Mitch Murray (born 30 January 1940, Hove, Sussex), is an English songwriter and author.

Murray’s first major songwriting success was ‘How Do You Do It’. It was picked up by producer George Martin, who insisted that The Beatles record it as their first single. They had already taped one of their own compositions, ‘Love Me Do’, in June 1962, but Martin considered it not strong enough, and reluctantly they rearranged and recorded it in September 1962. Their lack of enthusiasm was clear in the recording, which remained officially unreleased until it appeared on Anthology 1 in 1995. Martin allowed them to release ‘Love Me Do’ as a single instead, and passed song and arrangement to another young Liverpool group, Gerry and the Pacemakers. Their version launched their career with a No. 1 single the following spring. Thus encouraged, Murray sent them another of his songs, ‘I Like It’, which became their second single and also topped the British charts.

He had further success throughout the next ten years, writing ‘You Were Made For Me’ and ‘I’m Telling You Now’ for Freddie and the Dreamers, the latter in collaboration with front man Freddie Garrity. His 1964 book, 'How To Write A Hit Song' famously inspired (Sting) - then a 12 year-old schoolboy - to start writing songs. Sting now refers to Mitch Murray as 'My Mentor.'

Most of Murray's subsequent hits were written with Peter Callander, among them ‘Even The Bad Times Are Good’ (The Tremeloes), ‘The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde’ (Georgie Fame), 'Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha' (Cliff Richard), ‘Ragamuffin Man’ (Manfred Mann), ‘Hitchin’ a Ride’ (Vanity Fare), and 'Avenues And Alleyways', 'Las Vegas' and ‘I Did What I Did for Maria’ for (Tony Christie). Murray also co-produced Tony Christie, and was responsible for the production of the eternal, 'Is This The Way To Amarillo?' (written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield).

In 1971, Murray conceived and founded the renowned Society Of Distinguished Songwriters (SODS). Current members include Sir Tim Rice, Les Reed, OBE, Guy Chambers, Gary Barlow, David Arnold, Mike Batt, Justin Hayward, Don Black, OBE, and more than thirty others.

Later Murray and Callander formed their own record label, Bus Stop, which enabled them to launch the career of Paper Lace. Their first two singles, released in 1974, were both written by Murray and Callander, "Billy Don't Be A Hero" (No. 1 UK, with a cover version by Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods reaching No. 1 in the US), and "The Night Chicago Died" (No. 1 US).

In the mid 1980s, in the final months prior to the privatisation of British Telecom, Murray wrote and starred in a series of comedy programmes, The Telefun Show, which were only available for listening via the telephone (by dialling 01-246 8070 in the UK) in a similar way to the contemporary Dial-A-Disc service, which he also presented and which attracted up to 400,000 calls per day.

Since his own outrageous single, ‘Down Came The Rain’, Mitch has built up a reputation for comedy in many areas, including voice characterisation for movies and radio commercials as well as for after-dinner speaking. He is now regarded as one of Britain’s leading professional humorous speechwriters and has written several best-selling books on the subject including ‘Mitch Murray's One-Liners For Weddings’ (1994), 'Mitch Murray's One-Liners For Business' and ‘Mitch Murray's One-Liners for Speeches on Special Occasions’ (1997).