DON'T FORGET TO REMEMBER: The Official ILM Track-By-Track BEE GEES 1968-1981 Listening Thread

Put on your 18th century frock coat and/or satin windbreaker and pull up a chair as we explore the dizzying highs and breathtaking lows of over two-decades of the Brothers Gibb! This will probably take the better part of a year, even doing a song a day, so let's get this party started.
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-Nae4_TVLdGI%2FTS6nJi6S9EI%2FAAAAAAAABFY%2FYSpEBCMmgjI%2Fs1600%2FDSCF3356.JPG&f=1
(not pictured: the best Bee Gee)

here's a picture of Robin just to be fair
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shit this should be 1967-1981 d'oh

first up, from Bee Gees 1st, "Turn of the Century". In the vein of other late 60s chamber-pop psych pining for bygone eras, fashions, and manners (The Association's "Wasn't It a Bit Like Now", The Hollies "Ye Olde Toffee Shoppe", Tomorrow's "Auntie Mary's Dress Shop" etc.) and yet I think this one harkens *back* the farthest - not just to the 20s or pre-war UK but actually to the previous fucking century. For who among us has not longed for hoop skirts, unwieldy bicycles, and oversized cravats. As with many other tracks on this album, it sounds hastily composed and is not particularly complex and has daft lyrics - but the eerie orchestration, harmonies and finely tuned melodies ultimately sell it. The teary-eyed nostalgia for a vanished British Empire was a mode Robin would return to again and again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9COyXDe4g

*crickets*

Not a great idea to launch this when (seemingly) 90% of ILXors are getting all giddy and light-headed over an indie band from Glasgow.

But, yes, "Turn of the Century", much better than those other songs you cited, not as good as the Bonzos' "The Equestrian Statue" though, which resembles this.

huh didn't know that particular Bonzos track

so many harpsichords, when is someone gonna bring back the harpsichord in pop music

A concert favourite for over 30 years, Maurice Gibb often provided the audience with comedic antics by attempting many failed attempts to join Barry and Robin while singing this song. Evidence of this can be seen in the 1989 "One For All" concert video where Maurice takes a camera from a film cameraman standing nearby and films Barry and Robin as they sing the song.

Who knows what this song is about, really. Beautifully eerie.

https://youtu.be/_hQ1HQh9_JM

i’m in !!

I'm in too. Coincidentally, I'm writing about these dudes tonight.

FUCK YES I'm so glad I suggested this

"Who knows what this song is about" is an excellent question about so many bee gees songs

god some of these early songs should really be licensed out for horror soundtracks

they have to be the weirdest looking gaggle of freaks ever to become oversexed pop stars

"Who knows what this song is about" is an excellent question about so many bee gees songs

I think a lot of them are about fitting any old words that'll do to a good tune, they have written some very weird lyrics over the years.

I think they were quite good lyricists from time to time, but it’s clear from their demos and recording habits that their overriding priority was always melodies (and harmonies) first and foremost

imho this is an excellent approach to lyric creation

so many harpsichords, when is someone gonna bring back the harpsichord in pop music

something something indie band from Glasgow...

Oh ffs.

yknow, I'll be interested when you guys get to tunes that Maurice sang…like I have the 1990 box set, but I can't tell the difference easily between his voice and Barry's, at least in the early years…like what's the most prominent tune he sang? or what's the song that's most his but one of the other two sang? My understanding is that he was the boffin of the three, but there must be something else noteworthy about him…it does seem that Barry was the massively talented one, and Robin was notably toothsome, charmingly awkward…

He only very occasionally had a lead vocal - and I don't think he sounded much like Barry, he didn't have a particularly distinctive voice, he did a good John Lennon impersonation though! I would say the title track of "Trafalgar" is his most prominent vocal?

I know him best as keyboarist and harmonist.

did maurice do lead on "have you heard the word?"

(xp) Bass player!

Of course. Less so on later albums.

One odd thing about Barry Gibb, of course, is that he plays in Open D tuning. Worth remembering if you're trying to learn Bee Gees songs on guitar!

Today’s entry, more flutes and mellotron and some nonsense lyrics about childhood (afaict). A goat appears to have snuck into the studio towards the end. To me, this one always feels a little bit of a piece w Syd Barrett’s similar obsession w fairytales, nursery rhyme sorta stuff (albeit w out the same level of creepy undertow)
https://youtu.be/AldVXUgCY1Q

This possibly their most psychedelic track, though there's a lot of them - it's brilliant anyway.

By the way, to return to the earlier discussion on Maurice's contribution to the band, I believe he's responsible for the mellotron on this and other tracks.

Yeah his bass and keyboard playing is p distinctive. Not sure what his first lead vocal is - one of his tracks from odessa or cucumber castle maybe?

And four songs into the first album we finally get something with a relatively conventional lyrical POV, and one the bros would mine extensively - the pleading lover. Musically I don't think it's that distinctive from other orchestral balladry of the era, but it's not bad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuvGSWU5xw0

Who are those other 2 rando's on the cover of this album? Also, is Maurice getting a message on one of those secret service earpieces, or did he just have a toothache?

the other two are the drummer (Colin Petersen) and the lead guitarist (Vince Melouney)

wiki implies that Maurice's first solo vocal turns are on Odessa ("Suddenly", where you can definitely tell him apart from Barry and Robin; less so on "I Laugh in Your Face")

(xp) Yes, they were a fully-fledged band by the time they got (back) to the UK.

Could "In My Own Time" be them at their most beatlesque? The bass line definitely bears a strong resemblance to Taxman.

no skipping ahead!

(but yes)

My bad - i have no idea how these listening threads work... someone mentioned "One Minute Woman" already, but there was no mention of "Holiday".

They're not exactly short of Beatleseque tracks.

"Holiday" was posted on Saturday
xp

Missed it too, great song, great non-ovine vocal from Robin too.

Ah, so it's a track a day. Got it.
(i'll save my Taxman/Doctor Robert comparisons for tomorrow)

I can skip tracks on weekends, if ppl aren't around as much

I almost missed this! Yay! Bookmarking so I can join in. Thanks for starting this up Shakey... we are in for QUITE a journey I think! :D

I missed the start of this as well. Cool idea – tho maybe we should name the song explicitly? Esp. since the song titles don’t show up if using the app and they’re embedded in videos.

Anyway...

Turn of the Century – not much I have to add to Οὖτις’s take on this.

Holiday –

Who knows what this song is about, really. Beautifully eerie.

Great thread. I don't expect to add much but will listen with pleasure.

yeah sorry, I will add the songtitles in posts from now on!

so.

much.

harischord

harpsichord, even

I dunno what it is about 60s psych, did every studio in the world just have one just sitting around from classical sessions from 20 years ago?

maybe because studio system esp in the UK was still v stodgy & classical music obsessed?

like “we dont have any “guitars” but have a fool around with these french horns, they’re loads of fun”

either that or Nicky Hopkins just carted one around everywhere with him

lol

these early tracks def have the psych sound & fine musically but god they reallt are hilariously devoid of any irreverence or fun or lyrical, well, anything.

Like I can’t really imagine anyone listening to these songs for enjoyment, except like weird wealthy aristocrats who were legit longing for hoop skirts & harpsichords & felt this all spoke to them on a deep level idk.

oh I think a bit of fun/comedy will start poking through in a few songs. They are a very odd band though, in terms of the attitudes they convey - like, they want to go for the three-hanky weepiness (esp Robin) ref'd upthread, just get really maudlin and melodramatic, but then they are just as apt to go in for clownishly clumsy goofs on the next track. I'm not sure if they were just really comfortable with being ridiculous and/or totally oblivious to how ridiculous they could be. Either way, what they do works.

