10cc [Changed, Cleaned-Up Version] (1973) - Tribute to 10cc for a cause of blindness

{"songs":[{"title":"Johnny, Don't Do It</a>", "file":"https://cdn-cms.f-static.net/uploads/2456241/normal_5f007d8e31427.mp3", "howl":null, "pageUrl":"/10cc-changed-cleaned-up-version-1973/johnny-don-t-do-it", "cartUrl":"https://tributeto10cc.bandcamp.com/track/johnny-dont-do-it", "more_info":"&quot;The first song on the album is one of the strangest. [17] \u2018Johnny Don\u2019t Do It\u2019 doesn\u2019t make much sense nowadays, but if you treat it as part of the early 1970s nostalgia for the 1950s and a time when rock and roll was \u2018simple\u2019 then it makes a lot more sense (the 1950s come into vogue again and again across this site, usually every time music seems to be getting too pompous \u2013 this is the second, following the \u2018return to grass roots\u2019 fashion of 1968 and it\u2019ll be around again in the 1980s of \u2018Grease\u2019 and early 1990s). 10cc, though, aren\u2019t playing things straight and decide to spoof not the obvious rock and roll records of the day but the doo-wop pool from where most of the early rockabilly classics came. The lyrics are sung straight throughout, but the oh so predictable death at the end, the weeping angelic choir and the bad boy main character with the very 1950s name of Johnny Kewalski aka Johnny Angel and his penchant for wearing black fits every clich\u00e9 we think about records from this era. Lol takes the lead, singing in his falsetto as on \u2018Donna\u2019 and the result is equally tongue-in-cheek, sounding not unlike The Four Seasons as they labor a dodgy moral in high pure voices. For hang on a minute, what is the moral of this record that ends in a crash and death? Don\u2019t steal transport awaiting repairs I guess, but that doesn\u2019t seem enough somehow. Always check your brake-pads before you drive? Don\u2019t put a railway siding at the bottom of a hill? Always make sure your girl is home in bed before the late train rolls down the tracks? Johnny, you see, isn\u2019t going fast even though that\u2019s naturally assume that\u2019s what he\u2019s doing when he crashes \u2018with a girl in the front seat\u2019 (and what even happens to his companion? We never hear). Everyone acts as if there\u2019s a moral though because that\u2019s what happens on songs like these, but this is no \u2018leader of the pack\u2019 about a boy done wrong but an accident that can happen to anyone (well, anyone who doesn\u2019t get a regular MOT on their car and lives near a railway). The highlight of the record, though, is when the band suddenly give us something we aren\u2019t expecting \u2013 the minute the train hits the song gets quiet and fades to Godley\u2019s tapping drums, not the squealing noise we\u2019re expecting. The song is a microcosm of 10cc\u2019s strengths and weaknesses in this period: \u2018Johnny\u2019 is undeniably clever and is sown together with great panache, starting out as twee ballad and ending up as intense rocker, and yet there\u2019s something mildly irritating about the sheer amount of jokes in the song and the way the bass and drums are following the doo-wop pattern so precisely you know exactly how they will go. It is, after all, insincere and with a joke aimed not so much at the characters as the audience for not \u2018getting\u2019 that this is a dumb story with a failed moral; somehow that\u2019s less satisfying than laughing at the world on our behalf. \u2018Johnny Don\u2019t Do It\u2019 is an easy song to like but a hard song to love and that\u2019s the problem 10cc will have across most of this record, with only Gouldman\u2019s rocky middle eight using his deep voice for the first time on a 10cc related record really catching the ear.