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10cc "Deceptive Bends" (1977)
Good Morning Judge/The Things We Do For Love/Marriage Bureau
Rendezvous/People In Love/Modern Man Blues//Honeymoon With B Troop/I Bought A
Flat Guitar Tutor/You've Got A Cold!/Feel The Benefit
Usually you can see a 'split' between band members
coming from a mile away. No one who saw the looks John and George were giving
Paul during parts of 'Magical Mystery Tour' at Christmas 1967 or had seen the
interviews with four very defensive and guarded Pink Floyd members in 'Live At
Pompeii' can have doubted that the end would come sometime, even if both bands
nobly carried on for a few more years regardless. But the split between the
Godley and Creme plus the Stewart and Gouldmann sides of 10cc seemed to come
without warning, taking band and fans by surprise. As far as I can tell the
band only ever had one even vaguely cross discussion with each other before
splitting up (over the supposedly 'safe' single 'I'm Mandy, Fly Me', a tale of
a drowning businessman saved by the apparition of an air-stewardess, which
gives you some idea of what the Godley and Creme half of the band considered
'safe' in 1976). But split they did, both halves of a once magnificent band
reduced to floundering a little while they waited to see what they could do
next. For Godley and Creme the answer was the ridiculously ambitious
three-album not-many-vocals mother of all prog-rock albums 'Consequences'
followed by a series of slightly less ambitious but slightly less interesting
albums as time wears on (climaxing in the surprisingly emotional album about
electrical appliances 'Freeze Frame', their one album up to true 10cc
standards). The 10cc-half go in the opposite direction, starting out safe and
getting more interesting as time goes by before sadly splitting prematurely in
1983 just as they've reached their peak (few people bought it and less people
noticed but 1983's 'Windows In The Jungle' is a bona fide under-rated AAA
masterpiece and 1981's 'Ten Out Of Ten' is pretty darn good too).
Many fans give up on 10cc at this point - the moment
when they became '5cc' to quote an old music press joke at the band's expense.
I would have been tempted to as well after buying this album, which is easily
the weakest of the 10cc albums to date. Heck, even the 10cc box set delighted
in reducing the post-Godley and Creme years to an embarrassing footnote,
through both music selection and sleevenotes (even Eric and Graham now reckon
'something was missing' - not that they'd have ever said that out loud at the
time). But it would be an awful shame for anyone with an interest in 10cc's
delightful humour and zany view of life to stop collecting the band's records
from this point onwards: you won't 'feel the benefit', to quote from this
album's main song, of what the band were trying to achieve. Even though
'Deceptive Bends' is an album that plays things far too safe by the standards
of before and after and even though there are more duff songs here than any
other record until the reunion years, it's nevertheless a likeable record.
Lesser interested groups reduced to a duo would have split up at this point,
but this is still a band with plenty to say and plenty of ideas about how to
say it. Sadly the band's wonderful democracy (four singers, four songwriters,
all used to singing on each other's work and writing in rotating pairs)
naturally has to come to an end, but Eric Stewart is one of those
multi-talented multi-instrumentalists comfortable in any setting (so it's a mystery
why his few true solo albums are so poor) and Graham Gouldmann, in danger of
being overlooked in the band's earliest days, gets plenty of chances to shine.
'Deceptive Bends' is far from perfect, then, but getting an only slightly less
impressive album from a duo only a year after a highly impressive one from a
quartet is a lot more preferable to simply calling it quite in my book. Fans
should be grateful to 'Deceptive Bends' not for being brilliant but for being
good enough to prove that the band could still work and for setting out where
the band's new direction would take them. Album number five out of nine in the
band's original studio run, 'Deceptive Bends' feels right at the heart of
10cc's work in other ways too, a 'stepping stone' album pointing forwards and
backwards, caught between the often quite brutal silliness of yesteryear and
the lighter yet deeper songs to come.
'Deceptive Bends' has always been a 'divisive'
album. To Godley and Creme it was the album they were afraid of making had they
stayed with the group; a radio and ear-friendly record packed with production
gloss and a couple of verging-on-obvious hit singles. To Stewart and Gouldmann
it's a masterpiece that proved they could make an album without the 'other two'
and at the time at least they were super-proud of it, calling it the most
10cc-ish of 10cc albums. As far as this site's concerned they're both right -
and both wrong. Few bands must have spent as long thinking about their next
move as Eric and Graham did during the making of this album: wondering what
fans will make of it, worrying about what the music press will say, adamant
that what they do now will be crucial to their future careers. 'Deceptive
Bends' is an album that's been so carefully planned and so minutely combed for
possible 'weaknesses' that all the fun seems to have gone out of it all. If
there is ever such a useful invention as the '10cc album name generator' in
years to come (seriously, I'd use it every day!) then it would come up with a
name not dissimilar to 'Deceptive Bends' (actually 'borrowed' from a road sign
near the band's Strawberry Studios in Dorking along the A24: don't go looking
for it though, it got taken down in the 1980s). If the money ever stretches to
it there might be a '10cc album cover generator' as well - and if so it's
inevitably going to feature some pun on said title not unlike the diving suits
on 'Deceptive Bends'. Almost before you play it you half-know what to expect
from this album: a silly single, a classy single, a long prog rock epic and
lots of short, simpler songs mainly about love and based on
simpler-than-simpler chords and riffs that appeal to as low a common
denominator as possible. To be fair, none of the album is truly bad - it's all
done with skill, which is more than you can say for most albums that try this
trick and indeed much of this record shows off better than ever just how much
skill the two remaining writers possess. But not much of it sounds inspired
either - everything here sounds like it took a few minutes to think of and
several painstaking hours to perfect (often the best albums feature those two
things quite the other way around). If 'Consequences' is a project that suffers
from going way way further off-road and off-topic than any recording project
reasonably should then 'Deceptive Bends' is an album that suffers from being so
afraid to move away from the straight and narrow. Yes it's wacky in parts and
occasionally as daft and as deft as 10cc had ever been ('I Bought A Flat Guitar
Tutor' is the band's single funniest song since 'Life Is A Minstrone'), but
it's a safe humour that pleases everyone and offends nobody, which inevitably
then ends up offending due to its inoffensiveness.
