"Life Is a Minestrone" is a 1975 song by 10cc released as a lead single from their third album, The Original Soundtrack.
| "Life Is a Minestrone" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by 10cc | ||||
| from the album The Original Soundtrack | ||||
| B-side | "Channel Swimmer" | |||
| Released | March 1975 | |||
| Studio | Strawberry Studios, Stockport, Cheshire, England | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 4:08 (single version) 4:42 (album version) | |||
| Label | Mercury | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Eric Stewart Lol Creme | |||
| Producer(s) | 10cc | |||
| 10cc singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Official Audio | ||||
| "Life Is a Minestrone" on YouTube | ||||
Background
editThe track was written after Lol Creme and Eric Stewart were driving home from Strawberry Studios and a BBC Radio presenter said something that they only partly heard, but which Creme interpreted as "life is a minestrone". Stewart and Creme believed the phrase to be a good title for a song on the grounds that life is, according to Stewart in a BBC Radio Wales interview, "a mixture of everything we pile in there". They had the song written in a day.[1]
Personnel
editAdapted from the liner notes of The Original Soundtrack.[2]
- Lol Creme – vocals, piano, percussion, electric guitar
- Kevin Godley – drums, timbales, percussion, backing vocals
- Eric Stewart – electric guitar, backing vocals
- Graham Gouldman – bass, guitars, backing vocals
Release
editThe song was released as the lead single from The Original Soundtrack as the band had reservations regarding the 6:00+ ballad "I'm Not in Love" being the lead single.[1] In the United States, "Life Is a Minestrone" was not released until after the release of "I'm Not in Love", so the band re-released the record over there in 1976 with "Lazy Ways" from the next album, How Dare You!, as its B-side.
The B-side "Channel Swimmer" appears as a bonus track on the later CD release of The Original Soundtrack.[3]
Reception
editCommercial
editThe song charted at no. 7 on the UK Singles Chart,[4] no. 12 on the Netherlands Singles Chart,[5] and no. 7 on the Irish Singles Chart[6] in 1975; in 1976, it charted at no. 104 on the Billboard Hot 100.[3]
Critical
editIn his review for AllMusic, Dave Thompson calls the song "utterly daft, wholly compulsive", and a "deadly accurate barrage of disconnected theories, thoughts and ghastly geographical puns, all tied together by that bizarre nomenclatural observation and a fadeout which is pure Paul McCartney". He notes that "reducing the human condition to the contents of a well-stacked pantry, composers Lol Creme and Eric Stewart combine for a truly joyous slice of pop nonsense, and one of 10cc's most effervescent hit singles".[7]
References
edit- ^ a b "I Write The Songs". The10ccfanclub.com. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ The Original Soundtrack (liner notes). 10cc. Mercury. 1975. 9102 500.
{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) - ^ a b White, Chris (17 June 1997). The Very Best of 10cc (inlay). 10cc.
- ^ "10 CC | Artist". Official Charts. Archived from the original on 13 December 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^ Steffen Hung. "dutchcharts.nl – Dutch charts portal". Archived from the original on 13 October 2012. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
- ^ Jaclyn Ward (1 October 1962). "The Irish Charts – All there is to know". Irishcharts.ie. Archived from the original on 26 January 2010. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
- ^ Song Review by Dave Thompson. "Life Is a Minestrone – 10cc | Listen, Appearances, Song Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 12 August 2014.