How Dare You! (album)

For the saying, see dare.

Untitled

How Dare You! is often considered to be 10cc's finest album, and included UK hit singles "I'm Mandy Fly Me" and "Art For Art's Sake". Released in 1976, it was also the last 10cc album to feature the classic line-up of Eric Stewart, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley, and Lol Creme, with the latter two departing to work on their own musical projects, and eventually becoming music video pioneers. The album was the band's second to feature cover artwork by the Hipgnosis creative team.

In an interview at the time of its release, Gouldman told Melody Maker music newspaper: "It's as different as any album by the same band can be, and I think it's a progression from the last one. I think there's been a progression on every album and I think we've done it again. It's a strange mixture of songs. There's one about divorce, a song about schizophrenia, a song about wanting to rule the world, the inevitable money song, and an instrumental."

In a radio interview, Stewart recalled the origins of the song "I'm Mandy Fly Me":

American Airlines used to have this beautiful poster that they displayed of this gorgeous stewardess inviting you onto the plane. Now her name wasn't Mandy actually, it was something like, er, oh gosh knows, "I'm Cindy", a very American name. "I'm Cindy, fly me" which was a quite sexual connotation as well, but I remember seeing in Manchester this beautiful poster and just below it was this tramp, I mean a serious tramp, quite a raggedy guy, looking up at this girl, and I thought God, do you know, there's a song there. Look at that guy looking up at Cindy-fly-me and I know he's never gonna get on an aeroplane, I don't think, except in his dreams.

So I brought it back, the idea back to the studio, where we were writing for the How Dare You! album, and put it to the guys: "Anybody interested in this 'I'm Mandy Fly Me'". I'd switched it to Mandy. And Graham said "yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I've got some ideas, I've got some chords. Let's slot those things in, try it, mess it around". We wrote it, and we didn't like it. We, we scrapped it. It just wasn't going anywhere.

But, enter from stage left, ha ha, the "wicked villain" Kevin Godley, twiddling his moustache, says "I know what's wrong with it. Let's sit down again." He said "I think it just gets too bland, it just goes on, on one plane, your verses and your middles and your der-der-der, they're all going on the one plane. What it needs is someone to go 'Bash' on the side of your head". So we changed the rhythm completely, and we put two whacking great guitar solos in there, in the middle of this quiet, soft, floaty song. Once we'd got that idea in, it, it just gelled into something else. Again, impossible to dance to, as a lot of 10cc tracks were, but once Kevin had put that in, he became the third writer in the song so we were quite democratic in that way.

Track listing

1. "How Dare You" (Kevin Godley, Lol Creme) – 4:14
   • Eric - Steel guitar, lead guitar
   • Kevin - Drums, congas, cow bell, bongos
   • Graham - Bass, rizo-rizo
   • Lol - Rhythm guitars, 12 string, lead guitar, clavinet, moog, marracas, sleigh bells
2. "Lazy Ways" (Creme, Eric Stewart) – 4:20
   • Eric - Lead vocal, lead guitar, six string bass
   • Graham - Acoustic guitars, tambourine, backup vocals
   • Lol - Piano, clavinet, moog, tambourine, backup vocals
   • Kevin - Drums, triangle, backup vocals
3. "I Wanna Rule The World" (Godley, Creme, Graham Gouldman) – 3:57
   • Lol - Organ, piano, backup vocals, lead vocals
   • Kevin - Drums, timpani, marracas, backup vocals
   • Eric - Lead guitars, backup vocals
   • Graham - Bass, backup vocals
4. "I'm Mandy Fly Me" (Stewart, Gouldman, Godley) – 5:24
   • Eric - Lead vocal, lead guitar, piano, whistle, backup vocals
   • Graham - Bass, zithers, double bass, six string bass, backup vocals
   • Kevin - Drums, backup vocals
   • Lol - Lead guitar, moog, vibes, backup vocals
5. "Iceberg" (Gouldman, Godley) – 3:43
   • Graham - Lead vocal, electric guitars, bass, backup vocals
   • Kevin - 2nd lead vocal, congas, timpani, backup vocals
   • Eric - Lead guitars, Levi zip
   • Lol - Organ, gizmo, backup vocals
6. "Art For Arts Sake" (Stewart, Gouldman) – 5:59
   • Eric - Lead vocal, piano, electric piano, six string bass, fuzz bass, lead guitar
   • Graham - Electric guitars, cow bell, tambourine, backup vocals
   • Lol - 2nd lead vocal, electric guitars, marracas, moog, recorder, backup vocals
   • Kevin - Drums temple, blocks, backup vocals
7. "Rock 'n' Roll Lullaby" (Gouldman, Stewart) – 3:58
   • Kevin - Lead vocals, drums, backup vocals
   • Eric - 2nd lead vocal, lead guitar, pedal steel guitar, piano
   • Lol - Electric guitars, backup vocals
   • Graham - Bass, dobro, slide steel guitar, glockenspiel
8. "Head Room" (Godley, Creme) – 4:21
   • Lol - Lead vocal, lead guitar, electric piano
   • Kevin - Drums, tambourine, backup vocals
   • Graham - Bass, backup vocals
   • Eric - Slide guitar, backup vocals
9. "Don't Hang Up" (Godley, Creme) – 6:16
   • Kevin - Lead vocal, cabasa, castanets, hand claps, backup vocals
   • Lol - Piano, electric piano, marracas, hand claps, backup vocals, gizmo, moog
   • Graham - Bass, Spanish guitar, hand claps, backup vocals
   • Eric - Lead guitar, backup vocals
   • Mair Jones - Harp

• 1997 Reissue bonus track:

10. "Get It While You Can" (Gouldman, Stewart) – 2:53

"I'm Mandy Fly Me"

The intro to "I'm Mandy Fly Me", a song (as possibly a fantasy or dream sequence) about being rescued following an airplane crash, features one of the bridge sections of the band's 1973 song "Clockwork Creep". The section, whose lyrics go "Oh, no you'll never get me up in one of these again / 'Cause what goes up must come down", is rendered soft and tinny, as if heard playing from a portable transistor radio. The song is regarded by some fans as a continuation of the story within "Clockwork Creep", whose subject was a bomb hidden on an airliner.

Personnel

• Lol Creme — Vocals, Guitar, Moog, Piano, Percussion, Organ, Clavinet, Recorder, Vibes
• Kevin Godley — Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Timpani, Congas, Bongos
• Graham Gouldman — Vocals, Bass, Guitar, Percussion, Glockenspiel
• Eric Stewart — Guitar, Vocals, Piano, Bass
• Mair Jones — Harp