The Things We Do for Love

This track operates in a completely different register from the more labyrinthine side of 10cc's output — it is warm, immediate, and built to be sung along to before it has finished introducing itself. The arrangement is crisp and uncluttered, built around a clean guitar figure and piano that establish a bouncy, slightly wistful pop sensibility. The harmonies are the real engine here: stacked with characteristic 10cc precision but worn lightly enough that the whole thing feels effortless rather than engineered. The lyrical premise is a domestic comedy of compromises — the small indignities and absurdities that people accept in relationships — treated with affection rather than cynicism. There is no darkness beneath this one; it means exactly what it sounds like. By 1977 the band had narrowed to a duo following the departure of Godley and Creme, and the remaining pair — Stewart and Gouldman — leaned further into a pure pop sensibility that this track exemplifies. It is the sound of skilled craftspeople who understand hooks at a molecular level, constructing something that feels inevitable rather than assembled. This belongs in sunlit kitchens on weekend mornings, in the background of things going right, in the part of a compilation where the mood needs to stay buoyant without becoming aggressive about it.