But, I mean, look at that inner sleeve for Cucumber Castle, they were clearly goofing around with that, while at the same time, the album includes some of the most earnestly emotive self-pity Barry would ever deliver ("Bury me, down by the river"... or I suppose "Barry, me, down by the river" lol).

and then sometimes in their psych period the sad stuff gets pushed to the absolute limit, the tragedy assumes comic proportions on more than one occasion, so it can be both genuinely moving AND hilarious depending on how you approach it, I suppose.

Yeah definitely. I think a lot of it prob comes down to just youth & self-consciousness & learning their creative/musical personality through the early studio process

yeah. they're also learning a lesson which would stand them in good stead for decades, which is adapt to whatever the musical climate of the moment is. they were v v skilled at quickly grasping what other musicians were doing and adapting it to their own purposes.

I really like the song Cucumber Castle

popping in to say that when i was a teen, there was a local group who covered "holiday" and (obviously as a teen in the early 90s) had no idea it was a cover
i have searched for evidence of this and found nothing but it was a synthy upbeat version.

that sounds like a terrible idea lol

I really liked the Nappy Roots song that sampled Holiday.

i have been texting with friends about it -- i know it existed -- but no record of it that i can find. the group was called Piper Blue !?

i know i have it on a mix i taped off the radio but no idea which one

I don't know, a synthy PSB style version of "Holiday" could definitely work. It's worth reminding ourselves just how young they all were at this stage, Barry was 20 when he recorded this album, Robin and Maurice were 17. Seventeen.

the people who recorded this cover were about the same age -- definitely teens
i am on the trail...

thread title surprisingly otm!!

i would love to hear it if you find it!

My introduction to non-Saturday Night Fever Bee Gees was actually through a local musician's cover of "Holiday".

Also I'm very happy this thread is happening even though I will have nothing of substance to contribute and will be totally unable to keep up with it cool thanks

Astrud Gilberto did a cover of Holiday on her album September 17, 1969 (but honestly, it wasn't one of her finer moments -- she did this fast/slow/fast/slow arrangement of it which doesn't work that well)

In My Own Time – the previously-noted “Doctor Robert” groove and Harrysong lead vocal on this may be the most shameless thing they ever did (and that’s saying something). It’s pretty great tho and better than I remember. And holy shit, are these songs short.

Sorry to jump the line but I had a moment. Also, Shakey, you are absolutely killing it on this thread.

I have that Astrud Gilberto version on 45. I was hoping it would be a special 45 mix that was all fast, but it's the same as the LP version

Track No. 5: In My Own Time ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLzfjPkNaM8

As mentioned, uncanny in its Rubber Soul/Revolver-era Beatley-ness, esp with the rhythm section and the harmonies, which bear a striking resemblance to the close three-part harmonies McCartney, Lennon and Harrison perfected. If there's any element of the song that doesn't quite live up to its obvious inspiration its the guitar solo, which is serviceable but not nearly on the level of Harrison's melodicism and phrasing. Lyrically pretty straightforward in sentiment, but even then I dunno what that line about hot cross buns is about - another instance of the boys littering their songs with left-field imagery of a distinctly English bent. There's a relatively shitty audio clip of them doing this song live for the BBC and Robin's non-stop ad-libs behind Barry's lead vocal are pretty funny.

Native Teen Idol, did you mean to write “Harrison” where it says “Harrysong” in your post? I couldn’t make sense of it before Shakey’s post and it got me very confused because the only Harrysong I know is a present-day Nigerian Afropop singer. Or perhaps your autocorrect is Nigerian-inclined?

(Sorry about this slight derail. I’m following this thread with interest, even if I don’t expect to add much of relevance to the conversation for now)

p sure it was just a pun on George Harrison (who was fond of that kind of thing)

Okay, didn’t know “George Harrysong” was a thing - please proceed...

Rutleseque.

It was an unintentionally bastardized play on the name of his publishing company.

Quite like this one as Beatles pastiches go. Very pleasant! But oof the guitar solo really drags you back to reality huh

Track No. 6: Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPoLyRBmjoM

What can you say about this monolith marvelousness? Often associated with similar soft-psych choral efforts by the Moody Blues, Vanilla Fudge, etc. but honestly I find this song kind of next-level compared to those in the way it see-saws between the creepy medieval chanting and the triumphant harmonies in the chorus, all underpinned by some lovely mellotron work from Maurice. Lyrically it's another hodgepodge of random historical referents and child-like nostalgia, delivered in their uniquely melancholy way. The gregorian chant bits are apparently all Robin, overdubbed.

Crazy in a good way.

the top comment on that video, and its reply, sum things up pretty well

goddamn this track is my favorite so far. mellotrons never sounded so good. love the intermittent tambourine accents in the chorus, jumping out on my crappy computer speakers.

my favorite so far as well, but oddly I think this album is actually very heavily backloaded. From here to the end is a remarkably solid run

The gregorian chant bits are apparently all Robin, overdubbed.

yeah I think the previous tracks are all good and fine but this one does raise the bar a bit

Ok that was dope. LOVE!!

Track No. 7: Craise Finton Kirk ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sudd9Sv2Bgg

The bros take a detour from Beatleburg into Kinkdom territory, and get a little lost. Melodically it's as strong as anything else they were coming up with at the time, and the minimal arrangement of just piano + vocals do give it the feel of a quaint tea-time parlor performance. But as a character sketch it's pretty flat and semi-incoherent. Robin and Barry *could* tell a story and etch in memorable details, but this song doesn't really do it. I have no idea what the listener is supposed to glean about this character - he's an impenetrable square? He goes to work, but then nobody knows where he is? How does that work? Is Craise even an actual first name that, like, real people had? It's like they thought up a funny name about a guy on the street and then just strung some random sentences together. I still find it charming in its goofiness, but "Mr. Pleasant" or "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" or "Well Respected Man" it is not.

He smiled and rubbed the stubble on his chin
He sure shall find the weariness and dreariness of life that's growing thin
Yet he didn't have so very far to go
With a pencil in his hand he will travel on as planned
With a mere step in the mountain to a light

Craise Finton Kirk, see him go, on his way
Oh they don't know where he is
Very very nice, very very nice

Even in the morning when he slept
Something odd is missing
There's nothing very much to talk about
And nothing very much to see

Craise Finton Kirk, see him go, on his way
oh they don't know where he is
Very very nice, very very nice

Talks about the place he'd like to go
And you never see the worrying and hurrying and that makes a person slow
Yet you wouldn't think he'd be so hard to find
Yet he looks so very busy but there's nothing on his mind
And his wavy hair continues not to grow

Craise Finton Kirk, see him go, on his way
oh they don't know where he is
Very very nice, very very nice

Craise Finton Kirk, see him go, on his way
Oh they don't know where he is
Very very nice, very very nice

A neural network trained on Ray Davies

lol

why doesn't his hair grow? is he dead?

Track No. 8: New York Mining Disaster 1941 ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S43YhQ_eGTw

the first of many indisputably classic hit singles, which is kinda odd when you consider what a bizarre song this is with it's stop-start performances, choppy backing arrangement with various orchestral elements dipping in and out with countermelodies, and it's oblique and kinda dark story-in-song lyrics. None of those are knocks against it, obviously, just that it's not an obvious hit by any means. But it *does* have that unique mix in place, even at this early stage, of the bros biggest selling points - the mixture of melancholy and longing, strong melodies shifting from minor to major and bolstered by perfect harmonies, and a keen air for how to get the most out of the studio. Alternate versions (like the one with the boys singing all the orchestral backing parts) are also p great.

At least the song title screams out "hit single" tho.

so does Maurice's jacket in the video

Barry and Robin Gibb wrote the song when they were sitting on a darkened staircase at Polydor Records following a power cut. The echo of the passing lift inspired them to imagine that they were trapped in a mine. According to the liner notes for their box-set Tales from the Brothers Gibb (1990), this song was inspired by the 1966 Aberfan mining disaster in Wales.

