Part Three

When last we heard, Something Special was playing...

Nicky

Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman with me, there's a track from the new album 10cc...meanwhile and that was called

Graham

Something Special

Nicky

Thank you Graham

Graham

You're welcome, Nicky

Nicky

Er, I've got to talk about I'm Not In Love, and, er, it's enduring quality. Whenever, every five years or so, Radio 1 does a Top 100 Singles Of All Time, it's always in there. It's another one that must have made you a few bob along the way as well.

Graham

Aye, I can't deny it

Nicky

Don't deny it, and er, originally I read that it was almost a kind of calypso song

Graham

It was like a Bossa Nova - Brazil '66 - Burt Bacharach kind of thing. We actually recorded it once and decided it wasn't right. We've always been very sort of clear cut in what we want and what we don't want so we erased it. It would have been quite interesting to hwear that version now, in retrospect, but

Nicky

It's no more

Graham

It is no more, but the song sort of stayed in our heads and we all liked the song and then came up with a new rhythm for it

Eric

Well, a total new concept of how to record a song

Nicky

But that's that experimentation in the studio, isn't it?

Graham

But I think that rhythm that you came up with, Eric... Stewart... quite often when we went into the studio, say, Eric and I had written a song, we'd play it to Kev and Lol and they would say 'Yeah well, that's good but try doing it this rhythm and we'd always try that. We were always very good editors together and that was one of the big advantages of the original 10cc, I think.

Nicky

You miss that, then?

Graham

Kind of, yeah. Someone has a sort of different way of looking at a song that makes it different, might not be better but it might be different or more original sounding - is always good.

Nicky

Because you were generally compartmentalised into Gouldman & Stewart and Godley & Crème

Graham

That's right

Nicky

But occasionally the paths crosses somewhat

Graham

But those were the two main teams

Nicky

And so, er, would you think that it would still be beneficial to have another team? Maybe if you did a more organic, original 10cc album than this one. Will that ever happen?

Graham

I think the only way I could see it working was if we did an album with Kev and Lol writing, and did it as we used to do it.

Eric

Yeah

Nicky

I couldn't really see us working with other writers at the moment. That's not to say it couldn't happen. In fact, that's a great idea, let's do it.

Nicky

But back to I'm Not In Love, it's a great way of saying I am in love as well. Who wrote the lyrics for that?

Eric

Graham and I. It was a way of saying to someone 'I love you' without having to say 'I love you'. I had this theory at the time, somebody said to me 'you don't say I love you so many times' and I was saying, how wacky it sounds now, after the first 3 or 4 times you say it, you debase it each time you say it. If you say it every day, it becomes like an American 'Have A Good Day' or 'I Miss You Already' so I tried to think of another way of saying I love you without having to say those words and 10cc were trying to be clever at the time, always twisting things round, and once you think of it in that way, you switch the words round and say I don't love you, I'm not in love and here's the reasons why I'm still totally infatuated by you. Once that idea was in mind, we wrote it very quickly

Graham

In fact, we'd studiously avoided writing a love song, you know, which, if you look at all the albums up to The Original Soundtrack, which I'm Not In Love is on, there aren't any real love songs at all. That was the first one.

I'm Not In Love

Nicky

How was that sound created?

Graham

The voices. Three of us went into the studio and sang the notes. Aaaahhhh. But did it about 20 times and then we XXXX turn cassette over here XXXX as required and then we flew those into the multitrack, which already had a bass drum, rhythm guitar and the electric piano. The four of us actually played the desk, each fader would have a different note, so it was almost like a keyboard and played these notes and mixed them down to a stereo pair, which is what you hear on the record

I'm Not In Love 'Choir'

Nicky

Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart, who devised along with Lol and Kevin, that wonderful pop artefact there, that's 10cc I'm Not In Love. The new album is called 10cc...meanwhile, Eric and Graham writing songs and that quirkiness we were talking about, that sort of off the wall ascerbic view on things, that perspective, that does come in on a few songs, for example, The Green Eyed Monster

Graham

Yes that, the old Green Eyed Monster

Nicky

What, jealousy?