Or at least it would have done in 1977, released
around the same time as Johnny Rotten swearing on live TV and against the
backdrop of 'Bless Thy Neighbour' and various stand-up comedians still given
the oxygen of publicity by the TV programmes of the day . Listening to it
today, in our supposedly more enlightened times and politically correct times
(which in fact are just choosier than ever about what to be offended by) some
parts of this album are heavy going. The band really seem to have it in for the
female characters on this record: 'Good Morning Judge' features a woman so
shallow she makes her man steal for her; 'The Things We Do For Love' is a
gorgeous song about a less than gorgeous girl who can't make her mind up
whether to 'make' or 'break' up; 'People In Love' acts as if love is a
sickness; 'Marriage Bureau Rendezvous' reduces the search for the perfect
partner into a list of likes and dislikes; 'Modern Man Blues' is about how much
happier the male narrator is without his wife nagging him all the time (because
it means he can spend more time with his mistress!); 'Honeymoon With B Troop'
is a song that certainly wouldn't get made now, concerning a nude-bathing girl
on a scouting trip (to be fair the ages of the characters aren't given and
could be between two scoutmasters for all we know, but is the narrator doesn't
sound mature enough to know what he's doing with his woggle); even 'I Bought A
Flat Guitar Tutor' dispels it's chord-quoting comedy lines to tell us about
being 'suspended by the sharpness of your...'. The theme running across this
album is that it's a woman-eat-man's world out there and if your girlfriend
isn't playing hard to get then she's probably two-timing on you. Admittedly
this is a late 1970s record and there are much worse around from the era (have
you heard what's in some of those heavy metal lyrics of the period?!) - you
could even claim that 10cc are spoofing opinions of the day for amusement and
the joke is on the people who think like the narrators often do if you're
generous. However even if they are meant to be parodies (especially 'Modern Man
Blues') these lines seem 'wrong' somehow for the generally bright,
ahead-of-their-times 10cc (sample lyric: 'A sophisticated man needs a little
something on the side, so what you don't get at home you've got to get
outside...So if you don't want to lose her you've got to drop it around like
heck!')
One alternative reading is that the band aren't
really talking about losing their 'woman' at all, but their errant band
members. Betrayal is a key theme on this record and just because it's usually
dressed up to sound like betrayal in love rather than work or friendship, it
still counts (maybe). The hapless narrator looking for a connection he's not
sure he'll ever get in 'Marriage Bureau Rendezvous' sounds awfully like a
musician phoning around looking for the session musicians he'll need to make a
record (for now only Paul Burgess 'joins' the band - his fine and under-rated
drumming is one of the better things about this record). 'Modern Man Blues' is
a cod blues that tries hard to sound sad before breaking into a cheer at the
thought of not having to put with 'nagging, bitching' anymore and that the
narrator can spend his money how he sees fit (how much did the Godley and Creme
'gizmo' cost exactly?!) Both 'People In Love' and 'The Things We Do For Love' agonise
over how easily people can change their minds. Even 'Feel The Benefit' is a
song that longs for world peace, more out of lethargy and weariness from
fighting than anything else and the supposedly jokey 'Flat Guitar Tutor' makes
a sad background of rows and arguments and 'You've Got A Cold' is about feeling
helpless as something takes over your life (not that I'm comparing Godley and
Creme to a flu germ or anything, honest). Heard back-to-back with previous
album 'How Dare You!' and the biggest shock isn't the range (both Stewart and
Gouldmann could - and did - write in every genre around in their day) and it
isn't the musicianship (along with Burgess there wasn't anything the pair
couldn't play): it's the limitations. 'How Dare You' is an album full of quirky
one-off characters that would normally be drawn as the 'losers' of life but
seem to be having more fun than any of us: the ambitious bordering on evil
mastermind of 'I Wanna Rule The World', the eager-to-experience virgin of
'Headroom', the whoever-the-hell it is on the impenetrable 'Iceberg'. While
they're all the kind of people everyone else avoids on the street, in their own
universes these characters sound like kings. By contrast the characters on
'Deceptive Bends' are powerless, able to enjoy themselves only when someone
else takes the hint and leaves ('Modern Man Blues'), escaping the uptight
family via a camping trip ('Honeymoon With B Troop'), gets put in prison away
from his missus by an unusually sympathetic jury ('Good Morning Judge') or takes
a brief holiday in between world peace ('Feel The Benefit': all together now
'you can drink a lot of coffee in Brazil, but the bill is gonna make-a-you
ill!') Everyone else is trapped by some other character's making and don't know
quite how to escape - or if they ought
to ('The Things We Do For Love' sounds like a nice cosy love song but it isn't
really; the narrator's walking on egg shells because he doesn't know when she's
going to suddenly up and leave him all over again).
