I'm Not in Love

"I'm Not in Love" is a song written by Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman of the English group 10cc, from the album The Original Soundtrack. The song on the b-side "Good News" also appeared as a bonus track on the Japanese version of the album. The lyric reveals a narrator in denial about the song's ostensible romantic theme. He repeats several times "I'm not in love", but at the end of the song he realises that he is deceiving himself. The song made its debut on the Hot 100 on 17 May 1975 at #84, and climbed to #2 from 26 July - 9 August 1975.

Gouldman and Stewart received the 1975 Ivor Novello award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.[1]

The song is heard in the films Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Guardians of the Galaxy [2] and appears on the soundtrack for the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.[3]

Contents
[hide]
 * 1 The 10cc version
 * 2 Will to Power version
 * 2.1 Track listing
 * 2.2 Charts
 * 3 Olive version
 * 4 Ultrabeat version
 * 4.1 Cover versions
 * 5 References
 * 6 External links

The 10cc version[edit]
A collaborative effort built around a title by Eric Stewart, "I'm Not in Love" is notable for its innovative production, especially its choral backing.

The song was originally written around a bossa nova beat, but group member Lol Creme suggested slowing the tempo, while fellow band member, Kevin Godley, had the idea of replacing the beat with a built-up wall of voices.

In a BBC interview,[4] Eric Stewart told how the song began as a bossa nova version, but was ditched by the band after Kevin Godley and Lol Creme dismissed it as "crap". Although the band moved on to record "One Night in Paris", they noticed that studio staff were still walking around singing "I'm Not in Love". Stewart recalled: "I looked at Graham (Gouldman), and I said that song's a hit, you know. I don't know what's going on here, but I think we got to try it again. And blow me down, Kevin came up with the idea. He said, 'Let's do something very different. Now let's do a whole track and the whole backing track is voices.'"

The ethereal sound was created by laboriously building up multiple overdubs of the voices of Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing a single note in unison. This multi-track was then mixed and dubbed down onto 16-track tape. This process was repeated across all 16 tracks to create a lush 256-voice "virtual" choir that could "sing" chromatic chords.[5] A number of these prepared multi-tracks were then cut into several endless loops, each of which contained the basic notes of the main chords used in the song. The chorus loops could then be played by using the mixing desk rather like a keyboard—each chord could be sounded by bringing up the fader for that loop. The instrumental break featured the repeated spoken phrase, "Be quiet, Big boys don't cry...", spoken by Kathy Redfern, the receptionist at the band's own Strawberry Studios, where the track was recorded.[6] These whispered lyrics would later serve as the inspiration for the name of the 1980s band Boys Don't Cry.

In this pre-sampler period, the group was able to simulate a large polyphonic choir, creating a dramatic tonal effect similar to that produced by the well-known choir sounds of the Mellotron and Birotron, but with a far richer sound, and in full stereo. The same voice loop effect was used in Billy Joel's ballad "Just the Way You Are", released two years later.

Released in May 1975, "I'm Not in Love" became the band's second number-one single and stayed on the top spot in the UK for two weeks from 28 June. Largely expected to scale the Hot 100 summit, the record peaked at only number two in the US for three weeks, deprived of the top spot by a different number-one song each week (Van McCoy's "The Hustle", The Eagles "One of These Nights", and the Bee Gees' "Jive Talkin'"). (The UK single was the full length version, and the US Mercury single was edited down to 3:42.)

The song, once complete, became instrumental in 10cc's launch to international fame. According to Stewart, the band was already being courted by Phonogram to leave Jonathan King's UK Records label and sign a new deal. He said: "I rang them. I said come and have a listen to what we've done, come and have a listen to this track. And they came up and they freaked, and they said, 'This is a masterpiece. How much money, what do you want? What sort of a contract do you want? We'll do anything.' On the strength of that one song, we did a five-year deal with them for five albums and they paid us a serious amount of money."

The full length version appears on 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy (soundtrack).

Will to Power version[edit]
Will To Power recorded the song for their album Journey Home, releasing as the first single from the album in 1990. It was the band's last top ten hit, reaching number 7 on the pop charts in both the US and Canada.

Olive version[edit]
Following their debut album, the English trip hop band Olive recorded a cover of the song. At the cusp of their new record contract with Maverick Records at the time, the band debuted the song on the label's soundtrack for the Madonna film The Next Best Thing before releasing it as the debut single from their second album, Trickle.

Fronted by the lone vocals of singer Ruth-Ann Boyle, the song simulated the backing tracks of the original; the most audible modification made to the song is a percussion track in the style of drum and bass, turning the song into an upbeat dance track.

Accompanied by dance-oriented remixes on the single release, the song gained sufficient nightclub play to reach number one on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart (on the week of 1 July 2000),[16] as well as airplay on dance-hits format radio.[17]

Ultrabeat version[edit]
British scouse house band Ultrabeat recorded a dance version of the song in 2006 with All Around the World records. The song is taken from their debut album called Ultrabeat - The Album and it appeared on Clubland 10 as "I'm Not in Love 2006".[citation needed]

Cover versions[edit]
"I'm Not in Love" has been recorded by Petula Clark, Hervé Vilard (French and Spanish versions in 1975), Richie Havens, Dee Dee Sharp-Gamble, Amy Grant, Grandaddy, Stanley Turrentine, Chris Standring, Johnny Logan, Richard Clayderman, Krisma, Undercover, George Monroe, with a more danceable cover version, in 1989, Will to Power (whose version peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1991), Deborah Blando – whose version in Portuguese, "Somente O Sol (Only the Sun)", was a big hit in Brazil thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack of the soap opera Corpo Dourado (Golden Body).

Other versions have been recorded by The Pretenders, Mike Francis, Brotherhood of Man, Red Red Meat, John O'Banion, Outrageous Cherry, Chyp-Notic, Fun Lovin' Criminals, Päivi Kautto-Niemi,The BB Band, Olive, Geb.el, Gloritone, Tori Amos, Unfinished Thought, Donny Osmond, Rick Springfield, Deni Hines, Queen Latifah, Joey Kid from the group Trilogy, Lazlo Bane, Tex Perkins & His Ladyboyz, Rozz Williams (Accept the Gift of Sin), Juice, F. R. David, Peggy Lee[18] and Japanese singer Ryohei. Former Supreme Scherrie Payne had a club hit with her version of the song in 1982 on Megatone Records.

A version of the song, arranged by Ann Odell and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was recorded for the 1976 album Classic Rock.

In 1992, saxophonist Richard Elliot performed a cover for his album Soul Embrace.[19]

In 2010, Rock Sugar made a remix-cover of this song and Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law" called "Breaking the Love" on their album Reimaginator. Also in 2010, Brazilian singer and actress Marisa Orth recorded it for her debut album Romance Volume II.