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about

‘Speed Kills’ is a curious little song, a comedy that takes a dark turn. In context of future 10cc albums it makes perfect sense: there’s usually some darkness amongst the laughter on every album to come, to the point where by the 1980s the darkness effectively ‘wins’ (there aren’t many belly laughs on ‘Ten Out Of Ten’ or ‘Windows In The Jungle’). Here, though, listeners don’t know who 10cc are yet; if they skipped the whole Hotlegs shebang then they only know the band from their quirky fun-loving singles. As a result this ‘joke’ is lost on modern listeners: namely the fact that there isn’t one. In vain you wait for the twist, the punchline, but it doesn’t come: instead the hint is that the narrator dies or perhaps that someone else dies through his carelessness. The song feels as if it is saying that there are some things in life that just aren’t that funny. Musically it sounds like a warm-up exercise, what with its repetitive and tricky little phrase – played, for once on this album, in unison by all four members – with lyrics added later. Not that that’s a bad thing by any means: some great songs were written that way (it may be the only time the flash of lightning that was [7] ‘Neanderthal Man’ was tried again) and the few lyrics there are fit really well, what with this song sounding like a car crash in slow motion, not fast exactly but frenetic all the same. Stewart’s guitar, especially, is the star on this track, breaking off from the song’s constraints to deliver a quite breath-taking solo around the song’s chord changes, as if railing against the devastating chaos we can hear happening in the song. This song is also pretty ambiguous throughout as to whether we really are listening to a car crash or the narrator’s metaphor for his lonely Saturday night – perhaps this song is all happening in his imagination? No wonder the song is called ‘Speed Kills’ – this is a quite frightening song at times, with its gradually increasing tension and voices intoning ‘one fine day...’ over and over, as if unable to believe the tragedy that has just happened out of the blue. And speed really would kill this song stone dead, as its hypnotic feel and curious detachment are quite unlike any other song out there and are what make this – for 10cc – comparatively simple song so compelling, the moment the laughs stop coming. It is also, spookily, pretty close to the real thing when a car crash nearly killed Eric (this song’s chief writer) and left him partly blind in one eye in 1979. Weirdly this album has already had one vehicle crash on it, in ‘Johnny Don’t Do It’, yet the closest 10cc ever come to doing this again is a crashing plane on [34] ‘Clockwork Creep’. In retrospect the mood sounds ominous, the sea of voices screaming for all they are worth but hidden behind a particularly loud band mix. It would do an awful lot for the anti-speeding lobby if they ever used it in one of their campaigns, that’s for sure.

lyrics

One fine day I started writing home
One finds
It's so hard
To make it
It's gotta be the right time
It's gotta be the right kind line
It's gotta be the mainline
It's gotta be
It better be
So let it be
One fine day

credits

from 10cc [Changed, Cleaned​-​Up Version], track released July 1, 1973
Written-By – Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley, Lol Creme

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Tribute to 10cc image

Tribute to 10cc Stockport, UK

This is a musical tribute to 10cc, both originals and remakes. Here is the story about the original line-up from the original band: 10cc are an English rock band founded in Stockport, England, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1970s. The band initially consisted of four musicians – Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme. ... more

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