*Track No. 7: Craise Finton Kirk ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)*
📹

The bros take a detour from Beatleburg into Kinkdom territory, and get a little lost. Melodically it's as strong as anything else they were coming up with at the time, and the minimal arrangement of just piano + vocals do give it the feel of a quaint tea-time parlor performance. But as a character sketch it's pretty flat and semi-incoherent. Robin and Barry *could* tell a story and etch in memorable details, but this song doesn't really do it. I have no idea what the listener is supposed to glean about this character - he's an impenetrable square? He goes to work, but then nobody knows where he is? How does that work? Is Craise even an actual first name that, like, real people had? It's like they thought up a funny name about a guy on the street and then just strung some random sentences together. I still find it charming in its goofiness, but "Mr. Pleasant" or "Dedicated Follower of Fashion" or "Well Respected Man" it is not.

ooh yeah that period of the Zombies is a good point of comparison

"New York Mining Disaster", the vocals remind me of the Watersons or something, very folk - but not folk rock - it's partly the Northern vowels but also the harmonies.

Their accents are interesting because they're from the Isle of Man and I'm not 100% sure what a Manx accent is like - though I know it sounds a bit like Liverpool accent. Now, a Liverpool accent is obviously useful if you're trying to sound like the Beatles! However the Gibb's accent sounds more Manchester to me - and, of course, they lived in Manchester too, but I'm not sure for how long. There's certainly no Australian in there though!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellan_Vannin_(poem)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ_9kCYzkMI

At least the song title screams out "hit single" tho.

(xp) Oops, broken link, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellan_Vannin_(poem)

Is the “Mr. Jones” character at all a reference to “Ballad of a Thin Man”?

XP - I always imagined all those fans of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack out record shopping in 1978 and spotting the comp Best of Bee Gees in the discount rack. Then they get home and put the album on and think, wtf, wrong group, this isn't even falsetto. Only then did they notice the song titles: "Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You", "New York Mining Disaster 1941".

^ Apart from Saturday Night Fever itself, I know virtually nothing except 1st (which IMHO is amazing, or at least amusingly bonkers, the whole way through) and that '69 Best of. (Surely one of my wisest 10c purchases.) I remain similarly clueless about the route from A to B. I guess that's a way of saying that this thread might, in fact, be just what I needed.

Track No. 9: Cucumber Castle (“Bee Gees 1st”, 1967)
https://youtu.be/6kBdgNpCKnw

Weakest song on the album imo

Disagree, great song.

It’s not bad, I just think all the other tracks are better!

This song is great and way better than Craise whatever it is called

Track No. 10: To Love Somebody ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg_cWE_Xc8E

This, miraculously, actually charted *lower* than the previous single ("New York Mining Disaster 1941") even though it seems like the mores straightforward pop hit to my ears. Issued as the second single with "Close Another Door" (which we will get to shortly) as the b-side, the story goes this was originally written for Otis Redding, although interestingly Barry later noted that he felt he really wrote it for (and *about*) Robert Stigwood himself.

the most interesting thing to me about this song is what an odd genre hybrid it is. It's been covered a lot and often very poorly, in my opinion, not being one to care for either the Nina Simone or Janis Joplin versions, for example. It's as if those making the attempt seem to understand at a basic level that this is a tailor-made soul shouter sort of song but get confused about how to actually deliver. But you can really hear, in Barry's delivery, how Otis *would* have sang it had he gotten the chance, even though the arrangement and instrumental backing are most likely nowhere near what Otis (and presumably Booker T and the MGs) would have done with it. And that's kind of what's most interesting about it - the Bee Gees arrangement doesn't go anywhere near the white UK R&B style of the time, the band doesn't bother trying to approximate Motown or Chicago blues or Stax/Volt. This does not sound like Mick Jagger immitating James Brown, or the Small Faces doing Solomon Burke. It goes in the *opposite* direction with the flowery psych orchestration, but with that R&B vocal on the top, and becomes something else entirely.

Flopped in the UK btw.

It feels quite distinct from the rest of the album. Though I can no longer tell whether that reflects actual stylistic differences or just exposure to so many other renditions that it feels like a standard rather than a 'mere' Bee Gees song. The lyrics in the verses don't seem all that much more coherent than other tracks. LOL.

Looks like it charted fractionally better than "1941" in Australia. Though singles from this album seemingly struggled to match the chart success (in that market) of their pre-emigration single "Spicks and Specks", which finally gave them a massive hit while they, it's frequently noted, were on the boat back to the UK!

Track No. 11: I Close My Eyes ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JaUaIEh9F8

Another one that feels like a Revolver outtake. Personally my favorite part is the break just before the verses where Robin brings back his goat impression for those "ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ahaaaas". Piping flute arrangement is p great too.

odd factoid I didn't realize before: Klaus Voorman designed the cover for this LP

very revolvery indeed. and i'm off now to report it to this thread. a baffling song to try to cover. love it.

haha yeah that fill after the intro is so weird

lyrically this comes across as a re-write of "I'm a Loser"

“I Close My Eyes” simply reminds me that this record has so many “Dee dee dee’s” and “Ehh ehh ehh ehh’s” from Robin.

“To Love Somebody” was the one undisputed early classic of theirs I didn’t even have on my ballot for the ILM Artist Poll Shakey threw together in the wake of Robin’s death (and it placed first). I’m not sure what it is – the open is just perfect in so many ways for me, the string melody, the opening line. My own perspective may be a bit skewed by the Flying Burrito Brothers version, which is one of my absolute favorite things they recorded. Gram’s vocal really brings out the pathos in the verse and the chorus crescendos into this tidal wave that wrings every last bit of emotion out of the melody by the time they get to the titular phrase. It’s awesome.

Yet by comparison there’s something about The Bee Gees’ own rendition that feels ... off to me. A bit like it’s going through the motions. The harps and string flourishes feel like they belong to another song – and while Barry does a good job delivering a passionate lead, there’s nothing really earned about the emotion. In some ways it reminds me of Badfinger’s original recording of “Without You” – an obvious classic but one that feels like it hasn’t quite bloomed in full.

I had no idea the Burritos covered this w Gram

Track No. 12: I Can't See Nobody ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-6a27bIgt0

Robin's skills come to the fore in this one, his best track on the album imo. The minor-key descending string melody leading into the harpsichord sets it up and then it all resolves in the sweeping major-key chorus where Barry and Maurice's harmonies come in, just really wonderful.

always thought it was a goofy joke that this followed "I Close My Eyes" in the tracklisting

Sorry I've been missing this - I will try to keep up. I think "Turn of the Century" is my favorite on this album and that it's classic toytown psych.

Toytown is a good descriptor

It's a sub-genre of UK psychedelia, I believe.

Going back to "To Love Somebody":

the Bee Gees arrangement doesn't go anywhere near the white UK R&B style of the time, the band doesn't bother trying to approximate Motown or Chicago blues or Stax/Volt

I just had it on before I read this and was thinking that the strings on it were very Motown.

I can kinda hear that. Rhythm section (and the rest of the orchestra - harp, horns, flutes etc.) are another story entirely.

_Is the “Mr. Jones” character at all a reference to “Ballad of a Thin Man”?_

Wondered about this myself but highly doubt it

Yeah no idea but Robin singing about puppets and repeating “Throwing stones” in a descending melodic turn defines melancholy. The first Robin classic if not a three-hanky one.

Also think this cover connection should be noted:
https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2234173475_16.jpg

Always stan for the James Carr version of “To Love Somebody.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Ili2VvtvU

that one's pretty good! lol @ those slide guitar zips in the chorus. dope drum break too.

just listened to the Burritos one, that's p good too, although my favorite thing about it (not surprisingly) is the pedal steel (Sneaky Pete Kleinow?)

