New Monday #88
I'm Not In Love
The members of 10cc—Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley—were kicking around the Manchester area (in England) throughout the sixties, occasionally playing together and all having some success, especially bassist Gouldman, who wrote three hits for The Yardbirds (For Your Love, Heart Full of Soul, Evil Hearted You), Bus Stop for the Hollies, etc. Eric Stewart sang the hit A Groovy Kind of Love with the Mindbenders, but he was really more interested in producing and engineering.
Eventually, the four of them wound up at Strawberry Studios, writing and recording bubblegum pop records. These records were released under various names, but it was the same four guys taking turns singing. The one you might know is Sausalito by Ohio Express. It's actually 10cc.
10cc was a mix of pop brilliance, innovation, and wonderment at the possibilities of technology and music. The four were fantastically talented fellows, all multi-instrumentalists, all capable of singing and writing hits. Their early albums boiled over with brilliance, perhaps none more so than 1974's Sheet Music. This is a record to hear. It’s an 8-track. I have no idea how they pulled it off.
Their high-water mark was in 1975, with the song I’m Not in Love, which I remember hearing time and time again on that plane flight home from Italy.
I’m Not in Love was on the album The Original Soundtrack. This is an utter mindblower of a record. Listen to it here.
There has been a ton written about I’m Not In Love, and there are videos describing it as well. You can look all that up. I’ll explain it as clearly as I can, as quickly as I can, with a few things I don’t think anyone thought about.
I’m Not in Love
I'm Not in Love was cut at 10cc's home base, Strawberry Studios, outside of Manchester, in England. The console was a chocolate brown Helios, the tape deck a 16-track 3M.
10cc was very much a democratic unit with a majority rule decision-making system. Eric Stewart brought the song into the band, and the four of them picked over it for a few days, finally tracking it live as something best described as 'Steely Dan playing Bossa Nova'. They took a vote, the haters won, and the song was abandoned and the original steely bossa version was erased.
They came back to it a few weeks later at the insistence of the studio's secretary—it was stuck in her head. They smoked some pot and had another discussion, and decided to do it a capella using vocal loops, essentially making a string section or a keyboard out of their voices.
They needed to record twelve notes, the chromatic scale, which would allow them to "play" any chord they needed for the song. They also recorded a thirteenth note an octave up.
Eric Stewart sat in the control room while the other three crowded around a single microphone and sang a unison note. They did that 16 times—one on each track of the 16-track deck. So, 48 voices per note. Thirteen notes, for a total of 624 voices. It took three weeks. It must have been hell.
Once they filled up the sixteen tracks needed for each note, they then mixed each note down to a stereo tape deck. They figured that they needed about a 12-foot loop for each note.
12 feet x 12 inches—each loop was 144 inches long. I'm guessing that they were recording at 15 inches per second. Divide 144 by 15—each loop was a little under 10 seconds long. Which means that when they were cutting those 624 voices, they had to hold each note without a break for about 10 seconds. SO... for three weeks, these guys sang 13 notes, 208 times, holding each note for 10 seconds. 34 minutes of recorded vocals cut across three weeks for a song a little over 6 minutes in length. How many takes did it take because someone got off pitch, or someone farted? Or someone started laughing, because I'm sure there was a lot of weed involved. Or everyone wanted to kill each other just because. These guys were crazy... but committed.
So, now they've got 13 twelve-foot-long loops of tape. One at a time, they put each loop onto the stereo machine and stretched it out by using mic stands with a special sort of pulley thing Eric Stewart devised. Then they printed each loop to one track of yet another 16-track tape, running each loop for about seven minutes, each note recorded individually to tracks 1 to 13.
Uh oh. Problem! Only three tracks left on the tape!
They laid a guide track to 14, an electric piano, a Moog synthesizer making a kick drum-like sound, and a rough vocal. Only two tracks left.
The four members of 10cc then crowded around the console, each responsible for three or four faders. They worked out a loose arrangement, which chords were when, then started bouncing tracks 1 through 13 down to tracks 15 and 16. They took their time, figuring out panning and fades, working out the arrangement and practicing the moves. I am guessing they probably did some punching in as well, which would have been easy to do in this situation, which was essentially something called a mixback. Eventually, they wound up with a really interesting stereo mix of those 13 notes. By the way, throughout the song, all thirteen notes are always in, albeit at a low level, adding a suspended and slightly atonal haze to things.
And then they erased tracks 1 through 13! GAH!!!! Talk about burning your bridges!
They redubbed the Moog kick sound and the Fender Rhodes electric piano—you can hear that over to the left—played by Eric Stewart. Lol Creme plays an ES-335, DI'd into the console quietly on the right. There's a bass solo, by Graham Gouldman, in the very interesting bridge, made all the more interesting by a woman's voice whispering, "Big boys don't cry." It was the studio secretary, Kathy, who loved the song enough to push the band to record it. She received a gold record for her contribution.
Eric Stewart cut his lead vocal in one take with a few punch-ins. They recorded some additional background vocals as well as some slowed-down tape loops—those low low voices that crop up every now and again. Listen for a toy piano on the fadeout.
10cc drifted into two factions: Stewart and Gouldman, and Godley and Creme. Godley and Creme felt constrained by the democracy and left in 1977. Eric Stewart thought they were crazy to leave a situation that was so successful. All went on to more projects.
Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman kept the name and had a few more hits. Gouldman also went on to write with Andrew Gold and eventually with his old mate Kevin Godley. Eric Stewart played on and co-wrote a bunch of songs with Paul McCartney. He guested on vocals for The Alan Parsons Project.
Stewart and Gouldman were partners for years, but then drifted apart.
Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were true innovators. They worked on their own albums as well as productions for others, developing things like The Gizmotron, which is a device that mechanically bows the strings of a guitar or bass, and became groundbreaking music video directors, creating Every Breath You Take for The Police, Rockit for Herbie Hancock, Girls on Film for Duran Duran and more, and even a video for Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman.
They too drifted apart.
In recent years, Gouldman and Godley have become friends again. Stewart and Creme are in contact—their wives are sisters.
Basically, four incredibly creative people who drove each other crazy. But when it worked, it worked beautifully.
Where did they get the name 10cc? Well... you’ll have to watch this very short video.
Speaking of friends, why not shoot an email to someone you’ve not talked to in years? They’d love to hear from you.
Warm regards,
Luke