Life Is a Minestrone
| "Life Is a Minestrone" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Single by 10cc | ||||
| from the album The Original Soundtrack | ||||
| B-side | "Channel Swimmer" | |||
| Released | 28 March 1975[1] | |||
| Studio | Strawberry Studios (Stockport, Greater Manchester, England) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length |
| |||
| Label | Mercury | |||
| Songwriters | ||||
| Producer | 10cc | |||
| 10cc singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Official Audio | ||||
| "Life Is a Minestrone" on YouTube | ||||
"Life Is a Minestrone" is a 1975 song by the English rock band 10cc, released as the lead single from their third studio album, The Original Soundtrack.
Background
[edit]The 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.[2]
Personnel
[edit]Adapted from the liner notes of The Original Soundtrack.[3]
10cc
- Lol Creme – vocals, piano, percussion, electric guitar
- Kevin Godley – drums, timbales, percussion, backing vocals
- Eric Stewart – electric guitar, backing vocals
- Graham Gouldman – bass, additional guitars, backing vocals
Release
[edit]The song was released as the lead single from The Original Soundtrack, as the band had reservations regarding the over-six-minute ballad "I'm Not in Love" being the lead.[2] In the United States, "Life Is a Minestrone" was not issued until after the release of "I'm Not in Love", so the band re-issued the record there in 1976 with "Lazy Ways" from their next studio 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.[4]
Reception
[edit]Commercial
[edit]The song charted at No. 7 on the UK singles chart,[5] No. 12 on the Dutch Top 40,[6] and No. 7 on the Irish Singles Chart[7] in 1975. In 1976, it charted at No. 104 on the Billboard Hot 100.[4]
Critical
[edit]In his review for AllMusic, Dave Thompson called 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 noted 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".[8]
References
[edit]- ↑ "Souped up". Record Mirror. 8 March 1975. p. 3. Retrieved 31 December 2025 – via Flickr.
- 1 2 "I Write The Songs". The10ccfanclub.com. Archived from the original on 16 April 2019. 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) - 1 2 White, Chris (17 June 1997). The Very Best of 10cc (inlay). 10cc.
- ↑ "10 CC | Artist". Official Charts Company. 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.
External links
[edit]- "Life Is a Minestrone" at Discogs (list of releases)