Track No. 13: Please Read Me ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYAKcOfg9tU

This is like the vocal showcase tune of the album, indulging in some "Nowhere Man"-style multi-tracked harmonies with a bit of the Beach Boys thrown in on the wordless verse, to my ears.

the harmonies are gorgeous. i usually love '60 tambourines that are mixed a little too loud but this one annoys me for some reason. is he talking to his shrink?

Ha, thats an interesting take

This one hadn't made an impression on me before, but yes, some really nice vocal parts.

The little slide guitar interjections are great too. This might be even my favourite of the deeper cuts.

Ha yeah i was gonna mention those guitar bits. Melouney is generally kind of embarrassing and at best adequate on these tracks, but ocassionally he adds a nice touch as he does here.

Track No. 14: Close Another Door ("Bee Gees 1st", 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDJLlhEvUDE

Finishing up the album on a characteristically odd note with a tune that features three time changes, dropped beats, and lyrics that make no sense from one phrase to the next ("listen to my eyes"? who exactly is "too old to work" in this song?), but nonetheless delivers an evocative arrangement and their trademark harmonic and melodic strengths. Feel like the marching cadence and overwrought Robin vocal parts put this firmly in the toytown psych camp previously referenced.

Just catching up with this now, and it's been a great read so far. The debut is easily my second favourite '60s album of theirs after Odessa. I like Horizontal and Idea, but find 'em a little less consistent. Also, why not include E.S.P. as part of this thing? It was their last big success, with 'You Win Again' etc.

I saw a video of 'em being interviewed circa '87 where Barry looked fucked off as some radio stations were still refusing to play 'em in the US because of their strong association with disco.

yeah I know it was big but the 6-year gap (the longest in their recording history up to that point) made it "Living Eyes" seem more like a natural cutoff point, as the "end of an era". (I know there's also the "Staying Alive" sdtk but eh)

I agree that Horizontal and Idea are less consistent than 1st, we'll see if others concur shortly, I suppose

Track No. 15: Massachusetts(released as a single in 1967 prior to appearing on the "Horizontal" LP in 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3fCScu-yPQ

The group's first of five No. 1 hits in the UK, issued as a single in the winter of 1967 ahead of the release of "Horizontal" in the following February. A beautiful orchestral arrangement backing a classic Robin lead with thick and gooey harmonies on the refrain, the song is a homesick ode for an American city the band had never been to but liked the name of. Written as a response track to the many songs then in vogue about going to San Francisco, the boys wonder gee what if you got to San Francisco and really just wished you were back home in Massachusetts?

Incidentally, the day it went to number one, Robin survived the Hither Green Rail Crash.

There's very little I could say about 'Massachusetts' what hasn't already been said - it's an absolute classic. There's a performance they did of this on Parkinson in the '80s, just them singing and Barry and Maurice playing acoustic and they could just pull off those gorgeous harmonies so effortlessly.

I do like that they never shied away from doing their 60s material live, they knew those songs were hits for a reason, and even in the disco era would still pull them out

I agree, I think that was a good attitude for them to have. You don't always find that with artists that have had different "phases" of their career.

Also gave Robin the chance to do some lead vocals.

ode for an American city
City?

Yeah, one could be forgiven for thinking that Barry was the one calling all the shots - especially in the disco era - but christ was there some serious creative/personal tension between Barry and Robin for a long time. I remember being quite tickled when I found out that the geekiest looking member of the Bee Gees - the one who sang all those ballads with that unique, trembling voice - was actually one difficult, firey little bastard.

Sorry, state! Duh

Xp

A sorry state indeed.

christ was there some serious creative/personal tension between Barry and Robin for a long time.

It's been several years since I watched the In Our Own Time documentary but I have been continually haunted by one particular exchange, where Robin is trying to explain the ethos of the group in the early days, and ends with:

Robin: A good time to us was actually being in the studio.
Barry (swooping in and setting the record straight): A good time to us was a good woman.

So happy some weirdo recorded it off his TV with his phone because the delivery (and the weird muttered exchange between the two of them a few seconds later) is crucial:
https://youtu.be/gIsXKiMG1zU?t=367

"The idea of women crept into our lives. Up to that point, women had not." <----now THIS I can believe

Track No. 16: Barker of the UFO (UK b-side to "Massachusetts" single, 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SIiAcEj6hA

A bit of fluffy tinker-toy psych with strings and xylophone (?), puts me in mind of similar LP cuts from the Hollies. No idea what this is about, the lyrics are particularly inscrutably child-like, not sure if they're singing about some guy who stands outside the Club UFO corralling patrons or someone who barks at unidentified flying objects or what. As usual, some nice harmonies.

I'm endeavoring to go chronologically here through official releases, so I'm including non-album singles (and any non-album B-sides as well. No reissue/outtakes though). Oddly, in this particular period (post-1st) I think their non-album tracks were often better than what eventually made it onto "Horizontal".

The title makes me think it's some sort of play on Barker of the FO (i.e. the Foreign Office) and the UFO Club, the words are gobbledygook though. I do like this song, and this kind of nonsense psychedelia in general.

is Barker of the Foreign Office some kind of offical position?

No, it sounds like a character in a Boulting Brothers movie.

If only I could join all the dots in my head I'd be clever...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlton-Browne_of_the_F.O.

Part of the appeal of the first album for me is that it's the Bee Gees as a band plus maybe some overdubs. On records from the period where the band is replaced by an outside arrangement, I'm not always convinced about the music's basis in the modernity and experimentalism of the time. With, say, "Eleanor Rigby" or "Within You Without You," I'm convinced. Likewise am convinced by the orchestral stuff on Odessa.

i could hear the who doing this. and not just because of the tuba.

Track No. 17: Sir Geoffrey Saved the World (US b-side to "Massachusetts" single, 1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUyxmrRhwqI

A descending sing-song melody wrapped around a bunch of frilly-cuffed psych nonsense, with a few tasteful bells and whistles in the arrangement thrown in. Like a dreamier "Penny Lane" or Ray Davies throwaway, evocative of a very specific kind of British nostalgia.

Pretty vocal by Robin on this one!

lol the psych blog Marmalade Skies ranked this the #2 greatest toytown psych song ever

It is good. Melody's somehow familiar.

Maybe the glitch in the video just tricks your brain into a feeling of deja vu?
I agree though. The first time I heard it, it already sounded familiar... maybe the aforementioned "Penny Lane" similarities.

Track No. 19: World (Released as a single in December 1967, prior to inclusion on "Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaDmKAJHAss

The second single released ahead of the album. A good melody and arrangement, but the repetition of the refrain gets tiresome. In addition, this is the first of many tracks on the LP where you can detect a division of duties between the two ostensible lead vocalists in the band - subsequent tracks will often feature only solo vocals by Barry or Robin, with no deployment of the band's undeniably greatest strengths, their harmonies. Here they do a kind of Righteous Brothers-split on the lead, with Barry singing the first two-thirds and Robin the latter third but honestly I dunno that that really brings anything to the song. Melouney (for once) gets off some passable licks in the background, before reverting to just playing the melody behind the vocal. Not among their best efforts imo.

A good melody and arrangement, but the repetition of the refrain gets tiresome.

OTM.

no idea what compelled them to issue this as a single and place it as the lead-off song on the album

Not to derail this thread, and I've been debating whether to share them, but I've been doing vocoder versions of one song from each album we go over (as part of my "Sad Robot Covers") -- and yeah, that was the challenge I had with this one: the refrain is kind of monotonous. That said, I really like the B-section of this -- there's a really longing quality that makes the song work for me.

