Songfacts®:

• Minestrone is a hearty soup, typically made with pasta, beans and various vegetables. It's not a word that shows up in many songs, but Eric Stewart and Lol Creme thought it made an intriguing metaphor. Stewart explained in a BBC Radio Wales interview: "Life is a minestrone, isn't it? It's a mixture of everything we pile in there and of course once we sat down to start writing 'Life Is A Minestrone,' well, what's death? Death's got to be a cold lasagna, you know, three days old, stuck in the fridge, you don't want to eat it, and once you get on, on a roll like that about food and, and feeling, we had it written in a day."
• Stewart and Creme got the idea for the song when they heard someone on BBC radio say something that sounded like "life is a minestrone." They liked it as a title and decided to put a song together around it.
• In the UK, this was issued as the first single from 10cc's third album, The Original Soundtrack. It went to #7, but the next single, "I'm Not In Love," went to #1. In America, "Life Is A Minestrone" was issued as the flip side of "Lazy Ways" in 1976.
• The band planned to record this in an Italian restaurant, but settled for Strawberry Studios, which they operated.
• There are a number of Disney references peppered into this song in the interest of wordplay. Minnie Mouse, Mickey and Pluto all show up.