The Making of 10cc's "I'm Not in Love"

[Undertoad]

Pink Floyd went through studio tricks and tape loops and spoken words, but they never wrote a love song. What if you put all that into a love song?

"I'm Not In Love" hit the top of the charts; two months later, Queen went into the studios to record "Bohemian Rhapsody". Where did they get the idea of using more vocal tracks than were available on tape machines?

And two years later, Billy Joel would record "Just the Way You Are" with a nearly identical layering-vocals technique.

10cc man. You didn't know. Innovators, geniuses.

[BigV]

thirty-four years of airplay, back to back to back, for a song made thirty-four years ago?

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Epic song indeed and an excellent analysis. How in the world did they get the studio tapes I wonder. Thanks UT.

[glatt]

That was really interesting.

After watching it, I went to youtube to listen to the final version of the song again to refresh my memory. And that's when I was reminded that this was played in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. I really enjoyed that movie, and I think in hindsight that the soundtrack deserves a significant amount of credit for that.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by glatt

snip--

I really enjoyed that movie, and I think in hindsight that the soundtrack deserves a significant amount of credit for that.

I feel this way about most of Quentin Tarantino's films.

[Pico and ME]

I had no idea, just knew that I loved the song. Did they do anything else after that?

[lumberjim]

I always thought that was a BeeGees song. doh.

[Undertoad]

Did they do anything else after that?

Glad you asked!

At the time of "I'm Not In Love", 10cc consisted of two distinct halves: Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, and Lol Creme and Kevin Godley. The team would stick together for one more album, 1976's "How Dare You!" which was very brilliant, but more in English tastes than American.

After that, Godley and Creme left to work on their invention, a guitar effect called a "Gizmo". This little device attached to an electric guitar near the bridge, and had little spinning wheels; and when you pressed one of six buttons, the wheels would come into contact with the guitar strings. The wheels would play the string like a bow, and for the first time, you could get infinite sustain with a guitar.*

Two problems with this idea. One was that the device was very picky and hard to get working. Two was that the electronic revolution was about to happen, which would allow guitars to sound like just about anything. So the idea of making something to physically change a guitar sound was not happening. And even though Godley and Creme recorded a triple album called "Consequences" to promote the gizmo, both the effect and the album flopped.**

Godley and Creme didn't stop their partnership and decided to go on and make music videos. This was an idea that was perfectly timed, and a lot of your favorite music videos of the early 80s were conceived and directed by Godley and Creme.

Meanwhile, Stewart and Gouldman recruited a new set of musicians and continued on as 10cc. And they were great songwriters, and with this new band they had the hit "Things We Do For Love", and continued to make good records all the while. Gouldman after all had written many hits for other bands, such as "For Your Love" and "Heart Full of Soul" for the Yardbirds, "Bus Stop" for the Hollies and many more. And in the mid 80s, Paul McCartney decided he missed having a songwriting collaborator since Lennon; Eric Stewart became that collaborator, and they wrote McCartney's album "Press to Play".




* I owned a Gizmo, but I never did much with it. I eventually sold it to Marty Willson-Piper of the Church.

** I didn't sell my copy of "Consequences". It's a brilliant work of art, half music, half a spoken-word play about when nature decides it's had enough, and comes back to take revenge on humanity. Featuring the late great Peter Cook.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Pink Floyd went through studio tricks and tape loops and spoken words, but they never wrote a love song. What if you put all that into a love song?

"I'm Not In Love" hit the top of the charts; two months later, Queen went into the studios to record "Bohemian Rhapsody". Where did they get the idea of using more vocal tracks than were available on tape machines?

And two years later, Billy Joel would record "Just the Way You Are" with a nearly identical layering-vocals technique.

10cc man. You didn't know. Innovators, geniuses.

Originally Posted by BigV

thirty-four years of airplay, back to back to back, for a song made thirty-four years ago?

Coincidence? I don't think so.

Epic song indeed and an excellent analysis. How in the world did they get the studio tapes I wonder. Thanks UT.

If you liked the breakdown of the process of making the song, and like me you wondered how in the heck that happened and what other songs have been dissected, you'll like this:

Song Exploder.

A podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I eventually sold it to Marty Willson-Piper of the Church.

How did that happen? Was that post-internet and the two of you connected electronically? Or did you have some other connection?

[Undertoad]

Well I ran the radio station in college and then my friends ran it, and then my friends, and then my friends... basically my entire life has been the college radio station...

It was 1988 and we were all big Church fans and Marty had put out this solo record where he used a Gizmo! So I told my friends all about it - hey there's this weird old guitar effect he used, and I have one!

And they wound up meeting the band at some sort of press/radio thingie, and asked Marty about it, and he told them he was very enthusiastic, but his Gizmo had died. So I called up their management and explained that I had this guitar thingie that Marty would surely want to buy. This led to us all going to their NYC show, which was just as "Milky Way" was peaking, and I met Marty afterwards and sold him the rig.

[glatt]

That's cool!

I mean, it's a very normal sounding story, and it's not like you were selling it to Paul McCartney or somebody like that, but still. You supplied a famous musician with a rare instrument he needed and that he probably used a fair amount afterwards.

[Undertoad]

Yessir, I felt that if I was only going to have it for sentimental reasons, that wasn't right... someone who could make much more use of it should have it.

Marty was unhappy with Godley and Creme because he had contacted them, but they weren't interested in helping him out on getting his model working. They had moved on to their next thing, videos.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You supplied a famous musician with a rare instrument he needed and that he probably used a fair amount afterwards.

He'll remember UT fondly, while enjoying the money for nothing and chicks for free.

Marty was unhappy with Godley and Creme because he had contacted them, but they weren't interested in helping him out on getting his model working.

So they were on the cutting edge of shitty customer service. Heroes for Adobe, Comcast, et al, to emulate.

[elSicomoro]

Working in an office again, I listen to music via headphones. And I'm always impressed by what I hear up close that I've missed before...this song is one of those examples: "Big boys don't cry"...whoa! What the fuck?! I don't remember that from before!

[infinite monkey]

ARGH! How did you miss that part? AM radio turned way low? Still, that's the freaking pinnacle of the song. imho.