Zealand and the Netherlands, and reached number 2 in Ireland and Australia. It was the band's third UK number 1 and their final top 10 hit there. In North America it fared modestly, peaking at 44 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Gouldman believed some US radio stations simply refused to play reggae of any kind. The music video, directed by Storm Thorgerson, filmed its beach scene on the Dorset coast near Charmouth.