Opening scene from Guardians of the Galaxy.
A short while ago I wrote a post about the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. In that post *(which you can read here) I tossed in a throw-away bit of detail about the movie's first scene being one where the lead character, as a child, is sitting in a hospital waiting room holding a SONY Walkman while listening to the song "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc. While the song itself was not the tune that drove the musical heartbeat of that film, "I'm Not in Love" was a love song, of a sort and, as such, its inclusion on the soundtrack of a movie in which a mother's love fuels a heroes' subsequent actions in saving the galaxy was highly appropriate. While I did not opt to make the song the focal point of the Guardians of the Galaxy post, there are enough interesting elements to the story of "I'm Not in Love" and of the band members who made up 10cc ,that I felt the song deserved a better, more thorough airing in a post of its own. So here we go!
While 10cc, like most bands, had a lineup that evolved over the years, the most famous lineup they had consisted of four young men named Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. All four men grew up together in Manchester, England. They all possessed a love of music and, in particular, a love of songwriting and of singing. As they grew up, Godley and Creme paired off because they shared a musical vision that was more artistic and avant garde in nature. Stewart and Gouldman were songwriters in the more traditional rock sense and, as such, they initially had more success in the industry. As individuals, all four men have musical resumes that are vast and varied, extending back years before 10cc formed, including the hit making years of 10cc and then, all of the various projects they enjoyed success with after 10cc stopped being a thing. In the middle of it all were two monster songs by 10cc called "I'm Not in Love" and "The Things You Do For Love". The first hit "I'm Not in Love" is the only hit that all four members were involved with so that is where my focus will sit for this post.
Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, Graham Gouldman and (sitting) Lol Creme of 10cc.
"I'm Not in Love" was released in 1975. For me, it is one of those songs that forms the essential soundtrack vibe of that decade. However, by the time Gouldman, Stewart, Godley and Creme came to record that song, they had been in and out of each other's lives, professionally and personally for over a decade. Here are the short strokes of how these four men ended up in the studio in 1975 to record a song with over 256 separate tracks!!!! The journey they made to arrive at that point is quite something.
- The first recorded musical project that these young men were involved with happened in 1964 (which is the year of my birth or, for most other people, it was sixty years ago as of the writing of this post). Gouldman formed a local teenage band called the Whirlwinds with Godley on drums. They recorded and released several songs including one written by Lol Creme. That band broke up due to lack of commercial success.
- Godley and Creme then joined forces as the Yellow Mellow Boom Room. They recorded a single at a studio called Marmalade. The single went nowhere but the owner of Marmalade Records thought that Kevin Godley's falsetto-type voice was interesting and signed the group to a contract. The idea was to market Godley and Creme as the UK equivalent to Simon and Garfunkal. The duo recorded several tracks using Gouldman and Stewart, among others, as session players. This was the first time all four men worked on a project together. Unfortunately, Marmalade Records went belly up before anything could come of these new tracks.
- In addition to his session work, Gouldman was writing songs for the Yardbirds, The Hollies and Herman's Hermits.
- Meanwhile Eric Stewart became a guitarist for the band Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders. In that role, he enjoyed having hit songs such as "A Groovy Kind of Love" and "The Game of Love". When Wayne Fontana left the group, Stewart took over lead singing duties. Graham Gouldman eventually joined the band in time to contribute a few songs for their final album before breaking up.
- In 1968, Eric Stewart decided to expand his skill set by studying as a recording engineer. This role would serve the band 10cc well when it came time to record "I'm Not in Love". However, at that time, Stewart decided to invest in the ownership of a professional recording studio which would hopefully generate a more steady and consistent source of income than was the case from trying to record hit singles. A year later, Graham Gouldman also agreed to invest in the recording studio (which was named Strawberry Studios in honour of the Beatles hit song "Strawberry Fields Forever"). Now that the two friends had their own studio, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley began hanging around, too. With the four of them working in the same studio space, it was only a matter of time before they began collaborating on projects together.
- Stewart and Gouldman entered into an agreement with a US-based company called Super K Productions. Super K Productions were known for selling compilation records filled with formula-driven, novelty-type songs. An agreement was reached with Stewart and Gouldman to record several dozen of these novelty songs using Godley and Creme as session players. These songs were successfully sold and ended up appearing on radio and in albums under a wide array of made up band names. The arrangement was so successful that Gouldman was enticed to move to New York to become Super K's inhouse songwriter.
- With Gouldman temporarily gone, Godley, Creme and Stewart recorded their own music under the band name Hotlegs. They had one Top Ten hit with a song called "Neanderthal Man". As Hotlegs, the band toured as opening act for The Moody Blues.
- The final stage of this pre-10cc saga happened when Stewart, Godley and Creme helped Neil Sedaka record two albums that both became successful for him. The guys contributed several songs, as well as playing on a majority of the tracks that ended up on the album. Watching Neil Sedaka tour the world on the strength of music that was, for the most part, their music caused the guys to reflect upon what they had been doing with their careers to that point. A consensus was reached that they should stop working for others and try working for themselves. After that conversation they reached out to Graham Gouldman to see if he was ready to come back home to England. It turns out that he was.
- Once Gouldman returned the four men recorded some songs that eventually ended up being played for promoter Jonathan King. King was the man behind a string of hit songs that were a bit out there such as Blue Swede's cover of "Hooked on a Feeling" by B.J. Thomas, as well as "Who Let the Dogs Out" by the Baha Men a few years later. King thought that the music he was hearing had hit making potential. He signed the guys to a record contract and dubbed them as 10cc. ***There is no definitive explanation for what the term "10cc" actually means but, the most commonly referred to explanation is that it is a porno term for how much semen a male porn star needed to be able to produce when the time came for the "money shot" in a porn movie.
