10cc – "Life Is a Minestrone" (1975)

Minnie Mouse has got it all sewn up

She gets more fan mail than the Pope 

Before covid-19 reared its ugly head, my Thursday nights were devoted to the weekly trivia competitions at a nearby brewery. 

I was at that brewery with my trivia teammates the evening of Thursday, March 12, 2020.  (We finished first that night, as usual.)  Everyone there that night was talking about covid, but none of us was taking it all that seriously.  After all, there had only been twelve confirmed coronavirus cases (and only two hospitalizations) in my home state of Maryland as of that date.

Minnie and Daisy – BFFs!

But the sh*t really hit the fan over the next few days.  State and county officials shut down schools, libraries, movie theaters, gyms, and casinos.  (Initially, schools were closed for only two weeks.  Little did we know . . .)

More importantly, all eating and drinking establishments were ordered to close their doors.  

As a result, there were no weekly trivia nights at that brewery for the next eighteen months.

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Fortunately, the county just west of the county where I live had a less draconian attitude when it came to bar trivia.

One of my daughters (and two of my grandchildren) live in that county, and I visit them once or twice a week.  

About six months ago, I found out that several of the breweries in that area were once again hosting trivia nights.  So I started playing at one of them every Thursday.  Pretty soon I was playing every Tuesday night as well. 

Some people think I’ve become obsessed with trivia.  I prefer to say that I am an enthusiastic trivia player.  So enthusiastic, in fact, that’s it hard for me to imagine anything short of a heart attack that would keep me away from my two usual trivia haunts on those nights.  (I’m talking about a serious heart attack.  A minor one probably wouldn’t be enough to stop me.)

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When I started doing trivia on Tuesdays, I decided to play at Smoketown Brewing – which is one of about a dozen different local venues offering trivia on that night of the week.

The first time I went, I played solo.  You occasionally see couples playing trivia, but most teams have several players.  (Solo players have almost no chance of winning.  Also, they look like losers who have no friends.) 

I had a respectable score for a solo contestant – I didn’t win one of the prizes that are awarded to the top three finishers, but I wasn’t at the bottom either.  The host – the guy who is hired to ask the questions and keep score – gave me a free pint glass as a consolation prize.

I noticed that the bartenders on duty that night were competing as well.  So when I returned the next Tuesday, I sat at the bar and asked them if they would like to combine forces with me.  They graciously accepted the invitation, and I’ve been playing with them ever since.

The more diverse your trivia teammates are, the better the chances are that you will win.  I know a lot of stuff about history, geography, literature, sports and sixties and seventies music, TV shows, and movies.  But there are some yuuuge black holes in my trivia database.  

For example, I know next to nothing about superhero movies or video games.  And my knowledge of recent TV shows and pop music is very spotty.

Fortunately, one of my bartender teammates is a Gen X’er, and the other is a Gen Y’er.  So when it comes to pop culture questions – there are usually a lot of pop culture questions at trivia – the three of us have the last half-century or so reasonably well covered.  

There are usually at least a dozen teams competing at Smoketown.  (Last week, there were 18.)  Most of the teams have six or seven players – which gives them a big  advantage over teams with just three members, like mine.  

But we’ve done very well, if I do say so myself.  We win about half the time, and rarely finish out of the top three.

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One of the relatively easy trivia questions from several weeks ago was “What cartoon character has three nephews named Huey, Dewey, and Louie?”

I immediately started to write down “Donald Duck” on my answer blank, but then stopped and thought for a moment.  I sometimes mishear a question, or jump to conclusions about where a question is going instead of waiting until the entire question is read.  This question seemed pretty easy, so I wondered if I had missed something – was the question actually harder than I thought it was?

So I asked my teammates if Donald Duck and Daisy Duck were married.  If they were, then Huey, Dewey, and Louie would have been her nephews as well.  But if was she just his main squeeze – or even just a FWB – then the answer to the question had to be Donald.

We decided to go with Donald, which was the right decision – I was overthinking it a bit to worry about Daisy.  (From what I can tell, Donald never made an honest woman of her.)  

Fun fact about Daisy Duck: Donald had three nephews, but Daisy had three nieces – named April, May, or June.  

You best believe I filed that little tidbit away in my mind in case it comes up at a future trivia event!

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Today’s featured song mentions Minnie Mouse, not Daisy Duck.  But Minnie and Daisy were BFFs, and I couldn’t find a worthwhile song that referred to Daisy.  

“Life Is a Minestrone” is on 10cc’s 1975 album, The Original Soundtrack, which I bought when I was in law school and damn near played to death.

