Something special for Valentine’s Day: A song Eric Stewart wrote because his wife complained that he rarely told her he loved her.”I had this crazy idea in my mind that repeating those words would somehow degrade the meaning,” Stewart said, “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.”
Stewart wrote the lyrics and brought them to his songwriting partner in the band, Graham Gouldman, who tweaked the chords and came up with a bossa nova treatment for the song. Kevin Godley and Lol Creme were “underwhelmed,” as Creme put it, and the song was shelved — until Stewart noticed that staff at the studio were still singing the melody days later. Godley said the song wouldn’t work unless they changed it radically, and suggested the backing the melody with nothing but voices.
The song turned into the band’s biggest hit in the U.S., reaching No. 2 in 1975, but it’s most famous for those backing vocals, a “choir” that was produced by taping the band singing each note of the scale (13 in all with a top C and bottom C), putting each note on a long tape loop and running each one on a channel through the mixing board, in effect turning the board into an instrument. They formed chords by raising and lowering the volume on the notes as needed, but the tracks weren’t zeroed when they weren’t being used — they were dropped to a low level, producing that ethereal tape-hiss wash of white noise. The instruments were originally intended as a guide track, but all agreed it sounded better with them included.
The final touch — the woman whispering “big boys don’t cry” — came about because the band thought the middle section needed something, and Lol Creme suggested the phrase. But it didn’t sound right in a male voice. When their secretary ducked into the studio to whisper that someone had a phone call, they hit on the idea of having her whisper the part.
The song’s enduring appeal can be measured by its use in dozens of TV and movie soundtracks and more than 60 recorded covers. It works better for some singers than others, but nobody does it better than Diana Krall, whose understated vocals give the lyrics the perfect measure of ennui.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUFyRDXuLQQ