Prince's "When Doves Cry" is often cited as the first modern pop hit without a primary bass guitar part. But, as great as Prince was, that distinction actually belongs to 10cc, and their 1975 classic "I'm Not In Love." If not listened to closely, due to its ubiquity, the song is often dismissed as lightweight pop. Yet, it is the only chart-topping song ever to feature background vocals singing all of the notes of a chromatic scale. And, aside from a soft "bass solo" during the bridge, the tune lacks a typical bass guitar.
Originally conceived by its primary writer, Eric Stewart, as a bossa nova tune, the song was vetoed by his bandmates (Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley, Lol Creme) as "crap." (1) Stewart refashioned the arrangement at the UK group's Strawberry Studios (in Stockport, outside of Manchester), which they ran from 1968 until 1986. They had been born from that studio, and 10cc were pioneers of "artists as producer/engineers."
For "I'm Not in Love," 10cc stumbled upon the initial idea of trying to do the entire song a cappella, as a choir. But since this was long before the digital era of almost infinite multitrack recording and inexpensive loop pedals, 10cc faced a Herculean task to realize the song. The group spent three weeks recording vocal "ahhh" sounds – for as long as they could hold their breath – for each note in the chromatic scale, plus one octave note. They did so 16 times, filling a 16-track reel with three voices, each pass for every note, and then mixed each of those 16 passes down to a single stereo tape. Next, they spliced those into tape loops, around 12-feet in length. Then they repeated all of this for the next note, ending up with 13 loops of dense vocal notes.
Stewart played back each loop by rigging a capstan on a mic stand about 12-feet away from the stereo tape deck. The reason he made the tape loops so long was due to the splice points on the loop making a blip each time they passed, which was something that he wanted to hear as little as possible. Additionally, the loops were staggered so that the edit point passed at different times for each note. Extra weight was added to the two mic stand bases; then they were held by band members in order to manually adjust the tension, by pulling back or leaning forward as the loop played. These looped tracks were then fed back, one-by-one, onto single channels of the 16-track deck using a fresh tape.
Once the loops were transferred over to the 16-track, and a scratch version of the song was put down to perform to, all four band members manned different faders, raising and lowering them to create a constant drone, playing the console as an instrument. In order to keep all of the tracks audible, from start to finish, they placed gaffer tape across the bottom of the board to set a minimum volume – around -24 dB for all of the tracks, so that they would run "forever" like a type of pad or dither. "We actually created 'hiss' on the track, when we would normally have been fighting to get rid of hiss," recalled Stewart. (2)
With 13-notes printed to the reel and the scratch track, that left the group with two available tracks to record on. This forced them to mix down a stereo version of the combined backing vocal choir to those two tracks, and then erase the source tracks entirely in order to make more room. A second track of this was also dubbed so that it could be run at half-speed to drop the pitch. This part can prominently be heard during the outro.
The only instruments on the song are a diffuse bass drum created with a Moog synth (one of the first in the UK), a Fender Rhodes electric piano, a DI'd rhythm electric guitar, sparse piano, the electric bass solo, and a toy music box at the end. All of the instruments were recorded to the vocals, versus the other way around. The only other element was a whispered phrase spoken by the studio secretary, and her part was printed to tape with effects and a fade.
Despite being sonically unorthodox, the song became a global smash. It's hazy, avant-garde elements remained well hidden within a soft rock ballad. The understated lead vocal, sung into a valve Neumann U 67 by Stewart, played a large part in these non-standard supporting elements flying under the radar. Given the laborious undertaking of creating the choral parts, in contrast the entire song reportedly only took half a day to mix.
The single was a hit in the UK and US. Yes, 10cc had other successes – most notably "The Things We Do for Love" – but they never again reached the heights of "I'm Not in Love," commercially or artistically.
Stewart has said, "I loved early [Elvis] Presley, the Sun Records. There's a distortion that's really human and very, very nice and warm. It has this gorgeous edge on it, which, if you stuck it through an oscilloscope, you'd say, 'No, no. That looks bad. It's ripping at the edges.' However, 'I'm Not in Love' sounds really great to me, and I wanted that sound." (3)
With over 100,000 tracks a day uploaded now daily to streaming services, what is often lost is the beauty of a lone, exquisitely-rendered recording, one where a collective vision magically comes together, and sonic innovations catch the public's ear.
Sources:
(1) culturesonar.com/10ccs-im-not-in-love-the-backstory
(2)(3) soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-tracks-10cc-not-love
Ian Brennan is a Grammy-winning music producer (Zomba Prison Project, Tinariwen, The Good Ones [Rwanda], Parchman Prison Prayer) who in the past decade has recorded in the field over 40 records by international artists across five continents (Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Asia). He is the author of nine books, and his newest book, Missing Music: voices from where the dirt roads end, is published by PM Press. ianbrennan.com
