Back when you used to be able to trust rock writers I read about this fabulous new band on Jonathan King’s label in England, 10cc.\u00c2\u00a0 They were 10cc because the normal male ejaculate was far shy of that.\u00c2\u00a0 At least that’s what the legend said.<\/p>\n
The record didn’t come out in the U.S. for quite a while.\u00c2\u00a0 And after purchasing it and removing the shrinkwrap, I immediately dropped the needle on the hit, "Rubber Bullets".<\/p>\n
You might think Top Forty wouldn’t play a track like this today…they wouldn’t play something like this in the SEVENTIES!\u00c2\u00a0 A Beach Boys-influenced lighthearted romp about a prison riot.<\/p>\n
It was the humor that got me.\u00c2\u00a0 Along with these touching moments, like in "Fresh Air For My Mama".\u00c2\u00a0 10cc had every tool in the box and chose not to play by the rules, but to TWIST THEM!\u00c2\u00a0 I loved the debut, I became a huge fan, I bought the follow-up when it was released in the spring of ’74, "Sheet Music".<\/p>\n
"The Wall Street Shuffle" was supposed to break the band through.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was too heavy and too intelligent to make it on hit radio, and by this time rock radio had turned into AOR, and the edgy, thought-provoking music of the sixties was gone and it was all Lynyrd Skynyrd all the time.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, I LOVED "Sheet Music".\u00c2\u00a0 Especially the epic "Somewhere In Hollywood", which I played incessantly as I drove cross-country to Tinseltown that fall.<\/p>\n
Then the band had a hit.\u00c2\u00a0 Something I never really cottoned to from an album that didn’t have quite the magic of the previous discs.\u00c2\u00a0 "I’m Not In Love" wasn’t the 10cc I loved.\u00c2\u00a0 It was slicker.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like the Nazi in "The Producers".\u00c2\u00a0 This wasn’t 10cc!\u00c2\u00a0 People were getting the wrong impression!<\/p>\n
Maybe it was the hit that kept me from playing "The Original Soundtrack".\u00c2\u00a0 I did ultimately get into "Une Nuit A Paris", but I still wince when I hear "Life Is A Minestrone".<\/p>\n
But I still bought the follow-up.\u00c2\u00a0 A band had to issue two shitty discs in a row for me to give up.<\/p>\n
This was a return to form, stylistically at least.\u00c2\u00a0 "Art For Art’s Sake" was a sequel of sorts to "The Wall Street Shuffle".\u00c2\u00a0 And just as successful.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is probably why the band broke up.\u00c2\u00a0 Godley and Creme left to pursue their Gizmo and a three disc boxed set that NOBODY bought to the point where they gave up and became video directors.\u00c2\u00a0 But the pure-voiced Eric Stewart and "For Your Love" writer Graham Gouldman soldiered on, utilizing the old moniker.<\/p>\n
I’d like to tell you "Deceptive Bends"’s opener is a classic, that I was convinced the band was as good with two as it was with four.\u00c2\u00a0 This would not be true.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I’ve come to like "Good Morning Judge", but it’s not classic.\u00c2\u00a0 But what came thereafter!<\/p>\n
I mean I’m lying on my bed in my dark one room apartment on Carmelina, going through a stack of records I’d just purchased on Wilshire and I HEAR SOMETHING!<\/p>\n
Now there is another classic track on "Deceptive Bends", the eleven minute plus epic "Feel The Benefit".\u00c2\u00a0 But really, the album is about one cut and one cut only.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s SO good it doesn’t matter WHAT else is on the record.<\/p>\n
I had a girlfriend.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that she was sure she wanted to be involved.\u00c2\u00a0 She kept saying I was taking her away from her studies, she didn’t come to L.A. to get involved.<\/p>\n
But that was the only reason I was here.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d stopped reading the law school books, love was the only thing I was interested in.\u00c2\u00a0 That and music.<\/p>\n
So while she studied back in her apartment, I was being myself, the same person I’d been for years, the boy who lies on his bed and listens to records.<\/p>\n
The intro alone sold me.\u00c2\u00a0 The ahhs had a Beatlesque quality, albeit more saccharine.\u00c2\u00a0 But then, the song changed abruptly into something so simplistic one could envision KINDERGARTNERS singing it.\u00c2\u00a0 In rounds.<\/p>\n
And then there was a sing-songy chorus and it was clear, this was a JOKE!\u00c2\u00a0 An EXERCISE!\u00c2\u00a0 In making the sappiest, prettiest pop song.\u00c2\u00a0 It was HILARIOUS!<\/p>\n