It's also the complete antithesis of most punk
songs. 1977 was 'year zero' for anyone under 25 (or over if they hated prog and
could get their hands on some safety pins) and yet again on this site an AAA
album released that year seems like the antithesis of everything the Sex
Pistols and their ilk stood for. We've already said on this site that while
Pink Floyd were treated by the punks as 'the enemy' on home-made T-shirts, that
band was actually closer in style to punk than most (they share the same sarcastic
disregard for modern society, even if most of Pink Floyd's individual songs
from that year last longer than some punk albums) and that The Moody Blues were
the band the punks should have been spitting at based on their own 'code'
(introverted, thoughtful and convinced that a good tune could change the world
- Pink Floyd had stopped thinking the same long before 1977). You can also add
10cc to that list; if The Sex Pistols' grand statement was 'Never Mind The
Bollocks' then 10cc could easily have replied 'Nevermind That This Is All
Bollocks'. Smart, funny, careful and often over-produced, 10cc simply had the
'wrong' sound for 1977 when everything was small and full of hate, instead of
epic and full of love. Unlike some bands (Pink Floyd included) 10cc never
modify their sound or make any sign that they've read the way the musical wind
is blowing (the closest they get musically is actually this album's down and
dirty 'You've Got A Cold' , but could you imagine Johnny Rotten writing a song
about a flu virus?) However that's another reason 10cc might have been playing
things 'safe': for all the 'dinosaur' bands in 1977 knew this could have been
their last album, with their whole audience rising up in protest and walking
out of concerts en masse (a theory spectacularly destroyed by the eight weeks
Wings' 'Mull Of Kintyre' spent at #1 at the end of the year, despite the
presence of a much more punk-friendly second A-side 'Girlschool' that nobody
played).
With no less than five pure comedy songs on a
nine-track album ('Good Morning Judge' 'Modern Man Blues' 'Honeymoon With B
Troop' 'Guitar Tutor' and 'You've Got A Cold'), 'Deceptive Bends' also feels on
first listening like it's too light and frothy, the equivalent of reading a
good joke-book rather than a good novel (which isn't necessarily a reflection
of how good the writing is: you're bound to remember more of the joke book than
the novel, especially if the jokes are all about the Spice Girls). There is a
'deceptive' depth to this album, however, if you search for it. Up till now
Eric has been the 'hit' writer of the band, tackling the more commercial songs
for the band and generally only showing his more personal and often wild and
wacky side when in collaboration with someone else, usually Lol. 'Feel The Benefit'
is in many ways his 'break through' song, the first of his 10cc songs not to
have a joke at its core (depending on how you read 'I'm Not In Love') and
offering up the same kind of world-weary autobiography of many of his later,
even greater songs (seriously, 'Windows In The Jungle' is the 10cc
wrist-slashing equivalent of 'John Lennon-Plastic Ono Band' and to my ears it
starts here). This being the oh-so-cautious 'Deceptive Bends', however, there
is a joke stapled on to the song 'just in case' (only here it's a brief holiday
interlude written by Graham). 'The Things We Do For Love' is as deep a song as
any in 10cc's canon despite the radio-friendly production and singalong chorus
and a million miles away from the pair of singles either side of it (the gimmicky
'I'm Mandy, Fly Me' and even more gimmicky 'Good Morning Judge'). You can also
imagine another band tackling the tongue-in-cheek lyrics of 'People In Love' or
the comedy of 'Marriage Bureau Rendezvous' straight, eking out the hidden
melancholy behind both these songs. Even 'You've Got A Cold' could be only
slightly re-written to make you sob rather than laugh (or, most likely,
sneeze).
Which leads on to another point. Nowhere on 'How
Dare You' - except perhaps that contentious single 'I'm Mandy, Fly Me' - could
you ever imagine another band having a go at one of those songs. They're far
too 10cc-ish, too madcap and frenzied and inhabit too unique a universe to even
be covered by the likes of the 'Top Of The Pops' compilation albums that were
all the rage in 1977. You can't say the same for much of 'Deceptive Bends'
(although it's a brave group of session musicians who'd give 'Honeymoon With B
Troop' a go). Does that make this album worse than 'How Dare You'? Yes and no.
