From the Wikipedia article, "I'm Not in Love."
Researched this morning because the song Meade chose for his sunrise video got me thinking about lyrics that say the opposite of the meaning the singer conveys:
April 11, 2026
"[Eric] Stewart came up with the idea for the song after his wife, to whom he had been married for eight years at that point, asked him why he did not say 'I love you' more often to her."
"Stewart said, 'I had this crazy idea in my mind that repeating those words would somehow degrade the meaning, so I told her, "Well, if I say every day 'I love you, darling, I love you, blah, blah, blah,' it's not gonna mean anything eventually." That statement led me to try to figure out another way of saying it, and the result was that I chose to say "I'm not in love with you," while subtly giving all the reasons throughout the song why I could never let go of this relationship.'"
From the Wikipedia article, "I'm Not in Love."
From the Wikipedia article, "I'm Not in Love."
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24 comments:
Be quiet.
Big boys don’t cry.
One more thing I learned that blew away my own impression of a song. Maybe there’s a “bad mind reading” theme with this and the first post.
Not a fan of that whispered bridge either.
…played on the loop once an hour on AM radio bitd. What’s he say? Was the oft repeated rhetorical…
Duh - “Most Of The Time”
Eric and his wife met at 18 and 16, respectively, and are together 60 years later. Her sister married one of the other band members and they are also still married. Nice.
""Well, if I say every day 'I love you, darling, I love you, blah, blah, blah,' it's not gonna mean anything eventually."
True. End of phone conversations always end with "Love you"
Too common, kinda like everybody using "fuck", removes the specialness.
“I’m not in love.”
Perhaps the greatest lyrical example of he "doth protest too much, methinks.”
"Perhaps the greatest lyrical example of “he doth protest too much.”"
I agree. This was my prompt to Grok before writing this post: "My interpretation of 'Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You' is that he is never going to leave her. He says about 100 times he's going to leave her. Leave already then. Don't just say it over and over. It's a 'protests too much' situation. It's like 'If Ever I Would Leave You' in 'Camelot' — a song about never leaving."
10 CC so understated, one of my old fave guilty pleasures
To paraphrase Bob Dylan, "you don't need a UV light to know what kind of 'stain' it is."
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
I'm not in love, no no, it's because...
Wince: "you don't need a UV light to know what kind of 'stain' it is."
Well you do know what the "10cc" refers to, right? CC, JSM
John Mosby said...
Well you do know what the "10cc" refers to, right?
LOL. And I always thought that was the Lovin' Spoonful!
And get this: Lol Creme is even a 10cc band member's name!
The band name 10cc refers to "ten cubic centimeters," which is widely believed—and confirmed by band member Lol Creme—to represent the average volume of semen in a male ejaculation, implying the band was better than average, though producer Jonathan King also famously claimed the name came to him in a dream.
Key Details Regarding the Name Origin:
The "Potency" Theory: A very common, often reported, and band-confirmed story (by Lol Creme in 1988) is that 10cc represents a higher-than-average amount of sperm, thus signifying their artistic and creative potency.
The "Dream" Theory: Producer Jonathan King, who signed the band, claimed the name came to him in a dream.
Choice Purpose: The band favored the name for being short, catchy, memorable, and slightly provocative, allowing it to look good in print.
Yes, that's a Mellotron, the internet has informed me, which I knew already, because that's something pretty much everyone is able to figure out on their own looking back from memory, once you learn there used to be something called a Mellotron.
…and fly Mandy.
This record is somehow linked in my mind to another record from that same era "How Long Has This Been Going On?" by Ace. Same era, British bands, mellow rock sound, good Sunday morning patio or pool music.
That is one of my favorite songs from the 1970s. When I first started listening to the radio in my bedroom in early 1978, it is one of the first songs I ever recorded on cassette so that I could listen to it whenever I wanted.
I love this song. Beautifully produced, look up the layering of vocal loops to produce the distinctive harmonies.
"I'm Not in Love" is a wonderful song. It wasn't like anything else that year. My friends and I were on the verge of adolescence that summer and while the lyrical subject matter didn't hit us where we lived, the sound was wonderful. A nice break from the KISS, Alice Cooper and Sweet records that were our usual soundtrack.
Two teaspoons?
…a little ol’ spoonful, spoonful, spoonful…
10cc? Bah.
"When I come it's like a river."
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