There's very little I could say about 'Massachusetts' what hasn't already been said - it's an absolute classic. There's a performance they did of this on Parkinson in the '80s, just them singing and Barry and Maurice playing acoustic and they could just pull off those gorgeous harmonies so effortlessly.

Catching up a bit ... agreed, this is a great performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlkchsloKZA

I dunno, there's something about "World" that, for me, makes it the perfect lead-off song on the album. Just the weird structure of it, it feels like a statement of purpose to place it as the first song on the second album, like just letting you know that this band's sound is going to keep moving and changing. The opening line is like, our first album was a success and we've been out in the world and now we're back to share the great wisdom that we've acquired, but they're these weird fucking alien people so you get this sub-stoner nonsense...and then they immediately launch into the second section of the song, letting that line hang there in such a way that you know they meant it to be profound.

This band is so dumb and I love them so much.

Melody's somehow familiar.

... the melody of "Sir Geoffrey Saved the World", that is. I don't think this is why but nonetheless...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWQMMPFtoG4

Track No. 20: And the Sun Will Shine ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH9eX5Odeog

Robin delivers a beautiful solo vocal, reportedly done in one take with some of the words improvised on the spot (which, tbh and in the context of their other material at the time, is not particularly apparent. these lyrics are pretty good actually!)

Classic Robin, the oldest and gloomiest 18 year old in Swinging Sixties London.

haha yes

it's interesting to me how this song is *all* melody. Everything in the arrangement, the fluctuations in tempo and time signature, the little call-and-response countermelodies, are built around this one solo lead vocal.

classic staging on this TV performance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7xi7kl4RVY

^^ Smothers Brothers, apparently

Track No. 21: Lemons Never Forget ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piB7d85G4CY

This one feels like rather unique territory. Or, put another way, I can't quite make out who they were trying to sound like here - it's a little Lennon-esque (psych fruit song!), but not overly so. The numerous rhythmic shifts are built around the pounding piano, with the drums never playing a straight beat for more than a few bars at a time, and the fuzz guitar hiccupping along in the background. The lyric is again impenetrable nonsense, hung around some kind of fruit metaphor and apparently meant as some kind of warning or admonishment...? Who knows! Held together by a solid melody, but again lacking their distinctive harmonies (although I think I detect Robin singing a low harmony on the bridges, buried in the mix). A solid, perplexing little bauble of a song imo.

I really like this one. It may be nonsense, but opening the verses with "incidentally...", as though we're resuming a conversation, is immensely pleasing somehow. Horizontal is quite good so far!

haha yeah the first two lines sound like someone's boss delivering a dressing-down... but then the next couple of lines happen

I can't quite make out who they were trying to sound like here - it's a little Lennon-esque (psych fruit song!), but not overly so

I beg to differ, it's more than a little and is overly so. Barry and Maurice were both very good at Lennon. The song is great and the lyrics are nuts.

Intro reminds me of Peggy Lee's "I Go to Sleep" and the keyboard sound is like the one in Pink Floyd's "Cymbaline" which it's in the same key as, though it goes to completely different places

The Lennon aspects strike me as being later Lennon, though. If it was recorded in the fall of '67, I don't know which Lennon songs from earlier it could be said to evoke.

Sgt. Pepper was out, so maybe "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "Mr. Kite," I dunno.

Strawberry Fields?

I agree it does sound curiously like later Lennon.

"And the Sun Will Shine" is one of my fave early Bee Gees tunes. They should have improvised more lyrics.

Lennons already forgot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rLBkaBgc4I

P cool!

Track No. 21: Lemons Never Forget ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfG4L_ql20M

Four songs in to their second record and the brothers still haven't sung a note together, this time ceding the spotlight to Robin for a weepy multiple-hanky tearjerker apparently written about his experience in the Hither Green Rail Crash, although I'll be damned if I can detect any direct connection in the lyrics. Not particularly fond of this one, the accordian, orchestration, and melodrama make me think it has kind of a French chanson feel to it. A decent enough melody but kinda boring.

Yes, definite chanson feel to this, he gets even weepier on later albums.

we aren't going to get to all the unreleased/outtakes from this record but it blows my mind that they would leave off stuff like Words, Out of Line, Ring My Bell, Swan Song, and Sinking Ships to make room for some of the tracks that *did* make it onto the record, including this one

I do get why they cut Deeply, Deeply Me tho lol

first, a correction

Track No. 22: Really and Sincerely ("Horizontal", 1968)

and today's track:
Track No. 23: Birdie Told Me ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q-g0VINa-4

Probably my favorite track so far. Love the electric guitar fills. Harmonies, according to wikipedia, are all Barry...?

what, is everybody tired of these gossamer strains of pop majesty already

hey y'all! i've had this bookmarked since the holidays but that golden day to sit down and just catch up on everything hasn't arrived. I intended to just put the one album on and write some quick thoughts at the end but I’ve ended up liveblogging “bee gees 1st” track by track, sorry.

my background is i know the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack inside and out, plus "tragedy" and probably some other gibb stuff in the late 70s. and, thanks to my mom, i know "massachusetts," "i started a joke," and "i've gotta get a message to you" so i was aware they had some kind of sensitive-poet/bubblegum/pop-rock past before that. otherwise i know nothing.

at first listen, this material lives up to that latter zone comfortably. yes, chamber pop, bygone eras, all that. the lite, “play this underneath well-dressed young lovers frolicking” end of psychedelia that owes it all to “penny lane.” “turn of the century” isn't exactly a great example to my ears, and the repeated insistence on the on-the-nose title makes it feel like a simpsons parody of this kind of song… but it's nicely produced. this kind of thing must have commercially been riding right at the edge between sales of rock and pop albums, and of easy-listening and exotica albums.

same more or less goes for the next few tracks - so far, this is the kind of music i stick in to my “bubble gum, psych and transition rock” playlist alongside the archies, the fifth dimension, mark lindsay solo tracks, the box tops, and tommy james; every playlist needs some “color and texture” type songs to fill it out. put another way: it’s a sound/era i dig but so far i’m just feeling the sound; nothing has grabbed me as a song/hook in itself. i’m not as disinterested as Veg is in the aristocrats-at-teatime play-acting, but the polite romantic poet thing really doesn’t lend itself to in-your-face hook-belting like “gotta get a message to you.”

“in my own time” is kicking things up a notch, if admittedly in a sort of predictable way. it’s like the most muted “taxman” knockoff ever, by the least raved-up garage band. it’s tough when you copy something that closely, it’s hard not to just think “well the beatles were clearly a tighter and more fiery band at this point in time.” we’ve just moved from the frolicking-lovers scene to the big party scene, and now “every christian man etc etc” takes us into the “trippy” scene where nobody is seen doing any particular drugs and nothing particularly trippy happens but the camera spins around and zooms in and out slowly. it’s at least got a *vibe* though. the chants are so corny and stop it dead in its tracks but the droney parts are cool.

okay actual lolz at “craise finton kirk royal academy of art” opening right up with a (low-budget, inaccurate) old-timey vocal filter effect. i get what you mean about the kinks, but…. this is them trying to do syd barrett’s twee-er material right? it’s pretty good! nilsson would have taken it into more interesting places but the “see him go, on his way […] very very nice” bit moves along nicely. i like how spare this arrangement is! definitely my fave track so far.

“new york mining disaster 1941” is definitely one I’ve heard of before though if you’d asked me I would have dubbed it “pennsylvania mining town disaster 1945.” the bag of tricks they’ve collected thus far is working a lot better, giving them different sounds to reach for at different points in the song, with the scratchy psych strumming and thump-thump-thump drum being welcome additions that seem to add something and actually contribute to a genuinely weird, off-kilter vibe since the energy level of the track rises at odd times in the song and the narrative. i could do without dylan’s mister jones showing up but “don’t go talking too loud, you’ll cause a landslide” is a really cool way of phrasing what the song is going for at this point. “mixture of melancholy and longing,” i buy that.

“cucumber castle” is also cool. maybe I’m just getting used to the vibe of this record as i’m sitting with it, but i feel like it’s hitting similar notes to those first few tracks but clicking a lot better. the title is a stupid hippie mad lib though.

“to love somebody,” carrying on decently - - - -- oh shit, wait, I know this. i probably figured it was the Brooklyn Bridge or some one-hit no-name band. i’ve always liked the hook and it should be the title - it’s more evocative and you can project more things onto it. man they have some really weird song-naming instincts, these guys! for the first time the vocal is very clearly the gibb-ness i recognize from years later, specifically on the “if i ain’t got you” part.

“i close my eyes”… this is fine I guess… organ part is dumb. the “nahahahaaaahaaaa” part rules. getting better as it goes. you know maybe the real problem is that their drummer is super boring and hacky all over this album? the slower songs can cover for that on mood and psych overproduction but the ‘rock’ numbers can’t really.

woah the lead vocal on “i can’t see nobody” is pretty interesting! it approaches that “martian voice” you can do by closing up your throat (especially on the “don’t know whys” towards the end) but it’s more like he’s just so emotional he’s swallowing up all his vocals. i think this is him trying to do “soul” but it’s so odd and unique that it ends up less embarrassing than similar efforts by peer acts. i like the idea of switching from that to the clearer, lower, earthier multi-vocal part, but the hook itself is a bit generic. so many of these hooks feel like forced singalong, but of songs the instructor wrote rather than ones that have survived to become campfire standards.

“please read me” takes me back to that syd barrett version of psych, just in the affectedly lazy/nasal/atonal vocal approach. the chorus is really lovely. that high beach boys oo-wee-oo coming in is a wonderful surprise.

“close another door” - man this type of band was always opening doors, closing doors, asking people to go through locked doors, seeking keys…. there’s those dreadful drums again – or perhaps it’s someone dropping moldy potatoes on damp cardboard boxes. i think this song is okay but I’m getting weary of this record and this isn’t really nailing what i’d want a closing track to do from this kind of band. it’s too…. jolly or something. happy to have the martian vocals back at the end though.

overall this album got much better across the length of it and i’m looking forward to a second listen! i expect i’ll come around on a few tracks now that i have confidence that I basically am okay with this band at this point in their career, their sound, their tics, all that. i think the only things I can sing looking at the titles are “very very nice” and “you don’t know what it’s like” but that’s not terrible for a first pass…
stoked for this thread and hopeful i can keep up. thanks, outic.

yeahhh thanks Doc!

also worth noting is this reverent cover version by Chumbawamba from the year 2000, post-"Tubthumping"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv9AFfidJZw

"Birdie Told Me" is certainly not a song I would have recognized by its title but, yes, it's pretty good, they were pretty much the world's leading Beatles impersonators at this point - but I prefer them to the Beatles anyhow.

Nice to see the good Doctor weigh in, feel like a tracks thread is not complete otherwise

awww, thanks. yeah i mean everybody else was such an incredible sport with the, i think, rather more demanding billy joel thread, that it'd be in poor form for me to not try and chime in! plus this band is really a genuine blind spot for me, in genres that i like!

have had second listen going on while i work on stuff... "please read me" is jumping out as the standout. it reminds me of some of the deep cuts on the first buffalo springfield album which i got really into a couple years ago.

I never got into Horizontal when I had a vinyl copy, but I'm at least enjoying the opportunity to try again. I know there's stuff I really like on Idea and happen to think Odessa is a masterpiece, so I will be around!

Track No. 24: With the Sun in My Eyes ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swxOw3uJNhk

sort of imagine Barry going "oh, Robin gets a weepy solo ballad about the sun? well SO DO I" and writing this in five minutes. The minimal arrangement works well, including that odd suspended chord that the strings end the song on. And so we reach the end of side 1 without the boys having sung a single note together.

I've been kinda hard on Melouney so far in this thread but I think the Doctor does raise some valid points about Peterson's drumming as well. For whatever reason, it doesn't seem like the bros were able to recruit top-flight guys for those roles, and sometimes their sidemen's weird idiosyncrasies work and sometimes they just sound clumsy. At least they could rely on Maurice!

Track No. 25: Harry Braff ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxHU4dsgKw

Side two opens with the already discussed "Massachusetts" and then leads into this rather dire ode to a race car driver whose name the boys seem to be fond of repeating endlessly. In the vein of their other Beatle-y material but all the dropped beats, time changes, and silly vocal ad-libs can't cover up for the fact that this is an exceptionally weak tune with unusually rough harmonies and little in the way of a decent hook. Low point of the album imo.

Dire? This song is great!

Chequered flag for Harry Naff, more like. A favourite of Oasis, apparently.

Q: Could you write to order, say if Oasis came to you? I'm sure Noel Gallagher is a big fan but if he said, 'Write us a song' could you do that?

Maurice: Funnily enough one of their favourite songs is off our second album, it's called Harry Braff. We know what the expression 'braff' means, don't we? So we wrote this song about a non-existent speedcar racer called Harry Fart. It was just one of the Australian expressions that you pick up and we were using so we used them in our songs. So I guess if we wrote something in that vein they'd probably have a ball with it.

can't say that anecdote improves my opinion

I didn't think it would 😄

Here was i thinking it was reference to Ruby Braff... with a side order of Harry Wragg.

so I guess the lyrical slang joke make this a precursor to "Fanny be Tender"

By the way, OTM on "With the Sun in My Eyes" as an example of Barry doing Robin, though I've never liked that breathy vibrato thing Barry does on this and later ballads.

Track No. 26: Day Time Girl ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln-t6gkCGyw

Robin delivers another somber ballad w a fairly minimal piano + string quartet arrangement. Lyrically it's fine but otherwise it feels a bit underwritten to me, basically just two verses with little variation from the string accompaniment and then it's done.

Still catching up....

"Massachusetts" - This is one I've known before but never really connected with. It's working better for me right now after a couple days of having the first album in rotation, I'm now digging their just-barely-square fusion of hippie vibes with gentler chamber pop with all the strings and xylophones and whatnot. Here it's the bubbling bass that really tethers it back to a Beatlesey "rock" sensibility. I've always associated it with "If You're Going to San Francisco" but this is actually a better recording and a more evocative song. That said, speaking as an American, I find the title and lyrical conceit a little clumsy and broad - identifying with a whole big state like that rarely washes for me. For whatever reason I accept it with "Indiana Wants Me" (maybe because he's referring to the state government's police activity) but here it feels really like they just needed a place with the right number of syllables. Overall though it's a much more consistent and coherent song than the stuff on the last album, the chorus grows organically out of the song and the hook is strong enough that it doesn't all just flatten out into wallpaper. Good song.

"Barker of the UFO" - love the intro sound, wish it didn't just fall into another jaunty little ditty. But as jaunty little ditties go, it's good. It must be about someone standing outside an unidentifying UFO coralling patrons, surely? FCC's connection to The Who makes sense to me. It would be better if performed by The Who but it'd be a different thing I guess.

"Sir Geoffrey Saved the World" - I'm still not sold on these warbly wraith aaaah-ehhhhh vocals. The McCartney impression on the verse (check that "steadily") beats most of the Lennon-isms I heard scattered around Bee Gees 1st. Yeah, "Penny Lane" is the right origin point, but that was more grounded, "let me sketch an idyllic main street" and this is verging into Puff the Magic Dragon territory. Amazing how many bands went all in on singing made-up songs about completely irrelevant storybook crap without fear they'd come off as a bunch of dorks. There must have been a lot of listeners out there who'd had their childhoods yanked away from them really brutally, "it's time you became a man, we're throwing all your toys in the bonfire tomorrow" etc., to promote such a return to dreams and imagination (with or without drugs). This is also in step with "Fool on the Hill" (not sure which came first) - seems like we've got a sketch of a person in the subway ranting to nobody and to imaginary things in the sky, but maybe they really see and nobody listens, etc. I like this song.