&quot;", "image":""},{"title":"Dynamic Tension</a>", "file":"https://cdn-cms.f-static.net/uploads/2456241/normal_5f007ddd8e39d.mp3", "howl":null, "pageUrl":"/10cc-changed-cleaned-up-version-1973/dynamic-tension", "cartUrl":"https://tributeto10cc.bandcamp.com/track/dynamic-tension", "more_info":"&quot;Originally &amp;quot;Sand in My Face&amp;quot;\r\n\r\n\r\n\u2018Sand In My Face\u2019 is another song that takes its smug tongue-in-cheek look a bit too far for some but, again, the song is so cleverly constructed that 10cc are entitled to feel a bit smug about it. I actually prefer this song to \u2018Johnny\u2019, as this time around its spoof of beach movies and the nine-stone weakling wanting to \u2018better\u2019 himself features much funnier lines and a much more satisfyingly rich backing track. Lol\u2019s eager narrator tells the story of Kevin\u2019s nine stone weakling with nobbly knees leafing through the Charles Atlas Course for muscle building so common to the media back then. The joke is that we all know that those adverts are fake, that even in the days before photoshop they cut and pasted pictures or used models who looked only vaguely the same in \u2018before\u2019 and \u2018after\u2019 poses. The other joke is that somehow this works, the un-named narrator gets to beat the \u2018surfboard Hercules\u2019 Alex whose been taunting him and literally kicked sand in his face. Best line: \u2018I saw Mr. France, he had a girl on each shoulder and I wanted his pants!\u2019 For the most part this song is about nervous tension, with a throbbing opening bass riff that will be recycled by the band for their similar pastiche [35] \u2018Silly Love\u2019 the following year that really sets the scene for the poor narrator who wants the perfect body and is desperate to sound tough but can only make a strange sounding \u2018boing\u2019 noise (a favorite sound of Godley-Cr\u00e8me who also use the gismo for the first time on an album track here too). The use of the band chorus joining in every other line makes more sense here as well, with a slightly huskier than normal sounding Lol being asked a bunch of inane questions by the others which actually punctuate a series of clever lines. Godley\u2019s falsetto then gives us a rebuttal, telling us that he\u2019s lost his girlfriend and wants to get her back anyway he can \u2013 although, in true 70s style, \u2018what convinced me is your money-back guarantee\u2019. The result is a dumb song that\u2019s rescued by a powerful; band performance that keeps the song on a knife-edge with lots of great touches, from the vocals to a quite brilliant bubbling bass from Graham and some great production techniques such as some snazzy backwards drums. You\u2019d never want to hear this song too many times in a row \u2013 as I must confess I just have writing this review \u2013 as you\u2019re likely to start going mad, but as s poof songs about body-building courses go this is one of the best! Incidentally, 10cc must go to the same body-building courses as The Who on their \u2018Sell Out\u2019 album, with the \u2018dynamic tension\u2019 promised in the song actually coming from a 1960s advert for guitar strings.&quot;", "image":""},{"title":"Donna</a>", "file":"https://cdn-cms.f-static.net/uploads/2456241/normal_5f00806836383.mp3", "howl":null, "pageUrl":"/10cc-changed-cleaned-up-version-1973/donna", "cartUrl":"https://tributeto10cc.bandcamp.com/track/donna", "more_info":"&quot;\u2018Donna\u2019 is an odd song. I can totally see why it was a hit \u2013 but also why 10cc really didn\u2019t think it was a single (and why they went to Jonathan King as \u2018the only person we knew daft enough to put it out\u2019, at least according to Eric years later). Though many 10cc fans list this breakthrough song as a favorite I\u2019ve never felt her charms were that irresistible as Creme gets to sing an even more ridiculously OTT falsetto on a lyric that makes little sense. What I think is happening \u2013 and as ever I could be wrong here \u2013 is that Lol\u2019s pretty vocal claims all the things that Donna does to him, causing a sort of nervous breakdown that sees him stand up, sit down and stand on his head. Poor Donna, though, knows nothing of this and sits waiting patiently by the phone for a call telling her how loved she is that is heavily delayed (the fact that she gets the call twice suggests the first is in her imagination, Lol\u2019s campest vocal telling her what she wants to hear). By 10cc standards though this is a flimsy song, cute rather than creative. What\u2019s more the song\u2019s most charming aspect \u2013 its melody \u2013 is ripped wholesale off The Beatles\u2019 \u2018Oh! Darling\u2019.. The problem might well be with me rather than the band though or even the fact that I wasn\u2019t around when the song came out \u2013 in its day, when comedy records consisted of impressions of