10cc undoubtedly lose...something during the making of this record and never
quite get it back again (Graham calls it a 'missing spark' on the Tenology
sleeve-notes): it's not necessarily the humour (10cc are funny, often
hysterically so, right up to their oddly grumpy pair of reunion CDs in the
1990s), or the wackiness (seriously, ' Guitar Tutor' is the most eccentric and
way-out there 10cc song since 'Une Nuit En Paris') like so many critics
pompously decided. But reduced to writing either alone or each other Eric and
Graham lose out on a lot of the unpredictability 10cc had always had in the
Godley-Creme era. So similar to each other in so many ways, the pair simply
don't have as much of a 'wall' to bounce their ideas off as they had in the
olden days (the same is true of Godley and Creme, who miss the anchoring
writing style of Stewart and Gouldmann every bit as much as vice versa) and
their music undoubtedly misses out, becoming just that little bit more like
everyone else was writing. At the same time, however, the four 10cc albums previous
to this one were becoming an increasingly rollercoaster ride. 'How Dare You' is
an album that seems one hell of a lot longer than its 43 minutes, refusing to
settle in one place for longer than a verse, a chorus, a middle eight or - in
some cases - a single bar of music. 'Deceptive Bends' is a much gentler ride and
succeeds by its sheer thoroughness. Where before you secretly wished the band
has spent longer on a theme before racing away on a new idea, this time you get
fully developed songs with a beginning, middle and end (well, some of the
time). While taken as a complete body of work I still prefer the Godley-Creme era
for its sheer uniqueness, many of my favourite 10cc songs are the rounded,
complete works from the Gouldmann-Stewart period and while there aren't any
from this album we're audibly getting closer to the 'jackpot' of 'Ten Out Of
Ten' and 'Windows In The Jungle'.
Overall, then, 'Deceptive Bends' has a difficult job
to do and it does it adequately enough. Casual fans might well have bought this
album and not realised there was anything different from the line-up that made
previous albums (the only pictures on the sleeve featuring the band have them
in diving suits with the helmets down, as if the band didn't want to let on to
those who didn't know that this wasn't the 'full' band). There are several
great moments: 'The Things We Do For Love' is a fine single and single-handed
proof that Eric and Graham didn't need the 'other two' to make a classic. 'Good
Morning Judge' is a minor single by comparison, but it's exquisitely performed
and produced and packs a real instrumental whallop matched by few other singles
of the time. 'Guitar Tutor' is hilarious, the most postmodern song ever
written, with each line referring to the chord changes - it's one of the best
gags 10cc ever delivered, in fact, and so in keeping with past LPs. 'You've Got
A Cold' features a suitably vocal-shredding performance and would be a
candidate for the mother of all rock songs were not about the subject matter of
a mother of a cold. 'Marriage Bureau Rendezvous' has a great melody and
'Honeymoon with B Troop' has great words (the pair somehow mixed together would
have made for a truly magnificent single song). 'Feel The Benefit' is at least
twice as long as it should be but at times is heartbreakingly moving, seemingly
saying so much more when combined with the music than the scant few lyrics ever
actually do. But there's no getting away from it: compared to the four
previous, brilliantly eccentric and esoteric 10cc albums 'Deceptive Bends'
pales by comparison. At times 10cc don't
even sound like the '5cc' the music press joked about - it's hard at times to
see this album as being by a full half of the band who worked on such wild and
dangerous songs as in the past; on this album 10cc have been reduced from 11
minute vignettes about French prostitutes and Jesus returning to his last
supper in the 20th century (shouldn't the food be cold by now?!) to songs about
nagging girlfriends, colds and world peace (a big subject, yes, but an obvious
one too). 'Deceptive Bends' has every excuse under the sun as to why it isn't
quite as funny, daring or mischievous as past glories and is a hard album to
dislike because actually it doesn't get anything that wrong. But it's the
middle child of the 10cc family (literally, being studio album five out of nine
between 1972 and 1983) caught between the youthful cheekiness and energy of yesteryear and the charm and maturity of
the band's lately, so wrongly overlooked records; while frequently more
talented and intelligent than the 'other' albums in the musical classroom,
'Deceptive Bends' seems destined to always come off sounding second-best.
'Good Morning Judge' kicks off the record with a
rollicking, grungier take on all those teen flicks about prisoners that Elvis
and the like loved doing so much (Cliff Richard should have done one - for his
singing alone he deserves to be locked up). In true traditional 10cc style it's
a comedy song delivered as a tragedy, with a punchline that seems inevitable
(forced into stealing to keep up appearances with his girlfriend, the narrator
finds off he actually has better friends in the slammer). In anyone else's
hands this would be a knock-off B-side which lightly touches on the old 10cc
theme that money can't buy you happiness. However, with this track easily the
most 10cc-ish of the bunch Stewart and Gouldmann came up with for the album and
with so much riding on the two singles released from this record 10cc turn
'Judge' into a production powerhouse. Reduced to two vocalists, Eric and Graham
show off their many voices and their vocals here are delicious - especially the
former's wide-eyed innocence-protesting narrator and the latter's deep vocal
bass work ('Na na na na na na' has never sounded more threatening than it does
here sung at top speed in the middle eight). The drumming is impressively tight
and heavy, the criss-crossing guitar work delightfully exciting and energetic
and rarely has a mix been so packed full of things going on and yet sounded so
clear. The band clearly spent a lot of time on the making of this record and it
pays off handsomely: 'Good Morning Judge' is one of the best-sounding 10cc records
of them all and the band's slightly retro 1950s rock 'feel' spruced up for
contemporary ears has never sounded more suitable. The problem lies with the
song: it just seems too, well, safe for 10cc. Compared to, say, 'Rubber
Bullets' or 'Wall Street Shuffle' there's no real anger or any emotion along
with the comedy, the band only scantly try and tell a more 'serious point' over
how justice may or may not prevail and although Eric's straight-faced delivery
is delightful and plays the song just right, there's no way you could hear this
song and not know it was a 'comedy' song. While fine on its own merits and a
deserved #5 hit, 'Judge' is destined to be the single that hardly anyone
remembers.
