THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

35-Bee Gees-Night Fever.

1978-Number 1 single.

Best At 0.02. ‘Oh no!’ The man in the white coat is coming to take me away. No, wait a minute, my mistake , it’s OK, he’s only taking me to the dance floor.

The Bee Gees (see also best songs 459 and 211) were formed in Queensland, Australia in 1958 by the brothers Barry, and the twins Robin, (1949-2012) and Maurice Gibb, (1949-2003) between 1958-1959 they were known as the ‘BGs.’ The Bee Gees are one of the worlds best ever selling acts, with record sales estimated anywhere between 120 million, to 225 million records sold worldwide. The Bee Gees released 22 studio Albums between 1965-2001,and 83 singles between 1963-2001. Prior to 1967 all of the Bee Gees singles were only released in Australia, with their first ever single being ‘The Battle of the Blue and the Grey,’ (1963-Number 98 ) while their first hit was ‘Wine and Women’ (1965-Number 19.) In the UK, 31 of their singles have reached the top 40, with five of those songs making Number 1, while in America on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, 30 of their songs have charted, with nine of those singles reaching the top spot.

The film ‘Saturday Night Fever’ was the brainchild of the Bee Gees manager Robert Stigwood, (1934-2016) he had read an article in ‘New York Magazine’ entitled ‘Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,’ written by journalist Nik Cohn, talking about teenagers going to dancing competitions. Stigwood approached the Bee Gees to ask if they had any appropriate songs that would fit the film, they had just finished recording ‘Night Fever.’ In fact all eight of the Bee Gees songs that appear on the films soundtrack had been written before the film was commissioned.

Until the film came out the Bee Gees were not considered a ‘Disco’ group, they saw themselves as ‘Blue Eyed Soul’.They had already had a very successful career in the 1960’s with a mix of Pop, and Rock, and the hits were still coming in the 1970’s. The success of the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ film led to a new level in the interest in the Bee Gees music, during the year of 1978 they wrote or performed on six consecutive Billboard Number 1 songs, a record only equalled by the Beatles a decade earlier, in fact five of the top 10 selling singles in 1978 on Billboard were written by Barry,Robin and Maurice.

‘Night Fever’ was written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, who also produced the song, along with Albhy Galuten, and Karl Richardson, the song first appeared on the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ soundtrack, which was released in November 1977 (see also best songs 211 and 184.) ‘Night Fever’ which was the fifth of eight singles released from the soundtrack Album in January 1978 also featured Alan Kendall, (lead guitar) Dennis Bryon, (drums) and Derek John ‘Blue Weaver (electric piano, and String synthesizer.) According to Weaver the string intro of ‘Night Fever’ was inspired by ‘Theme from A Summer Place,’ by Percy Faith, (see also best songs 419) Weaver has said,’Night Fever’ started off because Barry walked in one morning when I was trying to work out something. I always wanted to do a Disco version of ‘Theme from A Summer Place’ by the Percy Faith Orchestra or something, it was a big hit in the Sixties. I was playing that, and Barry said, ‘What was that?’ and I said, ‘Theme from A Summer Place’, and Barry said, ‘No, it wasn’t’. It was new. Barry heard the idea, I was playing it on a string synthesizer and sang the riff over it.’

Speaking in 2008 Robin Gibb said,’Until the film came out, ‘Disco’ meant something very different in the UK to the U.S. We were writing what we considered to be Blue-Eyed Soul. We never set out to make ourselves the kings of Disco, although plenty of other people tried to jump on the bandwagon after the success of the film. When we went to the premiere at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles it was obvious the film and the songs really gelled, but none of us had any idea how huge it would become.’

‘Listen to the ground, there is movement all around, there is something goin’ down and I can feel it. On the waves of the airthere is dancin’ out there, if it’s somethin’ we can share, we can steal it.’