How they got the background sound.Recording Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing "ahhh" 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, building up a "choir" of 48 voices for each note of the scale. The main problem facing the band was how to keep the vocal notes going for an infinite length of time, but Creme suggested that they could get around this issue by using tape loops. Stewart created loops of about 12 feet in length by feeding the loop at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder in the studio, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand, and tensioned the tape. By creating long loops the 'blip' caused by the splice in each tape loop could be drowned out by the rest of the backing track, providing that the splices in each loop did not coincide with each other. Having created twelve tape loops for each of the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk. This effectively turned the mixing desk into a musical instrument complete with all the notes of the chromatic scale, which the four members together then "played", fading up three or four channels at a time to create "chords" for the song's melody. Stewart had put tape across the bottom of each channel so that it was impossible to completely fade down the tracks for each note, resulting in the constant background hiss of vocals heard throughout the song.[4] Composer and music theory professor Thomas MacFarlane considered the resulting "ethereal voices" with distorted synthesized effects to be a major influence on Billy Joel's hit ballad "Just the Way You Are", released two years later.[5] A basic guide track was recorded first in order to help create the melody using the vocals, but the proper instrumentation was added after the vocals had been recorded. In keeping with Godley's idea to focus on the voices, only a few instruments were used: a Fender Rhodes electric piano played by Stewart, a Gibson 335 electric guitar played by Gouldman for the rhythm melody, and a bass drum sound played by Godley on a Moog synthesizer which Creme had recently purchased and learned how to program. The drum sound that was created was very soft and more akin to a heartbeat, in order not to overpower the rest of the track. Creme played piano during the bridge and the middle eight, where it replicated the melody of lyrics that had been discarded. The middle eight is also the only part of the song that contains a bass guitar line, played by Gouldman. A toy music box was recorded and double tracked out of phase for the middle eight and the outro.[4] Once the musical backing had been completed Stewart recorded the lead vocal and Godley and Creme the backing vocals, but even though the song was finished Godley felt it was still lacking something. Stewart said, "Lol remembered he had said something into the grand piano mics when he was laying down the solos. He'd said 'Be quiet, big boys don't cry' - heaven knows why, but I soloed it and we all agreed that the idea sounded very interesting if we could just find the right voice to speak the words. Just at that point the door to the control room opened and our secretary Kathy [Redfern] looked in and whispered 'Eric, sorry to bother you. There's a telephone call for you.' Lol jumped up and said 'That's the voice, her voice is perfect!'."[3] The group agreed that Redfern was the ideal person, but Redfern was unconvinced and had to be coaxed into recording her vocal contribution, using the same whispered voice that she had used when entering the control room. These whispered lyrics would later serve as the inspiration for the name of the 1980s band Boys Don't Cry.
And here is the very interesting documentary on how this was done explained by the band members themselves and with the isolated "big boys don't cry" vocal of their secretary as well along with a secret never released verse that you will hear with many other nice details: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Qq7oGenbp2I.html
Dani, there was no synth then. This was all done on tape as a prior comment pointed out. Thus, no one ever heard these sounds before. All the background ahhs are multiple tape recordings of the band members singing 16 notes of the musical scale. They were then mixed with sliders to bring up each multiple “notes” and vary the volume. This was never done before or since. It took enormous creativity to come up with the idea, then see it through to completion. Today, in the digital world, it is easily faked with chorus effects. Back then, there was no such possibility!
This one song took about approximately 3 weeks to make, using multiple layered voices (I think 16×3 on the chromatic scale) then fed back into a stereo machine through 12 foot loops of tape. Remember this was 1975, there were no synthesizers at that time. To this day the song is a stunning display of studio and engineering genius. 10cc was a band that was far ahead of their time.
I graduated high school here in California in June 75 and it was a magical year for sure. So many concerts and wonderful simple times. The license plate on my 2008 Pony Package Ford Mustang is 70SROCK
Me to Ron. For me, it was the fall of 75’ in New York where I just turned 12. The song takes me back, and I’m with my older brother Thomas.. he’s young, popular, tough, and handsome.. lost him September 2021… how I miss him…
I first heard this when I was a small boy on the car radio whilst on holiday, I didn't know what a love song was but it left an impression that has never left me to this day and now I am an old man.The Making of 10cc's "I'm Not in Love" - RU-vid
And there is the documentary on how this song was created that you probably got that piece of information from :-) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Qq7oGenbp2I.html
Written by Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, Stewart came up with the idea for the song after his wife of eight years asked him why he didn't say "I love you" more often.
When this song was used in the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy", they never actually got to the part that was relevant to the scene. The boy was having an emotional time with his mother dying, so the relevant line was "big boys don't cry".
