"Life Is a Minestrone" is a 1975 single by 10cc. It charted at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart.
Contents
Background
The track was written after Lol Creme and Eric Stewart were driving home from Strawberry Studios and overheard a BBC Radio presenter saying "mmmrrhhr mmhmrmr strone", which Creme interpreted as "life is a minestrone" and Stewart and Creme believed it to be a good title for a song on the grounds that life is, according to Stewart in a BBC Radio Wales interview, "a mixture of everything we pile in there". They had the song written in a day.
On the Startrax compilation CD recording, "A Decade of Hits", the title is misspelt "Ministrone".
Release
The song was released as the lead single from The Original Soundtrack on the grounds that the band had reservations regarding the 6:00+ ballad "I'm Not in Love" as the lead single. In most territories, the song was backed with "Lazy Ways". In America, 10cc were unheard of until after the release of I'm Not in Love, so they re-released the record over there in 1976 with "Channel Swimmer". Channel Swimmer appears as a bonus track on the Japanese version of The Original Soundtrack.
Commercial
The song charted at No. 7 on the UK Singles Chart, No. 12 on the Netherlands Singles Chart, and No. 7 on the Irish Singles Chart, in 1975 and No. 104 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976.
Critical
Dave Thompson reviewed the song for AllMusic, calling the song "utterly daft, wholly compulsive" "deadly accurate barrage of disconnected theories, thoughts and ghastly geographical puns, all tied together by that bizarre nomenclatural observation and a fadeout which is pure Paul McCartney", elaborating "Reducing the human condition to the contents of a well-stacked pantry, composers Lol Crème and Eric Stewart combine for a truly joyous slice of pop nonsense, and one of 10cc's most effervescent hit singles.