This song was the one i always turned up high on the radio when i daydreamed about my first "love" (now passed away) in high school . . . I was so very enamored with him - have never felt quite the same way again and here I am in my late 50's. My first love, I will always love you.
I'm 50 years old, and will never tire of this song!!! So beautiful to this very day!! Brings back such sweet memories of innocence, fun, and of course,love hmmmmm, great days!!!
man this takes me right back to the 70's....a great time when people were nice to each other, you could rely on your neighbors, and you just rode your bike all day as a kid and played outside until the sun went down.
I love this song! But have you ever REALLY LISTENED to the lyrics?!? I know it's about him not really admitting that HE REALLY IS IN LOVE...but he's being a real asshole trying to disguise it...JUST LISTEN!
This song, along with numerous love ballad hits of the 70's, are what i like to call the "heartbeat rhythm" ballads.. Love songs that had barely any drums, if any at all, with just a simple, throbbing, rhythm that was soothing to everyone's ears, and would either put you in the mood, or put you to sleep.. This of course, is coming from a long time professional drummer, and child of the 70's who grew up listening to songs like this on the radio ;)) . Other examples of "heartbeat ballads" would be songs like Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are", The Bee Gee's "How Deep Is Your Love", and Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now", The Carpenters "Close To You", and of course, this one.. All great tunes that will always be remembered for their honesty, emotional depth, gorgeous musical arrangements, and peaceful and melancholic ambiance..
May I also add KC and the sunshine band's "Please don't go" and The Cars "Drive". Yes, I know these are from early the 80s ,but the melancholic vibe is very, very similar. Cheers
exionem Great tunes, although i have to correct you on the KC and the Sunshine Band's Please Don't Go, which was released in 1979, but was played in the early 80's..
blica 1 This song won at least one award for its technical complexity. These sounds weren't created by a synthesizer, but by recording over individual voices and individual notes time and time again. Painstakingly slow process. BTW, there were no drums used in this recording. This was a keyboard run through a filter to give it a drum sound. This song is also the one I always called 'complete denial'.
This was voted one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Absolutely! When I hear it, I get chills and it takes me back to the best time of my life. All those days laying in the sun, listening to the radio, dreaming about that crush, running for the phone, hoping it's him. Those were the days. This was the music.
+WendiWhat? Very interesting story on how it was recorded. Everyone hated the first version on guitar, but kept humming it in the office. So they sat down and recorded it with clever tape loops of vocals. "Big boys don't cry" is the voice of their office assistant.
Love the keyboards and synthesizer at the end. I remember when this came out in 1975 as a youth and fell in love with the song right away. Better than any of the fake crap you hear on radio today.
I was a 13 year old boy in 1985 (during by childhood in Nigeria) when I first heard this song. One day when my dad was away at work, I was bored and I decided to play around with his vinyl records and turntable and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.
wow what a terrible father you'd be. i'd sit the kid down n explore the good tunes with him. make real music his "kids music" instead of mary had a little lamb or some shit
I was 17 back in 1975 and fell hard for a young man whom I knew cared deeply for me. This song was beautifully haunting to me, and the message was quite clear. The young man wasn't ready to make any commitments then. Three years later we were married. We have two grown sons and will celebrate our 38th anniversary April Fool's Day 2016. I still love this song.
This song is so haunting. It gives the feeling you feel in your lungs when they leave you. That emptiness, the questioning and denial. It's really a powerful thing.
This song has the ability to bring back both sorrow and joy at the same time. Joy that you remembered all the good things you experienced in the past but sadness that all of your friends and acquaintances are no longer involved in your life and your life is so much more complicated. I am sitting here cooped up in my house as a result of a virus that started halfway around the world. Never in my lifetime did I ever think this would be the case today.
Very well said. I'll 2nd that all the way around. Still good times ahead though. Cherish the past, but look forward to memories yet to be made in the future. Make that happen.
When this song was released it was considered to be technically the most advanced at that time - and it won a Grammy. The song has a haunting melody with exquisite harmonies - and all that laced with clever, ironic lyrics - one of the hallmarks of the 100cc outfit. This will remain as their Opus Magnum into eternity. Probably amongst the top 10 stand out songs of that decade.