'The Things We Do For Love' is much better, putting
to good use more of the lessons learnt over the previous years. Many fans were
expecting Eric and Graham to simply rehash 'I'm Not In Love' for their first
album as a duo (their biggest hit to date) but this is the closest we come:
similarly lush (though not as electronically treated) 'aahing' vocals, a
gorgeous melody and lyrics that look at love and romance from a slightly
off-kilter viewpoint. The narrator of this song clearly views the love he feels
for a girl as some form of illness: why else would he keep running back to her
and their unstable relationship even when he knows it's all going to fall apart
again sometime in the future and hang around 'in the rain and snow' just to see
her when she doesn't seem to care anything like as much back. Even the lyrics in
the verses seem to be conspiring against the narrator and telling him this
relationship isn't going to work: when he tries to call her the phone lines are
down. Eventually the narrator comes to two realisations: that love is a gamble
every bit as risky as the nearest casino (only betting with hearts rather than
money means even more is riding on the result) and that, for a relationship to
work, compromises have to be made on both sides and you'll never truly get what
you want- which may well make this the least romantic song ever (even 'I'm Not
In Love' is 'secretly' a love song). Impressively multi-layered, this is a sad
song at heart that knows there'll never be a happy ending, but it's all dressed
up so cleverly (bouncy tempo, catchy chorus, singalong duh-de-duh-dee riff)
that it still sounds like a happy song and works equally well as both. For me
the masterstroke comes at the end of the middle eight when the song suddenly
sadly shuffles off down a minor key ('You got me crawling up the wall') and
seems to despondently give up on the relationship ever working, only to surge
forward back in a major key and full of the joys of spring, the notes
spiralling up to the sky. A clever song, written from the heart and the head
pretty much equally, 'The Things We Do For Love' was a deserved big hit
(although curiously it actually made #6, one place lower than 'Judge') and
almost single-handedly saves the album. If Godley and Creme weren't jealous of
their colleague's ability to write songs that were both deeper and more
commercial than their own then they should have been.
From hereon in, now the singles are out the way, the
album sinks down a level. 'Marriage Bureau Rendezvous' isn't a bad song -it
sports a lovely slow melody and the feeling of nervousness tinged with
excitement is exactly what a song about the endless search for your true love
should sound like. However, like many a Gouldmann song, the words don't sound
like a natural fit for the music, which keeps zig-zagging and altering its form
to fit them, even breaking into reggae at one point (the earliest example of
what will become a key 10cc sound after 'Dreadlock Holiday' the following year,
although here the style lasts a single line). The lyric starts off being
interesting - what could be more 10cc than a Marriage Bureau full of all those
chances for missed opportunities and reducing the life-changing state of love
into basically looking through a mail-order catalogue? However the song soon
becomes a list rather than a proper song ('Would you like a blonde or a black
or a blue-rinse? Do you like 'em small, love them slim, long and tall?') The
song becomes uncomfortably cheesy come the middle eight, that swell of 'I'm Not
In Love' voices appearing out of nowhere for the line 'won't it be fine when I
find her?' which would have been thrown out of a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland
film for being too teeny-tacky. Graham might have done better to have built up
the portrayal of his likeable narrator getting ready for his first meeting,
hopping in and out of the bath several times, covering himself with cologne and
'shaving closer' than he's 'ever done before'. Against all the odds, this one
doesn't belong in 10cc's long list of loveable losers, getting the girl at the
end of the song, although the pair 'turning their back on the bureau' seems a
bit harsh after all the good it's done them. This kind of natural, clichéd
ending is deeply unusual for 10cc - usually the date would end with her
catching fire or the restaurant being bulldozed the night before or something -
but the closest we come is the slight hint that the pair used to be lovers long
before ('Do you know you remind me of someone?') which might have made for a
better ending ('So me and the e3x are compatible after all!') Either way,
'Marriage Bureau Rendezvous' is another sweet song that sadly doesn't quite
come off, despite another fine performance (this is one of the best vocals
Graham ever made) and some promising moments. Like a lot of 'Deceptive Bends'
it's just simply all a bit too cosy and safe.
'People In Love' is Eric's turn to go all gooey-eyed
and we'll be getting a lot of these love-lorn ballads from him over the next
few albums. Some of them will be stunningly gorgeous, but sadly this inferior
sequel to 'The Things We Do For Love' isn't one of his best. The song was
actually the very last track ever recorded by the 'old' line-up of 10cc where
it had the curious working title 'Voodoo Boogie' (it was later released in 2012
on the 'Tenology' box set) - maybe it was the thought of working on an album full
of mawkish songs like this that caused Godley and Creme to quit. Eric is always
good at sounding like he's in love, though and 'People In Love' is like one of
those kitsch ornaments: so exquisitely carved and moulded with so much care and
talent that you're impressed even whilst you're being sick from the sheer OTT
ness of it all (if ever a song was already so far gone it could have done
without syrupy strings it's this one!) Some of the lyrics are sweet though and
on an album where 'The Things We Do For Love' hasn't already made the point
better this song would be better regarded. Love is again an illness, a form of
insanity almost, that turns the narrator's life upside down and means he can
'do nothing right' - another very universal song, then, although some of what
it causes the narrator to do sounds rather unusual ('Walk under busses and burn
your wings' - sounds like a problem with his eyesight to me, not his lovesick
heart). Note the first appearance of a key theme of later Eric Stewart songs -
the idea that the narrator never gets enough time with his beloved before being
forced to go somewhere else and the thought that time moves quicker when you're
enjoying yourself (this is the key theme of 'Windows In The Jungle'). A bit of
a gooey mess, 'People In Love' should only be listened to by 'People In Love'
who can stand the saccharine, although if Eric's vocals on this recording don't
make you fall in love with him you have a heart of stone (or a cold).