- While the band now known as 10cc had a few hits with King as promoter, they never felt as though they were reaching their full potential. By 1975, they dropped King and signed a new contract with Mercury Records in the U.S. The new deal they signed with Mercury was arrived at after the band played a few songs for label executives that they had been working on. One of those songs was called "I'm Not in Love".
Strawberry Studios in England.
"I'm Not in Love" is a song that is noted for how it sounds. There is a dreamy, ethereal quality about it that makes it quite distinctive from the vast majority of other songs that appeared on radio at the time or since. The origin story of the song is that it was written by Eric Stewart based on a mild complaint from his wife that he wasn't telling her that he loved her as much anymore now that they had been married for several years. Stewart responded by saying that his love for her was so deep that it didn't require constant airing anymore. However, a more formal response by Stewart seemed necessary so he attempted to write a love song that didn't say "I love you" but which was still a declaration of deep, undying love for his wife. That response took the form of a song called "I'm Not in Love". Initially, the band tried recording it in an upbeat style. However, they could never arrive at a version that satisfied them. They all loved the lyrics but the tempo and atmosphere were a problem. The song was close to being abandoned out of frustration. But what saved it was hearing staff members at the studio humming and singing the song as they worked. There was obviously something special about this song, they just had to find the key to unlock its magic. That key turned out to be a radical idea. Kevin Godley suggested that they abandon instrumentation and record the song using only vocal tracks. This is where Eric Stewart's decision to learn how to be a sound engineer came into play. Godley's idea was to exchange all backing instrumentation that would traditionally be used and replace it with a choir of voices. Since the band had no choir to call upon, they ended up recording themselves singing, making sounds and saying individual words in all major keys and octave ranges. In total, they recorded 256 separate tracks. Then they all went into the sound mixing booth and adjusted the volume fader switches as the main lyrics were played. The result is that, aside from some subdued keyboards and a few bass notes, the song is all voices (including the repeated line "Big boys don't cry" that was spoken by the receptionist at the studio). When you listen to the song next, pay particular attention to the backing sounds while Eric Stewart sings the main lyrics and then, pay attention to the places where silence would normally be (such as after the end of a line is sung). If you do, a choir of angels appears to be present. It is a crazy, imaginative and innovative feat of sound engineering. It is what gives "I'm Not in Love" such an otherworldly sound quality to it. The song went to No. 1 in the UK and was the band's first Top Ten hit in America. It is easily one of the classic songs of the 1970s and is the one that members of the band say that they are most proud of. This brings us to the next phase of the musical resume story.
The mixing board where the choir of angels was mixed.
- Eventually the success that the four men enjoyed as 10cc ran its course. Right from their earliest days in Manchester in 1964, there were always competing visions at play when it came to how Godley and Creme viewed the art of making music, as compared to that of Stewart and Gouldman. Only a few years after 10cc had begun, Godley and Creme left the band to start their own company. The timing of their departure coincided with the introduction of music videos as marketing tools and the launch of television stations such as MTV and Much Music as video distribution and promotion vehicles. Some of the earliest music videos that earned rave reviews for their creativity and artistry came from the minds of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. They released their own award winning video for a song called "Cry" and also worked on other notable videos such as "Rockit" by Herbie Hancock, "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, "Girls on Film" by a young Duran Duran, as well as the Kate Bush/Peter Gabriel hit "Don't Give Up".
- Lol Creme eventually went his own way and formed a band called Art of Noise. This band had a Grammy winning hit called the "Peter Gunn Theme".
- Gouldman and Stewart remained as 10cc. They felt a greater sense of freedom to write Pop songs now that Godley and Creme had left. As a duo, they had several hit songs including one major hit with "The Things You Do For Love". When Godley and Creme left the band, it was assumed that 10cc would wither and fade away. So the success of "The Things You Do For Love" felt like vindication for Stewart and Gouldman. Unfortunately for Stewart and the band, Stewart became involved in a serious car accident and was forced to abandon touring and recording for a while. The band continued on with Gouldman at the helm but 10cc never recovered from this setback. By the mid-1980s, the band was put on hiatus.
Since 1990, there have been a variety of reunions and collaborations between the original four members of 10cc but nothing has resulted that approaches the creative heights of their hits "I'm Not in Love" and "The Things You Do For Love". That is ok, really. The song "I'm Not in Love" in particular is such an original song that possesses such a universal topic that, even if these four guys never played another note again for the rest of their lives, it would still be enough to secure their reputations as musical magicians forever. It also brings us back to the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. The entire premise of that film was that the power of love is greater than the love of power as exhibited by the main evil character in the movie. The universal idea that true love becomes such an integral element of our being is the message that the producers of Guardians of the Galaxy chose to begin their film with. It is the same message that 10cc member Eric Stewart decided was how he wanted his love for his wife to be expressed to her and to the world. Finally, it is the reason why 10cc member Kevin Godley thought that a choir of angels was the key to unlocking the song's magic. He was correct. They all were. There is just something about "I'm Not in Love" that resonates on a different level from most songs out there in our world. In a way, I guess that makes it just like love itself. For the magic to reach your heart, it only has to happen once. I will leave you with this one last question: is "I'm Not in Love" what knowing true love sounds like? I think it just might be so.
The link to the official website for 10cc can be found here.
The link to the official website for Lol Creme and the Art of Noise can be found here.
The link to the official website for Kevin Godley can be found here.
The link to the official website for Strawberry Recording Studios can be found here.
The link to the video for the song "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc can be found here. ***The lyrics version….which I prefer for this particular song…can be found here.
***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author, No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any form without the express written consent of the author. ©2024 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com
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