Sometimes..Certain songs come out that are simply UNIQUE..and this is definitely one of them !! I have NEVER heard ANY song quite like this one..EVER..and I doubt there will EVER be one quite like it made again !!
I am randomly scrolling the visceral remembrances and comments about this hypnotic, heavenly production. And then there was yours. What a beautiful song, and production, to keep him near. My sincere sympathies.
+Anthony Moses: Agreed! I was born in the early 70s, and my parents had hundreds of LPs in their collection. Best music around, and I play the CDs for my young sons. :)
+Scarlett Wilson I WAS BORN IN THE 50'S ,MY HEART IS IN THE 60'S BUT I LOVE ALL THE 70'S SO MUCH. MUSIC IN GENERAL IS JUST SO DAMN AWESOME. JUST KEEP IT COMING.
+Anthony Moses Show them Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, ELO's A New World Record, Frank Zappa's Apostrophe (') and George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. I think that'll get them into it.
+Anthony Moses I was born in 1999 and I love this type of music.. It's not like all of us dislike old music. In fact, I prefer music from the 60's or 70's over modern day pop music.
This takes me back to 1975, and my first love and first my first broken heart. It's amazing how this song brings back that time and those emotions like it was yesterday.....
I used to listen to this song on WLS Chicago AM station...the only station we could get that played good music in the small country town we lived in in Arkansas in the summers. I always was afraid that my love felt this way about me. I was so in love...but was he? He did finally leave me for others...and I still love him. Pic is of my dear husband...God sent me true love in my 40's. Too late to have the family I always wanted with my first love. I still have all the letters my first love wrote me. I just can't let them go. I did wait a long time...
Kimberly Morley you are right.This song brings back nice memories. Now I am 54 years. old and longing for those days. Thank you for your nice comment.
One of the most incredible love songs of ALL time, bar none....just spectacular :) What I wouldn't give to go back in time, 70s best years of my life 😊 The best song about denial of feelings ever written.
When I hear this song (particularly toward the end) I close my eyes and I'm back on the play ground at Marley Elementary for recess. I can all see kids running around playing. Kids on the swings sets and Mr. Gates (my 6th grade teacher)walking around Making sure everyone is safe and Ok. I don't know what it is about this song, but it makes me drift into the past. Absolutely, stunningly beautiful song.
That's a great picture you paint. I love the sentiment that Mr Gates was looking after everyone, that's how it was. Thank you for taking me back to my past.
Its a time machine built in to it! lol I feel you SO much! 6th grade, crushes on teachers and students alike. JOan Beres was the finest 4th grade teacher I ever saw. and Lori King was the finest 4th grader ! hands down hahahaha
kenwayne96 Born in 1962, this brings me back to hot summer nights in Montreal, listening on a battery operated transistor radio. The sun setting on a hazy field with as a few insects hover above the tall grass. Total innocents, carefree
I remember riding my bike past the girls house all day long just hoping she comes out so we can talk. Such innocent times . That's where this song takes me. I can see her face clear as day.
trekranger So cool how music can do that, transport you back so clearly that it is almost like being there. Good memories my friend, may we have many more.
Life is a love song, short and sweet or longtimerunning! To hear this as a boy and then again as a grown grandparent now! So Beautiful! Look what our past music, and the ease of access to recordings, now easier than ever for all of our offspring to listen to and share like we have! Forevermusic in our HEARTS and SOULS! Ahhhh Wondeful Life! :)
Compare this total masterpiece we the crap we are served up with today. I was 19 back then and really miss those golden days. Thank you for posting this.
I run a Facebook group called 'Days Of Gold'. It's a secret group, but we welcome anyone who loves this kind of music. It's a great bit of escapism from today's so-called music.