I had a real weakness in those days for art rock with witty, tongue-in-cheek lyrics – think 10cc, or Sparks, or City Boy.  “Life Is a Minestrone” is chock full of such lyrics.

For example, the song begins with these lines:

I'm dancing on the White House lawn

Sipping tea by the Taj Mahal at dawn

Hanging ’round the gardens of Babylon

The second verse takes off from there:

I'm leaning on the Tower of Pisa

Had an eyeful of the tower in France

I'm hanging ’round the gardens of Madison

(The eyeful/Eiffel Tower pun in the second line is pretty good, but the next line is even better – it plays of the reference to the legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon in the first verse with a reference to hanging around a very different kind of garden: Madison Square Garden.)

I’m not sure quite what to make of the next two lines:

The seat of learning and the flush of success

Relieves a constipated mind

The chorus says it all:

Life is a minestrone

Served up with parmesan cheese

Death is a cold lasagna

Suspended in deep freeze

AllMusic’s Dave Thompson said that “Life Is a Minestrone” was a “truly joyous piece of pop nonsense,” and went on to describe it quite accurately as “utterly daft [and] wholly compulsive.”  About the only thing wrong with the song is that it’s at most a three-minute song that’s been stretched to 4:42 with several unnecessary repetitions of the chorus and an endless outro.  (There’s a 4:08 single edit that’s better, but it’s still too long.)

Click here to listen to “Life Is a Minestrone.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

10cc – "Life Is a Minestrone" (1975)

I'm leaning on the tower of Pisa

Had an eyeful of the tower in France

I'm hanging round the gardens of Madison

The "Leaning Tower of Pisa" is a free-standing bell tower (or campanile) that stands in Pisa's Cathedral Square.  

The construction of the tower began in 1173 and was completed in 1372.  It began to sink in 1178, shortly after work started on the tower's second floor.  The problem was unstable subsoil.  

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Between 1990 and 2001, the tower was stabilized and reconstructed.  It once tilted 5.5 degrees, but now tilts only 4.0 degrees.  Engineers say that the tower will be stable for at least 200 years.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is nothing compared to the Leaning Tower of Wanaka in New Zealand, which was constructed to lean at an angle of 53 degrees to horizontal:

The Leaning Tower of Wanaka

I have a real weakness for bands like 10cc and songs like "Life Is a Minestrone."

One reviewer called the song "a truly joyous slice of pop nonsense, and one of 10cc's most effervescent hit singles. . . . Lyrically, it is nothing less than a deadly accurate barrage of disconnected theories, thoughts and ghastly geographical puns, all tied together by that bizarre nomenclatural observation.  Utterly daft, wholly compulsive."

"Life Is a Minestrone" was released in 1975 on 10cc's The Original Soundtrack album, which I bought when I was in law school.  It reached #7 on the UK singles chart.  (The big hit from that album was "I'm Not in Love," which I think is one of the worst songs in history.) 

10cc consisted of two distinct songwriting teams.  Eric Stewart (formerly of Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders) and Graham Gouldman (who wrote "Bus Stop" for the Hollies and "No Milk Today" for Herman's Hermits) wrote pop songs, while Kevin Godley and Lol Creme wrote 10cc's artsy-fartsy songs.  

Before forming 10cc, all four of its members worked at Strawberry Studios, which was located in the Manchester suburb of Stockport.  (Eric Stewart, the co-owner of the studio, named it after his favorite Beatles song, "Strawberry Fields Forever.")  

In 1969, famed American bubblegum pop producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz – who were responsible for the Ohio Express, the 1910 Fruitgum Company, and Crazy Elephant – commissioned Graham Gouldman to write bubblegum songs, many of which were recorded at Strawberry Studios.

Gouldman felt he had prostituted himself by accepting the Kasenetz-Katz deal.  "That was a time when I had lost a little bit of confidence in my writing," Gouldman said.  "I hadn't had any hits for some time. I felt awful. I just didn't seem to be keeping up with what other people were doing. It was very depressing."

Gouldman convinced Kasenetz and Katz that the series of throwaway two-minute songs he was writing could all be performed and produced by him and Stewart, Godley, and Creme at a fraction of the price of hiring outside session musicians.

Kevin Godley described the quartet's three-month stint at Strawberry Studios for Kasenetz and Katz:

We did a lot of tracks in a very short time – it was really like a machine.  Twenty tracks in about two weeks – a lot of crap really – really shit.  We used to do the voices, everything – it saved them money.  We even did the female backing vocals.

Here's "Life Is a Minestrone":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: