Life Is a Minestrone

"Life Is a Minestrone" is a 1975 single by 10cc. It charted at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart.

Background

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.[1]

On the Startrax compilation CD recording, "A Decade of Hits", the title is misspelt "Ministrone".

Release

The song was released as the lead single from The Original Soundtrack on the grounds that the band had reservations regarding the 6:00+ ballad "I'm Not in Love" as the lead single.[1] In most territories, the song was backed with "Lazy Ways". In America, 10cc were unheard of until after the release of I'm Not in Love, so they re-released the record over there in 1976 with "Channel Swimmer". Channel Swimmer appears as a bonus track on the Japanese version of The Original Soundtrack.[2]

Reception

Commercial

The song charted at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart,[3] No. 12 on the Netherlands Singles Chart,[4] and No. 7 on the Irish Singles Chart,[5] in 1975 and No. 104 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976.[2]

Critical

In his review for AllMusic, Dave Thompson calls 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 notes 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".[6]

References
  1. "I Write The Songs". The10ccfanclub.com. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  2. White, Chris (17 June 1997). The Very Best of 10cc (inlay). 10cc.
  3. "10 CC | Artist". Official Charts. Archived from the original on 13 December 2014. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  4. Steffen Hung. "dutchcharts.nl – Dutch charts portal". Archived from the original on 29 April 2009. Retrieved 12 March 2009.
  5. Jaclyn Ward (1 October 1962). "The Irish Charts – All there is to know". Irishcharts.ie. Archived from the original on 1 February 2010. Retrieved 4 September 2011.
  6. Song Review by Dave Thompson. "Life Is a Minestrone – 10cc | Listen, Appearances, Song Review". AllMusic. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
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