Graham

Yes, it's nice to try and sort of write something about a more gritty subject, also I think on that, lyrically, it's quite abstract in parts as well.

Nicky

Well, there's the middle bit, isn't there?

Graham

Oh yeah the two voices

Nicky

Oh, I'm getting too technical here for you - one person does one bit

Graham

Sort of paranoid. The guy hearing voices in his head

Green Eyed Monster

Nicky

That's from the new album 10cc...meanwhile. As I mentioned earlier on, Gouldman & Stewart and Godley & Crème were the two compartments of song-writing for 10cc, but occasionally there were differences in that configuration.

Graham

Yes

Nicky

And they were interesting as well. Life Is A Minestrone was a Crème - Stewart one wasn't it?

Graham

Yes

Nicky

And Rubber Bullets as well, I think you were involved in that one Graham with Godley & Crème. Those two songs were great songs, perhaps they were so interesting because they were different.

Graham

Yes, I think they were. I mean, sometimes, if someone writes something and they can't get any further with it, then it's a drag if it has to be left aside. I think Kevin and Lol had the chorus and part of the verse on that

Nicky

Of Rubber Bullets?

Graham

Of Rubber Bullets, yes. And it was great. We loved the chorus, it was so good, I mean even the chorus in itself sounded like a hit to us

Nicky

So which bit did they have? Was that the bit that went...

Graham

Load up, load up, load up, with rubber bullets...

Nicky

And did you do the de de de de de de de de de de?

Graham

I did contribute heavily to that section yes. The soft bit, but I also wrote some words. "we've all got balls and brains, but some's got balls and chains" One of my finer couplets!

Nicky

But, like a lot of, well, talking of balls, we had a reference to them in the last song we just heard, didn't we? The old Niagara's?

Graham

Yes

Eric

Mmmm

Nicky

This all links quite well, doesn't it?

Graham

It's amazing what you can do

Nicky

Yes it is, isn't it. The production of Rubber Bullets was an exciting song, but you didn't get much airplay on the BBC because of the Northern Ireland situation at the time

Eric

Yeah, but

Nicky

Pathetic isn't it?

Eric

They thought it was about Northern Ireland, but in fact it was about an Attica State Prison riot, as far as we were concerned. You know those old films like Angels With Dirty Faces, James Cagney, and all that.

Nicky

If you look back at all the stuff that was banned, they wouldn't ban it now

Graham

It's more what they didn't ban was interesting.

Nicky

I mean, there's a famous story of A Walk On The Wild Side getting played, and an executive, when it was out, here at Radio 1, after being told in their office, two minutes previously, what the reference to giving head meant, ran down, and too it off as it was playing on the air. It's the stuff that gets through isn't it? I mean, there as a song, did you not write a song, Graham, Schoolgirl?

Graham

Yes, for the Mindbenders

Nicky

For the Mindbenders, which was banned by the BBC

Graham

I mean, really, the song was a kind of warning really, to beware of, I suppose, in a way it was quite 'moderne' in a way, you know, should use a condom

Nicky

Way back in 1960 blah

Graham

Yes

Eric

Yes

Nicky

Good lord, you were years ahead of your time

Graham

I know, I've always said that.

Nicky

Well, let's see just what was so shocking about it, and we'll also hear a bit of Rubber Bullets as well.

Schoolgirl - Rubber Bullets - (break for the news) - Life Is A Minestrone

Nicky

Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman with me tonight, into the night, fascinating conversation about the future, the present and the past of 10cc. There was Life Is A Minestrone, another time that that usual ubiquitous song writing pattern was altered. Crème - Stewart on that one

Eric

Mmm yeah

Nicky

And another great song, another exciting production, and what bit did you do?

Eric

We were driving home from the studio, doing the album, and something came across on the radio and this guy said something about life is a mummumhrurrur and Lol said 'Did that guy just say minestrone?' er, I said I didn't know what he said but the idea is brilliant. Life IS a minestrone, you know, just a mixture of everything. Vegetable, mineral, whatever and once we had the idea, a title like that conjures up a million things. We wrote the song very, very quickly the next day, played it to Graham and Kevin and they said 'Great. Let's do it' and we recorded it very quickly.