And that song is “The Things We Do For Love” by 10cc, released as a single late in 1976. It was a big hit in Canada, peaking at #1, and I clearly remember it all over the radio at the time (I was about 13 years old, so just developing my taste–or lack thereof–in music). I found the song to be catchy, but schmaltzy, and declared it worthy of being mocked. I mocked it, with my friends, because we were extremely cool kids in our own minds.
The song resurfaced for me when I watched a few pop songs on YouTube from the late 70s/early 80s, which told the YouTube algorithm that I wanted to watch these videos to the exclusion of everything else, thus my home page became clogged with almost nothing but. One of the songs clogging things up was “The Things We Do For Love” and it made me reassess this now 48-year-old song. And it’s still schmaltzy, and still catchy, but there is more to it, that almost indefinable something that makes it more than just a tidy pop song.
I’m not a music-titian, so I can’t use the proper terminology to describe the things, but as a layperson, it comes down to these:
- The song starts with lush background vocals that serve as an intro, swelling to the “start” of the song. It’s a welcome variation from the usual verse/chorus structure.
- Piano and guitar are both featured and used well.
- The lyrics, given the song title, are not as banal and mindless as one might expect. They’re not deep, either, but at least they’re not cringe-inducing.
- Did I mention the background vocals?
- The whole production is very lush and layered for a pop song.
The only down note (ho ho) is the way it fades at the end, as was the style at the time. It’s not terrible, but it still makes me think, “They didn’t know how to end the song.”
And they actually made a video for it, which is positively quaint. The two main band members appear to have just walked off the street and picked up their instruments, which is a fair bit better than having them wear matching sequinned jumpsuits.
I can’t say the song has made me want to check out the entire 10ccc oeuvre, but I did listen to “Not in Love” later and almost a half century later, I finally learned this is the song featuring the repeated, whispered vocal “Big boys don’t cry, big boys don’t cry”, which my friends and I mercilessly mocked at the time. It still comes across as just kind of weird in 2024, but at least I now know where the weirdness originated.
Anyway, that’s my Song of the Year 2024. I know I’ve heard contemporary music, too, but can’t think of a single song that stuck with me.