boring celebrities or were unfunny spoofs of rock stars by the \u2018elders\u2019 of the day getting their own back at the youngsters, \u2018Donna\u2019 must have seemed like a breath of fresh air spoofing not the parental generation but the elder brothers and sisters of the people buying 10cc records. Strangely the 1950s was still revered back in 1972 as the decade that begat the 1960s and created rock and roll so parodying any of it was anarchic. The fact that we\u2019ve had \u2018Grease\u2019 and musicians making whole blooming careers out of spoofing it since (Shakin\u2019 Stevens based his entire career on this song) has rather softened its blow. Strangely, given that 1972-1973 was also a big year for plagiarism court cases, nobody ever took issue with this strong-selling single \u2013 perhaps they were lulled by its gentle beat, fun harmonies and the contrast between Creme\u2019s high falsetto and Godley\u2019s gentlemanly calls on the telephone. There\u2019s honestly not much more to add, with Donna a bored and lonely housewife waiting for the phone to ring \u2013 and receiving one of the oddest calls in the history of rock and roll (its Creme, again, doing his best Clark Gable impression as he professes his love, albeit Clark Gable doing his impression of Mickey Mouse). As most fans probably already know, this song was dashed off by Godley and Creme in about five minutes after Stewart and Gouldman\u2019s [27] \u2018Waterfall\u2019 had been chosen for the A-side (the band had struck up a surprisingly fair sounding deal whereby whichever two writers got the A side the other two would always get the B-side thereby splitting the money, although this idea rather peters out after the first three singles). Unable to get a record contract, however, 10cc played Jonathon King the B-side which he loved more than the A-side, causing him to flip the single and release \u2018Donna\u2019 instead (not for the first time, Mr. King got things badly wrong as \u2018Waterfall\u2019 might well be the best single song 10cc ever did in the 1970s, although I do have to grudgingly give him respect for recognizing 10cc\u2019s talent when every other record label boss in the UK seemed to have cloth ears). In terms of the 10cc story the shadow this song casts is huge \u2013 however as a song it feels unfinished, a series of random scattered jokes, doo-wop calls and an unlikely romance that never really gets going and is never explained, with no sense of who Donna or the narrator are. This song is crucially important and as a result is rarely criticized, but it also has a lot to answer for, encouraging 10cc to step behind a cast of caricatures rather than staying true to themselves.&quot;", "image":""},{"title":"The Dean And I</a>", "file":"https://cdn-cms.f-static.net/uploads/2456241/normal_5f0091db503e7.mp3", "howl":null, "pageUrl":"/10cc-changed-cleaned-up-version-1973/the-dean-and-i", "cartUrl":"https://tributeto10cc.bandcamp.com/track/the-dean-and-i", "more_info":"&quot;\u2018The Dean and I\u2019 was the fourth and third-poorest selling single from the album and such gets short shrift from many 10cc reviewers. However lesser single as it might be compared to \u2018Rubber Bullets\u2019 and co let me put that in context \u2013 before Wings\u2019 \u2018Band On the Run\u2019 broke the mold you almost never had more than two singles released from an album anyway. \u2018The Dean and I\u2019 is evidence of a hot talent, a collection of musical hooks and playful lyrics most commercial singles would die for \u2013 the fact that there are two even catchier singles on the record simply shows how full of hooks the others are (more hooks than a pair of curtains or a Peter Pan movie, that\u2019s what I say). What \u2018The Dean and I\u2019 is missing is any kind of cohesion or any real break in between the long list of jokes and wordplay. The song starts with a catchy but also quite scary chanting chorus of \u2018humdrum days and humdrum ways\u2019 which, as far as I can tell, has nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the song (and is cut for the single mix, which is otherwise the same as the album one). When it becomes a song proper, the song finds a parent telling his children how he met their mother at a prom ball. Alas, she was the daughter of a respected college dean who