In 1938, Roger Greenaway was born in Bristol, England, and the future Songwriters Hall of Famer would go on to have a hand in an astonishing collection of hits, including one song that became inseparable from one of the most famous advertisements ever made.
Greenaway turns 88 on Aug. 23, 2026, more than six decades after he began his songwriting career.
Greenaway is perhaps best known for his longtime partnership with fellow songwriter Roger Cook. The two met as members of the vocal group the Kestrels and began writing together while on tour. Their first collaboration, “You’ve Got Your Troubles,” became a major hit for The Fortunes in 1965, reaching No. 2 in the U.K. and No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.
But that was only the beginning.
Roger Greenaway Co-Wrote The Hollies’ ‘Long Cool Woman’
Greenaway shares a songwriting credit with Cook and The Hollies’ Allan Clarke on the band’s 1972 hit “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.”
The swaggering rock song became a much bigger success in the United States than in The Hollies’ native U.K. It peaked at just No. 32 on the U.K. Singles Chart but climbed all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it the band’s highest-charting U.S. single.
“Long Cool Woman” sold 2 million copies worldwide, including 1.5 million in the United States.
The song also has a particularly colorful history. Clarke said it was written in about five minutes, with a sound influenced by Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty. Its lyrics tell a miniature crime story about an FBI agent who encounters the mysterious title character in a speakeasy before gunfire erupts.
And “Long Cool Woman” was far from Greenaway’s only song to become part of pop culture.
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Roger Greenaway Helped Write One of Coca-Cola’s Most Famous Songs
Greenaway and Cook originally wrote a song called “True Love and Apple Pie,” which was recorded by Susan Shirley. The composition was subsequently reworked by Greenaway, Cook, advertising executive Bill Backer and Billy Davis into a Coca-Cola commercial featuring the now-famous idea, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke.”
The commercial became such a phenomenon that the song was rewritten yet again, this time without the Coca-Cola references, as “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony).”
The New Seekers’ recording became a massive hit, reaching No. 1 in the U.K. and No. 7 in the United States. It went on to sell more than 1 million copies in the U.K. alone.
Greenaway’s songwriting credits stretch well beyond those two songs. He helped write hits recorded by Gene Pitney, Andy Williams, Cilla Black, The Drifters, Tom Jones and Crystal Gayle, among many others.
His later country successes included Jones’ “Say You’ll Stay Until Tomorrow,” which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart in 1977, and Gayle’s “It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye,” another No. 1 country hit in 1980.
Greenaway was awarded an OBE for his services to the music industry in 1998 and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2009.
Not bad for a songwriter whose catalog ranges from a long cool woman in a black dress to an invitation to teach the entire world to sing.
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