Life Is A Minestrone by 10cc

Album: The Original Soundtrack (1975)

Charted: 7

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Songfacts®:

Minestrone is a hearty soup, typically made with pasta, beans and various vegetables. It's not a word that shows up in many songs, but Eric Stewart and Lol Creme thought it made an intriguing metaphor. Stewart explained in a BBC Radio Wales interview: "Life is a minestrone, isn't it? It's a mixture of everything we pile in there and of course once we sat down to start writing 'Life Is A Minestrone,' well, what's death? Death's got to be a cold lasagna, you know, three days old, stuck in the fridge, you don't want to eat it, and once you get on, on a roll like that about food and, and feeling, we had it written in a day."
Stewart and Creme got the idea for the song when they heard someone on BBC radio say something that sounded like "life is a minestrone." They liked it as a title and decided to put a song together around it.
In the UK, this was issued as the first single from 10cc's third album, The Original Soundtrack. It went to #7, but the next single, "I'm Not In Love," went to #1. In America, "Life Is A Minestrone" was issued as the flip side of "Lazy Ways" in 1976.
The band planned to record this in an Italian restaurant, but settled for Strawberry Studios, which they operated.
There are a number of Disney references peppered into this song in the interest of wordplay. Minnie Mouse, Mickey and Pluto all show up.

Comments: 2

Zebedyzak from UkThis song contains one of my all-time favourite lyrics: "The seat of learning and the flush of success relieves a constipated mind". I think the song was co-written by Lol Creme and Eric Stewart. Which one was the genius who came up with that lyric?
Kenny from Clydebank, ScotlandLove it! Makes me feel like I've had a three-course meal, and then some. It rocks.

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