People don't like this? Wow. There are around 64 vocal tracks on this song alone. Truly groundbreaking music, recording, engineering. And, it's a brilliant song. "Be quiet, big boys don't cry" :)
You know what Don? This "internet" is a double edged sword. I don't know how old you are, but I was 8 when this song came out. I slept with a radio under my pillow, and this song played all the time. It's great we can listen to all these great songs whenever we please, but it comes with a price. It's also degrading our society since everyone feels free to be mean to their brothers and sisters every day now.
One hell of a song! So haunting. Excellent production and the finest effort from 10cc. I remember hearing this in the mid 70s...throughout the day. We will never see groups produce songs like this again.
I was 17, she was 16. She shzred her greatest gift a young mixed up teenager could dream of. Soft, passionate love making. 40 years later, she still dances on my heart strings with this song.
1976, company Xmas party at La Valbonne in Soho, London. This song was playing as I walked in with the only man I have ever been totally and completely crazy in love with. I was 22, he was 38 and I could tell him anything. Haven't seen him for a long time but this song tells the story.
I was sixteen left home to work for the summer before Uni. This was the song that marked that HOT weather plus 18 with a bullet. Loved both those damn songs 😄👍
I'm a 17 year old that loves this kind of music.. I'm hoping to get even more into it, so much so that it'll carry on to my future children. Screw modern pop songs about money, sex, and drugs.
just turned 50. This takes me back to being a kid collecting 45's of all the great songs of the time. A time with no computers, cell phones, computer games and political correctness. Wish I'd known then how lucky I was.
DaveE7171, I just turned 50 11 months ago as well. OMG, 51 is around the corner now. Broke the first half a century, we've got a whole complete life to live from here. I have to agree with you, back then was such a good time for us. These kids today are being bombarded with too much information to properly grow. 45's, transistor radios, riding bikes, dinner at 6 sharp. It was a great time to be a kid.
bryan maleckar smoke a joint, drop some acid and take a hit of nitrous. The big guy will be staring you right in your fucking face. I guarantee it. He won't let you remember the revelations that wash like waves through your consciousness, but hey, you won't be an atheist anymore.
Just wanted to add this wisdom from my father who was a minister. If you believe in god and in the end their is no god, no harm done. If you don't believe in god and their is one, well then your f&*cked.
But then if there actually is a god who gets off on fucking people over for not believing in him (and presumably in his sanction of human sacrifice, slavery, child murder, sadistic cruelty--a tyrant to the point of noting and punishing every wrong thought throughout your life), is this psychopath god one you want to sit on a cloud and sing praises to forever and ever? How is it possible to believe such nonsense?
James McMurtry I hear your complaint! I too; having been brought up in a catholic church, did my own searching, and wrestled with the contradictions. Genesis when you read it, sounds of a tale from Roman or Greek teachings of their gods. It reads as if God set humanity up for failure from the get go! And then would send those that worship him not, to eternal darkness,weeping and gnashing of teeth, in a fiery hell. In short; I believe in a creator! An entity that spoke it, or thought it...,Big Bang! The biblical account, I have to say doesn't make one love God, but fear him! Can't love something that plays tricks on his creation, and then says, "It repenteth me that I made man." Really!!! Did it not repenteth him for making the error in the first place, by not removing the tempter in the midst of two young people. Same with the rib thing from Adam. If this is true, every male that is born should be one less rib that females, since we are Adam's decendants! I do get your ire over it; but don't bang others over the head for their belief. Don't steal their joy and openness, because we may not see things as others. Of all things; be of kindness!
2:44: I keep your picture, upon the wall... It hides a nasty stain that's lyin' there..... So don't you ask me to give it back.... I know you know it doesn't mean that much to me..... I'm not in Love.....no no.....It's because.......... This part of the song always killed me. So brutal. But so much denial too.
Love is where the good human heart aims. Any deviance will cause a tremor. And love is fragile. Only Jesus was perfect: from a 10-year , 2x Army, combat veteran , divorcee, with full custody of my beautiful 13-year old son. Trying to live in peace.
I showered after working on the roof (120 F). Turned the AC window unit on full blast, laid down exhausted on the bed and listened. When you can't or don't want to move, your other senses are enhanced. This song, and the reverb echo chamber still resonates in that dead body to this day.
Barry Cole They did the background vocals by recording themselves singing different harmony tones then programmimg them into a synth machine. Then they could change or sustain certain harmonic tones by hitting different keys on the synthesizer keyboard.
That's exactly what it sounds like. Thanks for the info. I spent a couple of hours on RU-vid yesterday just reminiscing around in the '70s. "I'm Not in Love" is one of those all-time favorites of mine that can take me right back to that space and time. Mind/time traveling.
I played this song over and over ad nauseum in mid-to late 1975 to try to convince myself that the end of a certain relationship was nothing dramatic. BULLSHIT. I AM a big bloke and I DID cry, albeit in private. A great song and everything about it was brilliantly done.
The Most Powerful Song of 1975. I Was 20. It Hit Me Like A Ton Of Bricks. "Big Boys Don't Cry" ...Holy Moses. That Is A Mind Numbing Sentiment. Where Do You Go From There? 10 CC Recorded Perhaps The Greatest Love Song Of All Time That Wasn't A "Love Song", If You Follow. You Have To "Listen" To This Masterpiece, It Is Guaranteed To Rip Your Heart Out. Seriously.
Killer stuff of my youth. Mom driving us all around the State in the Chevy SS wagon with no seatbelts and no car seats in sight. Spare tire and loose jack rolling around in the back with us. We are all just fine today.
All three of us kids, in the back seat of Pop's `71 Plymouth Newport, asking him to open the window ( to let all the pipe and cigarette smoke out). Those were the days.
3 yrs old laying down on top of the rear speaker deck of our 1969 Dodge Charger family car, remember seeing kids riding in the back of pickups driving down the highway. What happened?
lg okie I can remember riding in Pop's `67 Charger (he worked for Chrysler 1960-80). The back seats could fold down.....that was fun riding in it, that way!
I used to sit in my window on rainy days and listen to my portable radio. All the easy listening on AM radio I could handle. So happy whenever I heard this. Great song
This song, although when I listen to it, I'm back in the summer of 1975, takes me back to a particular place and not a particular person. That place and this song will always be the same.
Reminds me of the summer days in the 70,s, on the beach. Around Michigan City Indiana or Long Beach. Somewhere this song would be playing in the background. Life was way simpler.
Instantly back in 1977ish when I first heard this song at age 7ish. My brothers left the radio on low in the middle of the night, and I woke to this song, the window was open and a breeze was blowing the trees.. With this song it felt like some awesome dream.
I've always loved this song and recently heard about the recording process and the effort they put into pushing the capabilities of the technology at that time spending months creating the layered choir alone. There's something like 220+ vocal tracks on it. I truly think it's a masterpiece
From the opening note to the finish_ a work of art. A musical masterpiece. 43 years on and it still gives me the chills. They just don't write them like this anymore.
I remember first hearing this song at Dyess, A.F.B. when I believe I was about 3-4 yrs old. Although I was too little too understand the meaning of the song, it helped pass time while working on my ceramics with my mom. This song was truly one of my favorites! Good, good times!
This song, when I was 11, was like the bridge between being a boy and becoming a man when I would listen to it and think of my first girlfriend, totally innocent, except feeling love for the first time....
Brings back great memories listening to this on my portable am/fm radio and taping it with a mike from my reel to reel tape player. Had to cue the mike to avoid the DJ's intro. Pretty cool for a kid in those days.
The synths and effects really set this song apart from the rest. Add to that the emotional resonance and ethereal vibe, and you have a legendary tune that's impossible to forget. All those below with connections to this song, I feel you.
Me too!! I call it a "blessing" just do to the fact we "oldies" have experienced pretty much every type of music that's out there! Think of how many songs we've sang all these years, and still know all the words to!! We are the lucky ones, for sure! Kudos to us old farts, we are music trivia at its finest!
1975, I was barely 20 years old. The year I discovered the taste of wine. The extacy of first love. The sweet pain of the first heartbreak. And the magic in this song. Glad I was There. Then.