Too many broken hearts have fallen in the river Completely nondescript, completely generic, as if the words were written by some Hollywood hack, the seventies equivalent of Diane Warren.<\/p>\n Communication is the problem to the answer This was before answering machines, never mind cell phones.\u00c2\u00a0 If you had a fight you had to stay home, to see if they called.\u00c2\u00a0 And we had a fight.\u00c2\u00a0 And I knew I was right.\u00c2\u00a0 I could have called, but that would be caving, that would be undercutting my point.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I ALMOST dialed.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead I went to my sister’s sunny apartment on Dorothy Street.<\/p>\n Like walking in the rain and the snow Can’t you just see the montage?\u00c2\u00a0 Of the kind they ultimately employed in the "Naked Gun" movies?\u00c2\u00a0 Wasn’t it Leslie Nielsen and Priscilla Presley in slo-mo to Herman’s Hermits’ "I’m Into Something Good"?<\/p>\n But then comes the wisdom.<\/p>\n You think you’re gonna break up You’ve got to hang it out there to make progress, you’ve got to stand your ground in order to have an impact.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s how it is prior to marriage…you have a fight and you think it’s the end, that you’re gonna BREAK UP!<\/p>\n And you’re not sure.\u00c2\u00a0 This point is a deal-breaker.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’re gonna sacrifice all that INTIMACY!\u00c2\u00a0 If you cave you’re a GONER!<\/p>\n Somehow, that day at my sister’s I maintained a light mood, as "The Things We Do For Love" poured out of the stereo at an opportune moment.\u00c2\u00a0 THIS track got airplay.<\/p>\n And not long after I got home, after the sun had set, the phone rang.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d been trying me all day.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d thought about what I had to say.\u00c2\u00a0 I was right.<\/p>\n The things we do for love.\u00c2\u00a0 To keep it together.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the irony.\u00c2\u00a0 So many people think it’s the NICETIES that keep you together.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s the fights, the BAD TIMES, that ultimately make you stick.\u00c2\u00a0 You get to truly know someone.\u00c2\u00a0 Their square parts start to round off, they finally fit your spaces.<\/p>\n The public perceived "The Things We Do For Love" as a pop hit.\u00c2\u00a0 A trifle.\u00c2\u00a0 But unlike with "I’m Not In Love", I was not turned off, I didn’t go around correcting\/informing people.\u00c2\u00a0 We could ALL enjoy "The Things We Do For Love".\u00c2\u00a0 It worked on SO many levels.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, I don’t want to deny ANYBODY the pure pleasure of music.<\/p>\n I liked the follow-up, "Bloody Tourists", even better.\u00c2\u00a0 Without hits ("Dreadlock Holiday" didn’t connect in a reggae ignorant U.S.), but magical album cuts like "Old Mister Time".<\/p>\n It was around this time I knew it was over.\u00c2\u00a0 When I drank so much at Tia Juana Tilly’s I passed out on the bathroom floor.\u00c2\u00a0 You get to the point where when communication fails, you self-medicate.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I went without her to see the band at the Santa Monica Civic.<\/p>\n I think she was protesting, knowing how much I loved "Bloody Tourists".<\/p>\n I got a second row seat, the band wasn’t that popular, the hoi polloi could score a decent seat.<\/p>\n They played all my favorites.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember being impressed with Rick Fenn’s guitarwork.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I rushed home to our apartment to share the experience she was feigning sleep.<\/p>\n Don’t try to control someone’s joy, revel in it.\u00c2\u00a0 The more you allow your partner to be himself\/herself the more they’ll love you.\u00c2\u00a0 For it’s about acceptance.<\/p>\n I don’t play "The Things We Do For Love" that often.\u00c2\u00a0 But every time I do hear it I’m brought back to that time.\u00c2\u00a0 Of nascent love.\u00c2\u00a0 Of engaging, yet standing up for myself.<\/p>\n When "The Things We Do For Love" pours out of the stereo I’m my best self.<\/p>\n
Too many lonely souls have drifted out to sea
You lay your bets and then you pay the price
The things we do for love, the things we do for love<\/em><\/p>\n
You’ve got her number and your hand is on the phone
The weather’s turned and all the lines are down
The things we do for love, the things we do for love<\/em><\/p>\n
When there’s nowhere to go
And you’re feelin’ like a part of you is dying
And you’re looking for the answer in her eyes<\/em><\/p>\n
Then she says she wants to make up<\/em><\/p>\n\n