Roger McGough was born in Litherland in the north of Liverpool, the city with which he is firmly associated,. He was a pupil at St Mary's College in Crosby with Sociologist and broadcaster, Laurie Taylor , before going on to study French at the University of Hull at a time when Philip Larkin was the librarian there. Returning to Merseyside in the early 1960s, he worked as a French teacher and, with John Gorman, organised arts events. After meeting Mike McGear the trio formed The Scaffold, working the Edinburgh Festival until they signed to Parlophone records in 1966. The group scored several hit records, reaching number one in the UK Singles Chart in 1968 with their version of "Lily The Pink". McGough wrote the lyrics for many of the group's songs and also recorded the musical comedy/poetry album McGough and McGear.

McGough was also responsible for much of the humorous dialogue in The Beatles' animated film, Yellow Submarine, although he did not receive an on-screen credit. At about the same time a selection of his poems was published, along with work from Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, in a best-selling paperback volume of verse entitled The Mersey Sound, first published in 1967, revised in 1983 and again in 2007.

On March 2, 1978, McGough appeared in All You Need Is Cash, a mockumentary detailing the career of a Beatles-like group called The Rutles; McGough's introduction takes so long that he is only asked one question ("Did you know the Rutles?" to which McGough cheerfully responds "Oh yes") before the documentary is forced to move along to other events.

One of McGough's more unusual compositions was created in 1981, when he co-wrote an "electronic poem" called Now Press Return with the programmer Richard Warner for inclusion with the Welcome Tape of the BBC Micro home computer. Now Press Return incorporated several novel themes, including user-defined elements to the poem, lines which changed their order (and meaning) every few seconds, and text which wrote itself in a spiral around the screen.

McGough won a Cholmondeley Award in 1998, and was awarded the CBE in June 2004. He holds an honorary MA from Nene College of Further Education; was awarded an honorary degree from Roehampton University in 2006; as well as an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool on 3 July 2006. He was Fellow of Poetry at Loughborough University (1973-5) and Honorary Professor at Thames Valley University (1993).

In 2006, he appeared on an episode of the BBC Television quiz show, QI - (Series 'D', episode 11).

Poetry

• Summer with Monika 1967
• Watchwords Cape, 1969
• After The Merrymaking Cape, 1971
• Out of Sequence Turret Books, 1972
• Gig Cape, 1973
• Sporting Relations Eyre Methuen, 1974
• In the Glassroom Cape, 1976
• Mr Noselighter André Deutsch, 1976
• Frinck, A Life in the Day of, and Summer with Monika: Poems Joseph, 1978
• Holiday on Death Row Cape, 1979
• Unlucky for Some Bernard Stone, 1980
• Waving at Trains Cape, 1982
• Crocodile Puddles New Pyramid Press, 1984
• Melting into the Foreground Viking, 1986
• Noah's Ark Dinosaur, 1986
• Worry Toni Savage, 1987
• Counting by Numbers Viking Kestrel, 1989
• Selected Poems, 1967-1987 Cape, 1989
• You at the Back: Selected Poems, 1967-87 Cape, 1991
• Defying Gravity Viking, 1992
• Pen Pals: A New Poem Prospero Poets, 1994
• Ferens, the Gallery Cat Ferens Art Gallery, 1997
• Until I Met Dudley Frances Lincoln, 1997
• The Way Things Are Viking, 1999
• Dotty Inventions Francis Lincoln, 2002
• Everyday Eclipses Viking, 2002
• Collected Poems Viking, 2003

For children

• The Great Smile Robbery Viking Kestrel, 1982
• Sky in the Pie Viking Kestrel, 1983
• Nailing the Shadow Viking, 1987
• An Imaginary Menagerie Viking, 1988
• Helen Highwater Viking, 1989
• Pillow Talk Viking Kestrel, 1990
• The Lighthouse that Ran Away Bodley Head, 1991
• My Dad's a Fire-Eater Penguin, 1992
• Another Custard Pie Collins, 1993
• Lucky Viking, 1993
• The Magic Fountain Bodley Head, 1995
• Stinkers Ahoy! Viking, 1995
• The Kite and Caitlin Bodley Head, 1996
• Bad, Bad Cats Viking, 1997
• Good Enough to Eat Puffin, 2002
• Moonthief Kingfisher, 2002
• What on Earth? Puffin, 2002
• Slapstick Puffin 2008
• The Sound Collector

As contributor

• Underdog: New Poems (Underground Poetry Magazine edited by Brian Patten) Underdog Publications, 1965
• The Liverpool Scene : recorded live along the Mersey beat (edited by Edward Lucie-Smith) Donald Carroll, 1967
• Penguin Modern Poets 10 (Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten) Penguin, 1967 (revised edition 1980)
• The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century Verse (contributor) Oxford University Press, 1973
• Portfolio no. 3 (contributor - limited edition) Steam Press, 1976
• You Tell Me: Poems by Roger McGough and Michael Rosen (with Michael Rosen) Viking Kestrel, 1979
• Strictly Private: An Anthology of Poetry (editor) Viking Kestrel, 1981
• New Volume: The Penguin Poets (with Brian Patten and Adrian Henri) Penguin, 1983
• The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (contributor) Norton, 1983
• Kingfisher Book of Comic Verse (editor) Kingfisher, 1986
• Puffin Portable Poets (with Brian Patten and Kit Wright) Puffin, 1990
• The Oxford ABC Picture Dictionary (with Dee Reid, illustrated by Debi Gliori) Oxford University Press, 1990
• An A-Z of the Elements (with John Emsley) Channel 4, 1991
• Penguin Modern Poets 4 (Liz Lochhead, Roger McGough, Sharon Olds) Penguin, 1995
• Another Day on Your Foot and I Would Have Died (with John Agard, Wendy Cope, Adrian Mitchell and Brian Patten) Macmillan Children's Books, 1997
• The Kingfisher Book of Poems about Love (editor) Kingfisher, 1997
• The Ring of Words: An Anthology of Poems for Children (editor) Faber and Faber, 1998
• The Spotted Unicorn: The Diaries of Chi Wen Tzu (editor) Viking, 1998
• Five Finger-Piglets: Poems (with Brian Patten, Jackie Kay, Carol Ann Duffy and Gareth Owen) Macmillan Children's Books, 1999
• The Big Book of Little Poems (contributor) André Deutsch, 1999
• The Kingfisher Book of Funny Poems (editor) Kingfisher, 2002
• Wicked Poems (editor; illustrated by Neal Layton) Bloomsbury, 2004
• Sensational!:poems inspired by the five senses (editor) Macmillan Children's Books, 2005

Plays

• Tartuffe (English adaptation of Molière's play)
• The Hypochondriac (English adaption of Molière's play)