Actually he wrote it fir hs wife of 9 years who complained he never told her he loved her and he was like if you say it all the time it loses its meaning, so he wrote a song which he said proved you could say I love you without saying I love you. (LOL) I guess it worked, in a story from 2018 they had been married 52 years. 55 now I guess.. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5543021/The-wifes-grumble-husband-write-10ccs-Im-Not-Love.htm
Eric Stewart actually wrote the lyrics as a sort of tongue-in-cheek response to his wife once saying he didn't say that he loved her often enough. (they're still married today) 10cc was an amazing group that were far ahead of their time.
You picked the wrong version! You have not heard this song until you have heard the ORIGINAL ALBUM VERSION! This song was also #1 in the USA! This video is the promotion video for the single edit of the song. Also, you may be hearing this in stereo, but we aren't! Can you fix that please? Another bit if info about this song - the technology did not exist to record this song in 1975, so these two artists invented it!
I don't know what possesses someone to take a classic, and just edit the beauty out of it! This is the second version I've heard that's not right! Sorry my dear! Pull up the studio version! You'll get the true recording! God Bless!
No synthesizer on the wall of vocals. It was done by recording one Ahhh and looping it over and over on a tape machine. Incredible imagination and work.
Synthesizers came about in the late 60s and early 70s. Prime use then. But these sounds are taped vice dubbings. I can't believe how this generation COMPLETELY misses the point of this song. He is insanely in love - whipped, in fact. That's the entire point of the whole song! And that's why it sounds like it does.
this is one of the greatest and most ethereal songs ever, like it's floating down from the heavens. like if you were on a mountain top, you might hear it being carried in by the wind. it's beautiful and though delivered in a "casual" way, like you said, it conveys layers and layers of feeling. perhaps i read into it too much, but this song has always spoken to me. it's a person who has been hurt in the past or maybe witnessed the bad side of love and now has a fear of going there; and yet, it's happened. but now the denial is being attempted as a last ditch act of self preservation, but ultimately the argument he tells himself is weak and transparent. so in order to convince himself, he instead tries to convince her. maybe if he can make her believe it then he can too. so in an act of potential and regretful self-sabotage, he spins his argument to her... hopefully he wasn't successful. i did this once myself. met a girl when i was way too young (19), and i knew we were too young for something as serious as it was going to be. she wasn't like any of the others and she got inside my soul so quickly and completely. the more i felt for her, the more uneasy i became as i pondered all of the implications. i couldn't see myself without her and yet had a dreadful feeling i shouldn't let it continue (but i think it was just the fear a young man has when he hasn't figured out what he actually wants or what his life should be and is afraid of losing his freedom and options and choice). nonetheless, a year went by and i became convinced i had to break up with her, even though things were great between us... every minute together with such a deep connection and such fun. we just effortlessly clicked in all ways. well i still went through with it. she was absolutely devastated. ironically so was i even though i'm the one who made the decision. i was as broken up as she was and i was the one doing this thing. well the next two weeks were the most miserable i had ever felt. i felt empty and confused and with a constant sense of dread. finally i knew i had f'd up and i went to find her. well i had so flipped her world upside down, that she didn't even know what to think. wasn't even sure she could trust me again as she was so blindsided. i understood, but selfishly needed her to understand me. i did everything i could to explain and convince her that my decision had come from the wrong place and that it would never happen again... that i never actually wanted to be without her and had made a decision of the mind, not the heart. luckily she finally believed me and accepted my explanation; and my moment of self-sabotage ultimately didn't play all the way out to a miserable and tragic end. i got away with almost breaking something rare and great. well that was long. great art can inspire much thought and feeling...
1:18 Bless you! I always liked this song back from when it was new. It is easy listening, that's true. It was very popular and was on the radio all the time.
What you say is a synth, is not a synth. There's a video on the making of the song, you should check that out, these guys were geniuses and they pioneered techniques that are used in studios for quite a while
The lyrics to the song our tongue in cheek. He's actually very much in love and as the song builds you can hear the expression, the key word is the picture hiding the stain where he accentuates the word lying on the wall, his lyrics are lying he's hurting very bad
There's a very good reason why lots of music from that era moved from the right channel to the left channel, vice versa and also from the middle to either or both sides and back: Drugs. Listening to music when stoned lets the music take on completely new life and the musicians and producers knew it. I once went to an ELP concert where they had speakers in the four corners of the venue...and the music traveled all around us. It was simply amazing.
Very true about the ‘stereo’ sound. Transistor radios ‘mono’ were prevalent in the 70s so anything in stereo was like you said cutting edge. Music engineers would ‘weave’ sounds from left to right back and forth to give it that ‘stereo’ effect. Now music engineers purposely do playbacks from stereo to mono to make sure it sounds good as more people are listening to music on cellphones and echo devices. We’ve gone from mono to stereo to mono, but if you have iPods you can listen in stereo if you want to.