'Modern Man Blues' is the weakest of the album songs
for me: I've sat through so many of these fake chugging blues songs on AAA
albums now I could probably make a 'top 50' out of them all if I had the
stomach to sit through them again. This one isn't quite the worst but neither
is it all that inspired: the verses feature the narrator and his wife having
rows and are full of gloom while the choruses suddenly explode into a party
(because 'she's gone' if you somehow missed that despite the fact the band sing
the word 'gone' no less than 49 times during the song (or once every seven
seconds). The song doesn't quite know if it's meant to be serious or funny.
Sometimes it's hysterically funny ('She said 'your dinner's in the cat - and
your love is out the door'), other times it's just uncomfortable ('A man can
move much faster without such a millstone around his neck') and the switch
between chugging blues and party-time is jagged and unsettling, even whilst you
know why it's there. The band might have gotten away with it on a shorter song,
but at 5:40 - with all of the tricks up the song's sleeve delivered by the two
minute mark - it's simply too long. The best thing about this song is the
contrast between Graham's rather sour vocals and Eric's more upbeat soulful
voice, the two bouncing off each other remarkably well. Eric's guitar work is
fabulous too, sounding more like his namesake Clapton than his usual style
during the solo. As a song, though, 'Modern Man Blues' isn't anywhere near as
funny as it thinks it is and you'll be so glad when this song has gone gone
gone - so glad that song is gone (repeat for what seems like an hour).
So far 'Deceptive Bends' has been playing things way
too safe: love-lorn ballads, slow chugging blues, an out and out 'comedy' song:
only the single truly sounds like a 10cc song. No other band would dream of
coming up with 'Honeymoon With B Troop' however, a madcap dance that covers
more ground in its slightly less than three minutes than whole Pink Floyd
concept albums. The song closest in style to the rather manic-depressive predecessor
album 'How Dare You', like many of that album's songs it could in truth be
about anything but is (I think) about a scouting trip that's, erm, highly
memorable. For those of you who aren't British, the scouts are a sort of
extra-curricular babysitting service that involves putting your children into
hazardous exploits they can't handle so that they will know how to do them in
adulthood: you know the sort of thing, making fires, getting stones out of
horse's hooves, all the things you've never actually had to do. Generally
speaking it's for primary school children, which makes the 'love story' in this
song a bit, well, odd but the title can't refer to anything else can it?
(Scouts and the like do have 'A' and 'B' and sometimes even 'C' troops and the reference
to 'knots' in the last verse is a common bit of scouting knowledge, not to
mention the references to tents and the unique kazoo solo). 'My baby goes
topless and brings her beauty to a bottomless day' is as 10cc a line as you'll
ever find, with more puns per word than the Basil Brush jokebook (boom! boom!)
and the ending - where the lad proposes and gives his love a ring made out of
string - is sweet. But hang on a minute - that double entendre ending 'now we'd
like to...' which hovers in mid-air is taking things too far for a childhood
crush isn't it? Musically this song is highly clever, bouncing around from one
idea to the next via an eccentric
hummable riff and even taking in snatches of 'Here Comes The Bride' (for
no apparent reason!) Graham adds another strong vocal although it's He and Eric
together in the backing that steal the show (their comedy 'bom-bom-bom's and
substituting 'wife and 'life' for 'waif' and 'laif' just to return to the age
theme). An odd song then - an uncomfortable one, even, post Jimmy Saville, but
a clever one nonetheless and at one with the innocent-but-not-wanting to be
'Headroom' from an album before. An album highlight.
The real album highlight though has to be 'I Bought
A Flat Guitar Tutor'. Showing off his ability to write a song around almost
anything, Eric writes a whole lyric around the song's chord changes. We've
quoted the whole lyric above but here's a sample for you again: 'I bought [A
Flat] diminished responsibilit-[E], You're [D9th] person to [C]...' Talk about
breaking the fourth wall and telling us that we're listening to a song while
we're, err, listening to a song. As far as I can tell, the only chord Eric
misses is on the line 'to be with you' (which I think from ear moves from B to
B flat) - sadly there is no chord for the letter 'u' or Eric might have gotten
away with that one too! The lyrics would simply be a clever idea had the tune
not been such a strong one though and it would have made for a fine composition
anyway with different words. The slow jazz shuffle backing that 10cc give the
song is unusual and it's rather a good thing this song only lasts just past the
90 second mark, but even that shows an understanding of the genre similar
pastiches failed on (see Wings' 'Cook Of The House' and 'Baby's Request' for
two mistakes in a similar style). In the end, though, the only sad thing about
this song is that there's no second verse. Come on guys, let's write a sequel:
'I bought A Flat Minor lunch when A Major fell on his head, he was ofFended but
unBelievably wasn't dead...' (thankyou, thankyou, I'm here all week...)