"World" - Woah, nice to hear them with some LOUD guitar going on, on top of more throbbing bass, though both are used very sparingly. As on the last album, I'm not completely sold on these A versus B alternating tracks. The vaguely classical piano figure reminds me VERY much of Simon & Garfunkel's "7 O'Clock News," which must have been on their radar. Like that track, it feels like an album-closer... weird to open with it but I do get cwkiii's curtain-raising mission-statement take.

"And the Sun Will Shine" - Just listened to this twice and it really hasn't made an impression. Pretty singing, pleasant arrangement, not a real ear-grabbing melody. The clunkiness of their drummer continues to be a problem - that "talk to the skies - whispering lies" part should be a LOT more rhythmically interesting. It almost seems like they turned the drums way down in the mix to hide how lame they are, like even when he's trying to do a bigger, Ringo-y fill to liven things up it's just lost in the strings.

Wikipedia suggests that "And the Sun Shine" was recorded very early in its writing, maybe half ad-libbed? I guess that's impressive but you can really tell the difference between that and the ones where some time has obviously gone into songcraft, like "To Love Somebody."

oh wow i'm loving that "Parkinson" clip of "Massachusetts" - seeing the harmony happen live like that is like a lightbulb turning on that this is three dudes' voices, not some multitracked wall of sound operation. which i'd also be fine with but damn that's pretty awesome.

Amazing how many bands went all in on singing made-up songs about completely irrelevant storybook crap without fear they'd come off as a bunch of dorks.

can't argue with this at all, I find it endlessly amusing how all-in so many bands went

xp

man I'd love a S/D thread about over-the-top toytown psych outliers

to be clear i also think that it's great and support a bunch of rock dudes discovering it was okay to have feelings and be wistful and be theatrical and cutesy and all that kind of thing. the downside tends to wind up in Songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to but the upside is a good thing. it's just amazing how big it went and how quickly, from bands who presumably cut their teeth just singing about shaking it on the dance floor or w/e. you'd think there would have been more pushback.

I've been harder on Melouney (the guitarist) than Petersen (the drummer) so far in this thread but Doc I think you're right to call out how clunky and fumbly Petersen could be. This becomes *very* apparent on the next track btw, which Ringo would have absolutely killed but Petersen can barely hold together. I'm not sure why it is that the boys didn't or couldn't attract the sidemen their songs really merited - maybe it was Stigwood, maybe they were just in too much of a hurry - but in both cases it's pretty rare that they bring something really striking or outstanding to the songs, at their best they are competent. To my ears it's Maurice's bass playing that really seems to be the glue in the rhythm section at this stage.

sleeve: http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/toytown1.htm

unfortunately the MP3 links are boring but this is still a great list

er broken

ah well, thanks!

I think they were in a hurry tbh.

i am no drummer and have no place criticizing them really but the guy plays like he was originally in the band to play something else, and then the drummer got eaten by a kangaroo. it's not so much total incompetence as an apparent lack of enthusiasm and interest, surely if he was any good he could bring something more to these songs.

but tbf i feel this way about a lot of 'big' bands, and i think in a lot of cases these were like dudes that had been playing in garage bands and high school dances since they were 13, with no obvious bailing-out point as they got bigger. so getting to that Pete Best firing moment would probably be really weird even if the problem were recognized. and then there's cases like The Doors where if oliver stone is to be believed they were purpose-formed to deliver morrison's psychedelic beatnik dross to a bunch of drunks at the whiskey-a-go-go, in which case the fact that their drummer had the precision and verve of a stoned walrus probably did not raise any red flags.

All I can say is it's a good job Chris Franz was going out with the bass player.

the precision and verve of a stoned walrus

dying

they don't really get the session/sidemen they deserve until the 70s when Kendall comes in on guitar and they have a rotating cast of v good drums (the guy from Pentangle, Clem Cattini, etc.) I think by '72 or so they actually have a killer pool of musicians that they would draw on through the 80s.

Oddly their album with Jim Keltner behind the kit is a total dud to my ears. But we'll get to that later!

The weird lyrics on this album have changed from psychedelia into...I don’t know what. I find them less convincing and would prefer to hear “Red Chair Fade Away.” “Harry Braff” is like something from a Hermany Hermits record from this period - not necessarily a criticism, it’s not “No Milk Today.”

BUT it’s not “No Milk Today”

Amazing how many bands went all in on singing made-up songs about completely irrelevant storybook crap without fear they'd come off as a bunch of dorks.

can't argue with this at all, I find it endlessly amusing how all-in so many bands went

― Οὖτις, Friday, January 18, 2019 4:34 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I guess when it's the trend of the time, it doesn't feel so dorkish!

Track No. 27: The Earnest of Being George ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HwpqxkfR_w

Love the descending melody on the "fairy stories in the penny arcade" turnaround, and the all-electric guitars arrangement. Melouney's double-tracked solo (I assume that's him) is passable if not quite as stinging as it could be, but I like how it mimics the boys' style of vocal harmonies. The drums, on the other hand... it's like they handed Petersen an opportunity to show off with some fills and he just didn't feel like it and just goes for overall *weight* instead. But he's no Kenny Jones or Bonham or Ringo.

This is a good Pavement song.

haha yeah I can hear that

this would also be a good Troggs song tbh

Still sounds like the Beatles/Lennon to me.

Track No. 28: The Change is Made ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6lcPVdWn9o

Barry assumes the limelight once again for a see-sawing 3/4 psych ballad that sounds more R&B-based than anything else to my ears, although the over-driven guitar licks and stately strings perhaps obscure the source a bit. (I'm sure Tom D will just say it sounds like the Beatles/Lennon :)) Not in love with the minor key melody but it's a fine, if unremarkable, song.

"Earnest of Being George" (hilarious title) is probably the closest they came to sounding "tough" or at least trying to, love the dual-tracked solo, also a big fan of the false endings

yeah that title is lolz, feel like the back half of this album gets in some classic psych nonsense (esp tomorrow's track)

Is it the one about joining the airforce?

... no, that's on the next album!

the Track No. 28 link goes back to Track No. 27

whoah that's weird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSs3R07d4Zo

sorry, not sure what happened there

Track No. 29: Horizontal ("Horizontal", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjwPJ1x9LIA

The mellotron, harmonies and dreamy childlike nonsense return on the title track, ending the album on a hypnotic, droning note. With no crap drums or inept guitar fiddling to muddle things up, the bros are left alone play to their strengths.

I have been lying under a pillow of dreams
And feeling moments of swimming in cream
This is the start of the end, Goodbye
Hours of facing my life, have damned

You are a good friend
Friendly as goood friends can be
Your father wants you to live on his knee
This is the start of the end, climb by me
Red sides and blue sides within, remind me

I have been lying under a pillow of dreams
And feeling moments of swimming in cream
This is the start of the end, Goodbye
Hours of facing my life, have damned.

Total gibberish, the song is very nice though.

