[18] ‘Sand In My Face’is another song that takes its smug tongue-in-cheek look a bit too far for some but, again, the song is so cleverly constructed that 10cc are entitled to feel a bit smug about it. I actually prefer this song to ‘Johnny’, as this time around its spoof of beach movies and the nine-stone weakling wanting to ‘better’ himself features much funnier lines and a much more satisfyingly rich backing track. Lol’s eager narrator tells the story of Kevin’s nine stone weakling with nobbly knees leafing through the Charles Atlas Course for muscle building so common to the media back then. The joke is that we all know that those adverts are fake, that even in the days before photoshop they cut and pasted pictures or used models who looked only vaguely the same in ‘before’ and ‘after’ poses. The other joke is that somehow this works, the un-named narrator gets to beat the ‘surfboard Hercules’ Alex whose been taunting him and literally kicked sand in his face. Best line: ‘I saw Mr France, he had a girl on each shoulder and I wanted his pants!’ For the most part this song is about nervous tension, with a throbbing opening bass riff that will be recycled by the band for their similar pastiche [35] ‘Silly Love’ the following year that really sets the scene for the poor narrator who wants the perfect body and is desperate to sound tough but can only make a strange sounding ‘boing’ noise (a favorite sound of Godley-Crème who also use the gizmo for the first time on an album track here too). The use of the band chorus joining in every other line makes more sense here as well, with a slightly huskier than normal sounding Lol being asked a bunch of inane questions by the others which actually punctuate a series of clever lines. Godley’s falsetto then gives us a rebuttal, telling us that he’s lost his girlfriend and wants to get her back anyway he can – although, in true 70s style, ‘what convinced me is your money-back guarantee’. The result is a dumb song that’s rescued by a powerful; band performance that keeps the song on a knife-edge with lots of great touches, from the vocals to a quite brilliant bubbling bass from Graham and some great production techniques such as some snazzy backwards drums. You’d never want to hear this song too many times in a row – as I must confess I just have writing this review – as you’re likely to start going mad, but as s poof songs about body-building courses go this is one of the best! Incidentally, 10cc must go to the same body-building courses as The Who on their ‘Sell Out’ album, with the ‘dynamic tension’ promised in the song actually coming from a 1960s advert for guitar strings.