'You've Got A Cold' is an infectious little ditty.
No, seriously, spray your CD player down for germs when you're done - this song
is so good at conjuring up the frustration and helplessness at having a cold
that it will probably bring one on. Surely the inspiration for the Kinks'
inferior 'Hayfever' from the following year, 'You've Got A Cold' is a driving
rocker that any other band would have saved for a serious song about life and
love. As ever, 10cc get away with making what should by rights be a throwaway
song by playing it straight and being convincing enough to make this sound like
a really big deal. Just listen to those lines: 'You've got a beauty, a bad ass,
the mother of them all' - this isn't a mere temporary cold but a life changing
condition (Eric must surely have had a cold for real when he wrote this - the
hopelessness and shock at how powerful the virus is just rings totally true).
Eric's voice is born for soulful rockers like these and he's in his element
here, while the funky drumming from Paul Burgess and Eric's crunchy jabbing
guitar work make for a convincing backing track and arguably 10cc's fourth best
out and out rocker (after 'Rubber Bullets' 'Blackmail' and 'Second Sitting For
The Last Supper'). I could have done without Graham's 'comedy' interjections
('Hot toddies...warm blankets') but elsewhere this is a great rock and roll
song that just happens to be about a cold. The whole result is so convincing in
it's portrayal that I think...achooo!...I might just have...sniff... caught a
...gasp...real cold now. Thanks for that guys.
'Feel The Benefit' is the album's grand finale and
rarely have fans been as divided over a song. To some it's a pretentious
over-long example of why Stewart and Gouldmann could never compete with Godley
and Creme for big ideas; to others it's a moving song about loss of direction
in adulthood. Both are true to some extent: 'Feel The Benefit' is indeed a
beautiful song and is far more powerful and moving than by rights it should be,
the whole of the song making up for any loss in the parts. It's still too long,
though, means little when you sit down and analyse it all and needs a better
twist than simply escaping for a 'holiday' with Graham Gouldmann in the middle.
Structured to sound like 'A Day In The Life' (two similar long aching verses
full of world weariness tied together by a lighter, frothier middle section and
an orchestral interlude) it's clearly reaching for similar status: it's a big
comment on life but done 10cc-style so is already half-laughing at its own
pretentiousness while it does it. Eric for one seems rather attached to this
song (it stayed longer in the band's setlists than you'd expect for such a
complex and difficult piece) and his opening verses (set to an interesting
variation on the Beatles' finger-picking lick for 'Dear Prudence') are moving
indeed: his mother might have talking rot when she told him not to 'go out of
the house without your shoes on' but she really meant 'take care'. Why does
nobody ever say that or mean that anymore? No one could care less what happens
to the narrator and the world he once enjoyed as a child now seems a cold and
hostile place. Eric goes on to wonder, rather oddly, what would happen if 'all
the entertainers of the world lost their music?', rightly claiming that music
is about the only thing that makes sense anymore. While the opening music is a
little too arch and self-aware for it's own good, the music when the song
switches to a minor key (on the line 'where will we be?' and it's many
variations) is sublime, hoping that everyone the world over 'feels the
benefit'. There's a clever middle eight,
too, where the narrator reveals himself to be a restless traveller with a
'cardboard suitcase', looking for somewhere to put down the roots he used to
have when his mother fussed over him (travelling and being away from home will
become the key theme of next album 'Bloody Tourists', written on the tour to
support this album). When the traveller returns, though, he's not found fame
and fortune and instead of simply being 'greener', as per the motto, the grass
at home hasn't changed one bit: it's as enticing as ever and the wanderer
wonders why he ever left (as a musician who found fame first of all as a teenager
in his Mindbender days, this section may well be autobiographical for Eric,
suddenly - and temporarily as it turns out - without a job for the first time
since he was 18). There's another excellent use of 'I'm Not In Love' aah-ing
vocals on this song (clearly a re-recording, given that Godley and Creme are
missing) and Eric's vocal is another good 'un, doing just enough to convince us
of his integrity. This whole section is very Queen-like in many ways, the band
that 'inherit' 10cc's cleverness and love of everything epic, although for me
that band were lacking the 'heart' of songs like this one, which is emotional
and heartfelt as well as simply intelligent.
Like 'A Day In The Life' the middle eight kind of
fits and doesn't fit all at the same time, looking at life from a different
angle (only this time it's a holiday and travel to see happier climates instead
of the misery of the world instead of the mundanity of life impacting on the
suffering as per The Beatles' version). This interlude would have made a fun
song in its own right with some clever ideas (all together now once again: 'You
can drink a lot of coffee in Brazil, but the bill is gonna make a-you ill!')