didn\u2019t want his daughter to marry such a lowlife but somehow he worked hard, got a good job and won her over. As if to prove him wrong, this song is full of witty quick-stepping lyrics and lots of intellectual references (such as Milton\u2019s \u2018Paradise Lost\u2019), although the narrator still lets his humble birth show through, with his daughter \u2018doing what she should\u2019na ought to\u2019 and memorably rhyming the word \u2018now\u2019 with the pained cry \u2018eeeaeeaaaow\u2019 as, spurned in love, the narrator throws himself off a train. Though many fans see the mention of a \u2018Dean\u2019 and assume this is a religious song, it\u2019s really one about class, of how the only way to make money when you\u2019re poor is to marry into it and you can only do that out of the hard work the rich won\u2019t do for themselves. It is, in many ways, the most art school Godley-Cr\u00e8me song until the 1980s. There are some great lines in it, such as the student narrator enjoying a \u2018gradual graduation\u2019 in his love life alongside his studies, but somehow these characters feel like ciphers compared to other 10cc songs and oddly more lines miss than they hit (elevators? Heart? Awol?) Meanwhile this song\u2019s ginormous crib is the Phil Spector song \u2018And Then I Kissed Her\u2019 which is recycled wholesale for the middle eight, immediately undercut by the best passage as Kevin gives us the truth behind this innocence portrayal of love (\u2018Now the paint is peeling!\u2019 All that hard work to win over a girl from a good home \u2013 and it\u2019s taken so long the narrator has forgotten why he ever wanted to date her in the first place. Circumstances have improved by the end, though, as with most 10cc spoofs when an unexpected bucket load of money comes the narrator\u2019s way and the Dean is suddenly pleased to know him, showing again just how artificial we\u2019re meant to think these songs are. Snobbery, lyrics dominating the fine song\u2019s tune and words quite unlike any other song of the day, this is surely where Godley and Creme start their template for weird and wacky songs. Tiring, but fun. Eric didn't like it though (he calls it 'too South Pacific' in a 1981 interview on Multi-Colored Swap Shop!' (not that this prevents him from playing some clever Hawaiian-grunge guitar). There\u2019s only one reason this mess of images and puns and bad rhymes works and that\u2019s Lol\u2019s infectious and colorful vocal, so spot on for the times, the guitarist having such fun it seems churlish to think anything bad about this track.&quot;", "image":""},{"title":"Headline Hustler</a>", "file":"https://cdn-cms.f-static.net/uploads/2456241/normal_5f00a8ffdee4b.mp3", "howl":null, "pageUrl":"/10cc-changed-cleaned-up-version-1973/headline-hustler", "cartUrl":"https://tributeto10cc.bandcamp.com/track/headline-hustler", "more_info":"&quot;\u2018Headline Hustler\u2019 at last moves us away from the doo wop spoofs for a parody of the journalists of the world, nice boys pretending to be nasty in order to get better splashes for their front page. You really don\u2019t need to know about the lyrics of this song, though, as much as the music which includes a distinctive riff, a chorus that erupts out of nowhere, a classic Eric Stewart guitar solo and a catchy drum pattern from Kevin Godley. Eric takes the lead on this song and it\u2019s one of his best, part innocent kid in a world out of depth, part na\u00efve innocent and part raving troublemaker, desperate to secure the scoop his rivals can\u2019t. Like many a 10cc song he\u2019s intensely jealous: he pulls celebrities down in order to make a name for himself and become someone important himself, boasting \u2018you\u2019re gonna hear from me!