Stewart spent three weeks recording Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing "ahhh" 16 times for each note of the chromatic scale, creating a 'choir' of 48 voices for each note. Creme suggested they could keep the voices going for an infinite time by using tape loops. Stewart created 12 ft long loops by feeding them at one end through the tape heads of the stereo recorder, and at the other end through a capstan roller fixed to the top of a microphone stand. Stewart played each loop through a separate channel of the mixing desk, turning the desk into a musical instrument. He also put gaffer tape across the bottom the channels, making it impossible to completely fade them down, creating constant background vocals. Only a few instruments were used: a Fender Rhodes electric piano played by Stewart, a Gibson 335 electric guitar by Gouldman, and a bass drum sound played by Godley on a Moog synthesizer. After the song was finished, Godley felt there was still something missing... Stewart said: "Lol remembered he said something into the grand piano mics when he was laying down the solos. He'd said 'Be quiet, big boys don't cry'. Heaven knows why, but I soloed it and we all agreed that the idea sounded very interesting."
There's a number of songs around this theme going back to Hoagy Carmichael's " I get along without you very well" ( 1939 ), and the c&w classic "She Thinks I still Care".
Dani, not only was this ethereal, choir-like sound in the background a fixture of its time (after this song), nor did they use a synth to create that sound. Synth music was popularized in the 80's and this song came out in the early 70's. The way 10cc created that sound was actually groundbreaking for its time. Since todays equipment was not available to them, or anything close, what they actually did was the normal harmonies and then over-dubbed the harmonies hundreds of times to create that ethereal, heavenly-choir like sound. AFTERWARDS the technique was used on other songs and by other bands, but 10cc invented it with this song. In fact, even QUEEN copied this technique of massive over-dubbing on their famous hit, Bohemian Rhapsody.
I saw an interview with leader singer re 20cc not in love. He discussed exactly what you referenced. I got the impression the engineers developed the stereo component/development of the era. During the interview the lead singer said: we needed a woman’s voice to say “big boys don’t cry……..” Lo and behold, the voice is their non-singer secretary. I think she did a fantastic job. The group was in a pinch. Seek and ye shall find. Gregory Kamaras
Written in 1974. Stemmed from Eric Stewart’s wife Gloria complaining that he didn’t say ‘I love you’ to her enough. So he went away and tried to think of a clever way of saying it without making it explicit. ‘Be quiet, big boys don’t cry’. Their secretary Kathy Redfern put down the famous whisper.
The Best Selling British Record Of 1975! There’s A Video Of The Making Of I’m Not In Love! 10cc Come From Manchester England They Are Eric Stewart, Guitar Lol Creme , Also. Guitar, Graham Gouldman , Bass Guitar And Kevin Godley Drums.
Oh mate, Does this song bring back some fun memories. Great fun and smooth vibes indeed. Groovy organ rifts and echo harmonies too. Definitely on my playlist. Just so cool. Peace, love and fab vibes to ya mate.👍🇦🇺🤪☮️✌️
During an interview with BBC Radio Wales, according to Eric Stewart the inspiration for the song came about after a conversation with his wife when she asked him why he didn't tell her more often that he loved her. Stewart felt that overuse would diminish its significance - that it would be far more credible if used sparingly. Out of that conversation, however, Stewart started wondering about other ways he could say "I love you." He thought to himself, "I say I'm not in love, but here are all the reasons why I am." He then took that idea into the studio where he and Gouldman penned the song. (Interestingly, in 2007 Gouldman claimed that the conversation was between him and his wife Gloria.)
From a person who first heard the song from the radio in 1975 this is a different mix. I prefer the original mix i heard in 1975. I have it on vinyl and on mp3. The background vocals are not computer generated. Computer technology hadn't been develope for this purpose therefore it was done using reel to reel tapes as described below this. For you young people who don't know about audio tape " GOOGLE IT!" Dream Weaver by Gary Wright is another favorite song of mine from the 70s!! Gary recorded that song playing all of the instruments himself on that song.
Sweetheart, you missed it. This was so tehcnically above everything that was being done at the time! The Beatles did a little of the multiple tape dubbings, and Billy Joel did too, and very well, but an entire orchestra profduced by recording three voices multiple times on each note in the scale was beyond anything heard before.
No, '75 was not the time of 'peace, love, and all the good vibrations'. It wasn't the mythical overhyped late 60's. The mid 70's was a pretty crummy time for many countries, including GB and the States. Energy crises, rampant unemployment, Vietnam, Egypt & Israel at each other's throats, narcotics explosion and addition, feminism.... It was reflected in a great many heavy, dark toned movies. But there was some truly brilliant innovative music being made as well.
Love and Peace was more of a "beautiful Sixties" thing while the 70s was the further building of the Counter Revolution or Culture. As in down with the "man". This song i equate with a very painful loss of innocence.
There is a video, The Making of 10cc I'm not in Love, here on YT. Each band member recorded their voice doing every pitch as high and low they could. Then they overdubbed it multiple times to give that sound. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3oxe4mlsQos.html
The whole point of the song that doesn't come through clearly is that he is VERY MUCH IN LOVE! But you have to listen carefully to the lyrics to catch that.
Wow, you totally didn't address the song's message! It's about a guy painfully in love and denying it. Also, those were human voices layered up on each other hundreds of times over.
