When Philly soul star and backing vocalist Dennis Englewood and her friends as backing vocalists heard Kathy Warren, the secretary, playing the role of the mother hushing her baby child to sleep on a quiet night by saying, "Be quiet, big boys don't cry" in the middle of 10cc's original, "I'm Not In Love", to them it sounds irrelevant and to them the repeated phrase, "Big boys don't cry" gets very annoying, so they said, "No, we can't say 'Be quiet, big boys don't cry', like Kathy Warren did, because it has nothing to do with the breakup song; instead we'd rather sing the whole bridge together in harmony: "Ooh, you'll wait a long time for me/ooh, you'll wait a long time." twice in a row."
Here is the story behind the song:
This song revolves around the singer or narrator repeating several times "I'm not in love" but at the end of the song he realizes that he is deceiving himself.
A collaborative effort built around a title by Eric Stewart, "I'm Not in Love" is notable for its innovative production, especially its choral backing.
The song was originally written around a bossa nova beat, but group member Lol Creme suggested slowing the tempo, while another group member, Kevin Godley, suggested replacing the beat with a built-up wall of voices.
The ethereal sound was created by laboriously building up multiple overdubs of the voices of Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing a single note in unison. This multi-track was then mixed and dubbed down onto 16-track tape. This process was repeated across all 16 tracks to create a lush 256-voice "virtual" choir that could "sing" chromatic chords.[2] A number of these prepared multi-tracks were then cut into several endless loops, each of which contained the basic notes of the main chords used in the song. The chorus loops could then be played by using the mixing desk rather like a keyboard—each chord could be sounded by bringing up the fader for that loop. The instrumental break featured the repeated spoken phrase, "Big boys don't cry...", spoken by Kathy Warren, the receptionist of their own Strawberry Studios where the band recorded the track. These whispered lyrics would later serve as the inspiration for the name of the 1980s band Boys Don't Cry.
In this pre-sampler period, the group was able to simulate a large polyphonic choir, creating a dramatic tonal effect similar to that produced by the well-known choir sounds of the Mellotron and Birotron, but with a far richer sound, and in full stereo. The same voice loop effect was used in Billy Joel's ballad "Just the Way You Are", released two years later.
Released in May 1975, "I'm Not in Love" became the band's second number-one single and stayed on the top spot in the UK for two weeks from 28 June. Largely expected to scale the Hot 100 summit, the record peaked at only number two in the US for three weeks, deprived of the top spot by a different number-one song each week.