\u2019 while stabbing everyone in the back on his way up. What he doesn\u2019t know \u2013 and what the song oddly doesn\u2019t say \u2013 is that other people will surely do this to him in time in a great cycle of jealousy and bitterness. My guess is that despite the vocal this is really more Graham\u2019s song as he was particularly keen on these \u2018loser\u2019 type characters fighting back (one of the joys of 10cc is their mixture of personalities: Eric feels like he would naturally be the cool sporty bright kid in the school everyone loves and who acts as if he knows how the world works, while the others are the eccentrics sitting on their own in the canteen). No scandal is too small or too private for this private eye, with his morals gone by the board the moment he sniffs money and power. Having been or at least been around journalist for some years I can say that this song is all true, especially concerning music writers! Hmm a catchy tune with the lyrics mixed low, a spoof of a section of the society with control over the masses and words quite unlike any other song of the day, this is surely where Gouldman and Stewart get their future writing template from and makes for a rocking end to this album\u2019s first side. There\u2019s another energetic band performance that really lifts a so-so song too, with the guitars waiting to pounce on a scoop and a memorable quirky drum pattern that keeps relentlessly stirring up trouble.&quot;", "image":""},{"title":"Speed Kills</a>", "file":"https://cdn-cms.f-static.net/uploads/2456241/normal_5f00aad8d0776.mp3", "howl":null, "pageUrl":"/10cc-changed-cleaned-up-version-1973/speed-kills", "cartUrl":"https://tributeto10cc.bandcamp.com/track/speed-kills", "more_info":"&quot;\u2018Speed Kills\u2019 is a curious little song, a comedy that takes a dark turn. In context of future 10cc albums it makes perfect sense: there\u2019s usually some darkness amongst the laughter on every album to come, to the point where by the 1980s the darkness effectively \u2018wins\u2019 (there aren\u2019t many belly laughs on \u2018Ten Out Of Ten\u2019 or \u2018Windows In The Jungle\u2019). Here, though, listeners don\u2019t know who 10cc are yet; if they skipped the whole Hotlegs shebang then they only know the band from their quirky fun-loving singles. As a result this \u2018joke\u2019 is lost on modern listeners: namely the fact that there isn\u2019t one. In vain you wait for the twist, the punchline, but it doesn\u2019t come: instead the hint is that the narrator dies or perhaps that someone else dies through his carelessness. The song feels as if it is saying that there are some things in life that just aren\u2019t that funny. Musically it sounds like a warm-up exercise, what with its repetitive and tricky little phrase \u2013 played, for once on this album, in unison by all four members \u2013 with lyrics added later. Not that that\u2019s a bad thing by any means: some great songs were written that way (it may be the only time the flash of lightning that was [7] \u2018Neanderthal Man\u2019 was tried again) and the few lyrics there are fit really well, what with this song sounding like a car crash in slow motion, not fast exactly but frenetic all the same. Stewart\u2019s guitar, especially, is the star on this track, breaking off from the song\u2019s constraints to deliver a quite breath-taking solo around the song\u2019s chord changes, as if railing against the devastating chaos we can hear happening in the song. This song is also pretty ambiguous throughout as to whether we really are listening to a car crash or the narrator\u2019s metaphor for his lonely Saturday night \u2013 perhaps this song is all happening in his imagination? No wonder the song is called \u2018Speed Kills\u2019 \u2013 this is a quite frightening song at times, with its gradually increasing tension and voices intoning \u2018one fine day...\u2019 over and over, as if unable to believe the tragedy that has just happened out of the blue. And speed really would kill this song stone dead, as its hypnotic feel and curious detachment are quite unlike any other song out there and are what make this \u2013 for 10cc \u2013 comparatively simple song so compelling, the moment the laughs stop coming. It is also, spookily, pretty close to the real thing when a car crash nearly killed Eric (this song\u2019s chief writer) and left him partly blind in one eye in 1979. Weirdly this album has already had one vehicle crash on it, in \u2018Johnny Don\u2019t Do It\u2019, yet the closest 10cc ever come to doing this again is a crashing plane on [34] \u2018Clockwork Creep\u2019. In retrospect the mood sounds ominous, the sea of voices screaming for all they are worth but hidden behind a particularly loud band mix. It would do an awful lot for the anti-speeding lobby if they ever used it in one of their campaigns, that\u2019s for sure.&quot;", "image":""}]}