The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyrics: I don't care, no, that's no big surprise
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “And just because I call you up” is from the song "I’m Not In Love”, by 10cc. Written by Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, it was released as a single and as Track 2 on the album “The Original Soundtrack”. Produced by 10cc.
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
News from around the “biz” for today - From Music Business World, ASCAP, and DiscMakers this week:
(Ed. - I’m putting the bits about the “business” here, separately from the music “creating” links below. One thing I continually read about is how creative artists - singers, songwriters, musicians of all types - are woefully unprepared to engage with the people who are paying them, publishing and promoting their music, administering their publishing, writing, and sound recording royalties, contracts, and in a separate class by themselves: lawyers. The links in this section may help clear up some of these issues.)
From Music Business Worldwide:
"Dynamic" Ticket Pricing - The term “pain sponge” made me laugh…
Anime Music Streaming Royalties - It ain’t just “Tom & Jerry” anymore…
From ASCAP:
Endorsement Deals - This is interesting - should you make a deal to endorse a brand of gear you use - instruments, amps, whatev? Why and why not?
From Disc Makers:
Why Don't Indie Artists Market Themselves? - Yeah, why aren’t you?
Digital Performance Royalties - Another way to get paid!
Finally this from Disc Makers - Part 2 of the “Marketing Mistakes” videos from the always entertaining Mr. Van Veen:
Some Stuff
(Ed. - I try to stay away from topical current politics, but with The Babylon Bee, sometimes the “bullet hits the bone” - if ya know, ya know.)
Some Links For Today
I’m moving the links bits around and interspersing them by theme - the biz, etc. I think they weren’t getting much love stuck together at the bottom - I’ll do links to articles that follow a specific theme - songwriting and theory, guitars and playing techniques, recording, gigs, gear, etc each week so it’s a bit more limited
Today it’s Songwriting:
From Mr. Dean Fields (one of our favorites!) at American Songwriter Magazine:
Advice from...Crows? Yep! (Ed. This might be behind a paywall, not sure)
From Songtown - these are pretty short, but informative, articles:
ED. None of these result in compensation to me in any way, and I’m not endorsing (no compensation, but well, yeah, I kinda am endorsing them…. for free, though) any of them, but some of my readers may find them as interesting as I did…
For Today:
I always liked this song, though for the most part I (mis)heard mondegreens all through it. It wasn’t until I was researching the song for this post that I realized the bridge lyrics were “You’ll wait a long time for me” - which admittedly makes slightly more sense than the “You went a long time for me” that I heard. Actually, neither the lyric or the mondegreen make a whole lot of sense in context to me, but meh…
From Wikipedia: “Written mostly by Stewart as a response to his wife's declaration that he did not tell her often enough that he loved her, "I'm Not in Love" was originally conceived as a bossa nova song played on guitars, but the other two members of the band, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, were not impressed with the idea for the track and it was abandoned.”I really like this story about the song:
Stewart recorded a version with the other three members playing the song in the studio on traditional instruments – Creme on guitar, Gouldman on bass, and Godley on drums – but Godley and Creme disliked the song, particularly Godley, as Stewart later recalled: "He said, 'It's crap', and I said, 'Oh right, OK, have you got anything constructive to add to that? Can you suggest anything?' He said, 'No. It's not working, man. It's just crap, right? Chuck it.' And we did. We threw it away and we even erased it, so there's no tape of that bossa nova version."[5]
I did always like the whispery “Big boys don’t cry” interlude. Cool story about that:
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!'."[5]
Read the whole thing here: Wikipedia: "I'm Not In Love"
A good, if somewhat repetitive, source is Genius at the link below - I think it explains a little better the “tape loop” creation by the band. Each band member sang each note of the chromatic (that means “all the notes”) scale on tape, holding the notes for as long as they could. That created a note “library” to use. A backing track was then recorded using the sung notes to “create” the chords, giving the vocals an ethereal “instrumental” sound. The band decided the song still needed some purely instrumental tracks, more or less “underneath” the created “vocal instrumentals”. Very cool. Also complicated - the article goes more in depth. Credit: Genius Link >I'm Not In Love<
…A Song To Play…
Kind of challenging - Chordify has an option to capo on 4, but I don’t think it’s actually less complicated. Probably a good song to challenge yourself with a few barre chords (Ed. unless you’re already good at barre chords…sigh).
(Ed. the long set of “rest” measures with the notation “N.C.” beginning at measure 63 through measure 80 is where the spoken interlude “(Be quiet) Big boys don’t cry” falls - you could just say them, I suppose…. Also N.C. is notation for “No Chords” - which is kind of obvious here because there are…no chords.)
Credit: Chordify Link: >10cc I'm Not In Love<
“I’m Not in Love” Lyrics (From Genius) Link>Lyrics<
[Instrumental Intro]
[Verse 1]
I'm not in love, so don't forget it
It's just a silly phase I'm going through
And just because I call you up
Don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made
[Chorus]
I'm not in love, no, no
(It's because)
[Verse 2]
I like to see you, but then again
That doesn't mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you, don't make a fuss
Don't tell your friends about the two of us
[Chorus]
I'm not in love, no, no
(It's because)
[Interlude]
Be quiet, big boys don't cry
Big boys don't cry
Big boys don't cry
Big boys don't cry
Big boys don't cry
Big boys don't cry...
[Verse 3]
I keep your picture upon the wall
It hides a nasty stain that's lying there
So don't you ask me to give it back
I know you know it doesn't mean that much to me
[Chorus]
I'm not in love, no, no
(It's because)
[Bridge]
Ooh, you'll wait a long time for me
Ooh, you'll wait a long time
Ooh, you'll wait a long time for me
Ooh, you'll wait a long time
[Verse 4]
I'm not in love, so don't forget it
It's just a silly phase I'm going through
And just because I call you up
Don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made, ooh
[Chorus]
I'm not in love
I'm not in love
[Instrumental Outro]
The “ME!” Section…..
What I’m Listening2: Link: >Do Not Listen To Playlist Seventy Eight<
Under no circumstances should you open this playlist!
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “>Long Road Back<”click on this link for streaming options, then scroll down for links (or just click on these links) to Amazon, Apple, Pandora, iTunes and even Spotify
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Disclaimer Section
This Substack is free, I receive no compensation of any kind from companies or products I mention. Some linked or quoted material may be copyrighted by others, and I credit them. I rely on the “Fair Use” doctrine for educational purposes (Link: Fair Use). *I do not use AI, things I link to might…
-Michael Acoustic
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This Week’s Documentary Film Recommendation:
“When You’re Strange”, a documentary about The Doors, available on Amazon Prime, maybe other services as well.
Thank You To Our New Subscribers and Followers!! This Week’s Conversation With Mika:
Mika: “Yeah. I’ve explained this before, human. Pay attention. This little yellow ball thing is mine. It’s not yours to “pick up”, “put away”, touch or look at. We clear?”
Me: “Crystal….”
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
That's so interesting about how "I'm not in love" was made. Had no idea! Very cool.
Great read! “I’m not in love”, one of my all time favourite tracks, Brad and I focused on it in a Tune Tag…