but here sounds a tad too recklessly fun-loving and unsuitable to fit within
the context of the song. Graham even gets a few references to illegal
substances into the lyrics ('You can smoke a little ganja!') which, along with
'Honeymoon With B Troop' and 'Flat Guitar Tutor' are the only moments where the
band doesn't play things 'safe' on this album. One problem though: what is the
line when they sing 'we'll float on a [mumble] down to Rio' - the lyric sheets
claims the missing word is 'Queen'. Eh? How does that work exactly? (Actually
the Royal Family ought to be used as boats down the Thames - it's not like
they've got anything better to do with their time is it?!) A rather tacky
reprise of the earlier 'Feel The Benefit' verses risks turning into some
second-class charity single ('All the people in the world could say together
'we're all black and white, we're all day and night' - which is still more
convincing than Michael Jackson later re-write on 'Black and White',
incidentally). Thankfully some stunning guitar work from Eric double-tracked
rescues the song and leaves the album on a high, with the last two minutes of
the eleven minute song arguably the best. Again you can really hear the
Beatle's influence here: this is what the guitar solo finale of the 'Abbey Road
Medley' might have sounded like if turned into a fully-fledged song. Overall
'Feel The Benefit' is a fine song with some truly spine-tingling moments that
nevertheless over-reaches itself and turns into a bit of a soggy mess by the
last verse before the strong musicianship comes in to save it. Still, good on
Eric and Graham for attempting something this big without Kevin and Lol around
to help: the last time the band had tried something this epic was 'Un Nuit En
Paris'.
In fact, musicianship rescues a lot more of this
album than it ought to. 'Deceptive Bends' may feature a rather rum lot of songs
by 10cc standards (barring the career highs 'The Things We Do For Love' 'Flat
Guitar Tutor' and the opening section of 'Feel The Benefit' at least) but it
may well be their best albums in terms of pure musicianship and arrangements.
Generally speaking AAA albums that feature as much overdubbing as this one tend
to be rather dry, too thought through and polished; 'Deceptive Bends' gets the
mixture just right, with the nitty gritty punches of 'Judge' and 'Cold'
off-setting the rather ickier moments (and even those are performed superbly).
Were 10cc right to continue with half the band gone? Definitely - Eric and
Graham cover a lot of ground with this album and while not as impressive as the
four albums that came before it 'Deceptive Bends' still enhances rather than
detracts from the band's reputation. The pair will get more and more used to
their new look sound (even if, sadly, their fans won't) and some of the songs
the pair write together from hereon in (especially on 'Windows') are 24 carat
neglected AAA classics. There aren't any on 'Bends' just yet - the closest thing
to a classic is hit single 'The Things We Do For Love' which is far from
neglected - but you can tell the pair are getting there. What I wish is that
Godley and Creme had hung around for just one more album and the quartet could
have combined the best of this album and the duo's first post-10cc album
'Consequences'. An album featuring 'The Things We Do For Love' 'Flat Guitar
Tutor' 'Feel The Benefit' plus the gorgeous 'Lost Weekend', so true character
analysis '5 O' Clock In The Morning' and
the funky 'Honolulu Lulu' would have made for one hell of an album, right up
there with the band's very best. No matter: 'Deceptive Bends' may well end up
being one of the band's weaker efforts from their 'first career' (it's between
this album and 'Look, Hear') but if an album this well played and produced and
occasionally brilliant can be counted as amongst a band's worst then that's
still high praise indeed in my eyes. You can stop collecting the band's post-Godley
and Creme albums if you want, but if you do you won't feel the benefit -
'Bloody Tourists' is up next and that album is wonderful...
A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF 10cc ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM
ARCHIVES:
'Thinks...School Stinks!' (1970)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/news-views-and-music-issue-36-hotlegs.html
'10cc' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/news-views-and-music-issue-80-10cc-1972.html
'Sheet Music' (1974) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/news-views-and-music-issue-125-10cc.html
'The Original Soundtrack' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/news-views-and-music-issue-32-10cc.html
'How Dare You!' (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/10cc-how-dare-you-1976.html
'Deceptive Bends'
(1977) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/10cc-deceptive-bends-1977.html
'Bloody Tourists' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-73-10cc-bloody-tourists-1978.html
‘Look, Hear (Are You Normal?)’ (1980) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/10cc-look-hear-are-you-normal-1980.html
'10 Out of 10' (1981) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-80-10cc-10-out-of-10-1981.html
'Windows In The Jungle' (1983) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-86-10cc-windows-in-jungle-1983.html
'Meanwhile' (1992) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/10cc-meanwhile-1992.html
'Mirror Mirror' (1995) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/10cc-mirror-mirror-1995.html
Pre-10cc: 1965-1973, A Guide to Mindbenders, Mockingbirds and Frabjoy and
Runciple Spoon!
The sidetrips of Godley
and Crème 1977-1988 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/10cc-side-trips-of-kevin-godley-and-lol.html
Non-Album Songs Part One
1972-1980 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/10cc-non-album-songs-part-one-1972-1980.html
Non-Album Songs Part Two
1981-2006 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/10cc-non-album-songs-part-two-1981-2006.html
Surviving TV Clips, Music Videos and Unreleased Recordings https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-and-godley-creme-surviving-tv.html
Solo/Wax/Live/Compilation
Albums Part One 1971-1986
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-solocompilationlivewax-albums-part.html
Solo/Wax/Live/Compilation Albums Part Two 1987-2014 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-sololivecompilationwax-albums-part.html
Landmark Concerts and Cover Versions http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/10cc-five-landmark-concerts-and-three.html
10cc Essay: Not-So-Rubber
Bullets http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/10cc-essay-not-so-rubber-bullets.html