Track No. 30: Words (non-album single, 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr-WW5abcwQ

Why this was left off the album is absolutely baffling. A beauty of a Barry-led ballad, it quickly became a solo-turn staple of their live sets, and was subsequently covered by all kinds of people (perhaps most memorably in Elvis' "That's the Way it Is"). The super-compressed piano sound on the track would become a regular feature of their sound for years to come. Robin, oddly, is not on the track at all.

this feels like their second entry into canonical "standards", it's been covered so often by so many - and only two years into their career!

anyway, onto the B-side, which also should've replaced one of the weaker tracks on the LP imo

Track No. 31: Sinking Ships ("Words" B-side, 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENjyaS6n-HQ

Absolutely love this track, and an unusual song for them in that all three brothers take turns on the lead, see if you can pick out which one is Maurice. Structure is simple but the melody is great and the lyrics are goofily apocalyptic.

Sinking ships,
watching them sail and the sun as sinks in the sea.
Crashing planes,
only the eyes of the doomed with a smile on their face.

So I say to myself Is it real?
So I look inside myself.
Can I feel?

Coloured cups,
windows that slide up and down with a squeak in the side.
Funny day,
banging the door to a close as it's hurting my knee

just a loenly guy listening to the Bee Gees
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.cqAxocDyWmfwf_7k5gr9BQAAAA%26pid%3D15.1&f=1

Maurice sounds like Barry, but a bit less forceful and confident? Never heard this song before!

you don't have the massive reissues of these albums?! so many great non-album tracks, esp for this one. There's a couple more coming up that were released as a single.

Track No. 32: Jumbo (Non-album single, 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvGQkxLEKL8

The single that broke their original string of transatlantic hits, which is kind of understandable since it doesn't really have a hook, just a long meandering melody broken by a half-time turnaround. The song doesn't feature Robin at all and is clearly a Barry-led effort, although unsurprisingly it's Maurice that seems to have made the most noteworthy musical contributions with the mellotron and the bassline. Melouney and Petersen both characteristically fumble about. All that being said I do like the tune overall - Barry's voice carries it along, and the string of lyrical nonsense at the end is charmingly goofy. Again this is another non-album track that I think is generally superior to some of the weaker tracks on "Horizontal", and that goes double for it's B-side (which Stigwood, correctly imo, wanted as the A-side), which we will get to tomorrow.

Listen you can chew it if it's loud enough you hear it 'cos it's narrow as a sparrow and it shoots a bow and arrow through a target made of powder with a gun it's even louder and it's shattering to hear you mustn't listen with your ear but it gets to you

well everybody got tired of this faster than I would have hoped :(

Some of us are still quietly listening along. And absorbing mostly unfamiliar tracks, in my case. "Sinking Ships" is pretty great.

After three listens I'm really not grasping how "Jumbo" became a single. Not that it's unpleasant.

I don't know "Jumbo", but it's not very good, it's a terrible choice for a single. The bit at the end is a bit "I Am the Walrus" - yes, once again, I am claiming Barry Gibb was channelling John Lennon.

I look forward to your dissertation on how Jive Talkin' is a rip of Whatever Gets You Through the Night

Still on the catchup!

LEMONS NEVER FORGET - Okay, this album's finding its footing for me. Opening seconds remind me a bit of "Dear Boy" but the vocal is closer to Lennon. The efforts to work up some tension and heat are mixed - the action under/after "an apple is a fool but lemons never do forget" is cool, but elsewhere the instrumental weaknesses of the band are apparent as this never quite gets as dense and mean as it seems to want to. All the "you've got to.." s make me think of "Season of the Witch."

REALLY AND SINCERELY: Pretty and aimless. Nice lead vocal, some nice stuff in the mix (acoustic strumming plus whatever the drone is - accordion?), strings are excessive, composition is unremarkable. I feel like a lot of these are ending with unresolved fadeouts.

BIRDIE TOLD ME: This is kinda cool! Again the strings seem a little overmuch for a campfire jam but it's some kind of a sound I guess. Again feels a bit like the lighter stuff on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. But with more Lennon to the vocals and intermittently someone racing into the studio, rearranging the notes to Harrison's "In My Life" riff on lead guitar, and then politely exiting, like Michael McDonald in the SCTV sketch. The song is the most song-like of the album so far, though some of the transitions still sound a little like someone making it up as they go. The "hopeless to say" refrain is good and catchy (god, that drummer just bonking away underneath).

WITH THE SUN IN MY EYES: More soundtrack for soft-focus lovers wandering through tall grass and wearing the "hippie-inspired" collection from Sears. There's some Donovan here again, but more the Byron-esque nature poet stuff.

I dunno, I still feel like this is a band in search of an identity, or just not yet fully embracing their strengths which are in the airy harmonies and the songcraft (when they apply themselves for the singles). When they're just trying to have a robust setlist covering the contemporary bases, they end up with derivative period pieces. Which isn't that out of the ordinary for a random 60s band, and also why there's an interest in deep-diving on non-canonical albums from the "singles plus filler" era of pop-rock.

ha, I fear i'm succumbing to trainspotting influences more than anyone. not a super useful form of criticism I admit. it's just like, when the next track hits and it's something really fully-formed like "massachusetts" then whatever the influences are, it feels more like an original and robust synthesis and it doesn't matter as much. a lot of the other stuff is underwritten filler (to my tin ears) and I have less to say. overall so far I think this album is more filler-y and less interesting than the last one, but maybe it again picks up in the second half....

"Jumbo!" - now we're talking. The light out of the darkness shines in the distance and that light is....ODESSA

Track No. 33: The Singer Sang His Song ("Jumbo" b-side, 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMqSlHc2-xQ

Stigwood was right that this should have been the A-side. When it comes to sweeping orchestral balladry, Robin consistently delivers the aural equivalent of being swathed in luxuriant layers of crushed velvet, and this tune is no exception. While this chunk of their catalog is often compared to contemporaries like the Moody Blues, to my ears the combo of super-compressed piano, rich bass tones, and shimmering acoustic guitar overlaid with rich symphonic orchestration is where they begin to really occupy some unique musical territory. And each piece of the arrangement slots together perfectly - Robin's quavering sad-sack narrative, the piping flutes echoing the lyric, the despondent descending melody of the refrain, the chiming electric guitar chords (for once Melouney doesn't embarrass himself). The promo movie in the linked clip is also notable for its interracial couple angle - American television wouldn't get its first onscreen interracial kiss for another 8 months. Despite the video, it sounds to me like all the vocals on the track are Robin.

next up will be their third LP "Idea", for which this awesome TV special was shot:
https://youtu.be/62Vx6JOifyU

featuring some of the most somnolently hypnotic hand gestures ever

HARRY BRAFF: Very fun opening! I like them when there's something a little dissonant or annoying in the sound, even when it might be there just for the sake of that effect. Finally something a little more rockin', some close listening to Revolver and maybe Who/Kinks paying off in this more mod take on psychedelia (but there will be horns!!!). Below the surface the arrangement's a little muddy though - the trying-harder drummer and the enthusiastic strummer just don't feel locked into each other. I like the rhythmic surprise on the repeated "goodbye, Harry Braff" part. This might be my favorite new-to-me song that's come up so far... once again, the influences are all right there to be heard.

DAY TIME GIRL: Are they just consistently alternating rockers with odes? A bit wearying. Feels like Robin (that's Robin, right?) trying to do "She's Leaving Home" which I'm okay with in principle but certainly a risky move. The melody and the story are both a bit too indistinct for me. Could be a grower I imagine.

THE EARNEST OF BEING GEORGE: Okay now this is a nice rough garage groove. Oh ffs it's just John Lennon's 1964 delivery married to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with "Lucy" for the B section isn't it? I swear I don't mean for this to just be the Beatle influence checklist but WHO in 1967 would have heard this track and not immediately thought of those things? It's a cool sound and I'm down with there being more songs having it, but again it feels like a band not yet realizing what they, uniquely, bring to the table. Also good lord at that title.

THE CHANGE IS MADE: Dreary Eric Burdon soul with strings. Guitarist wants to show off his bluesy chops which at least gives this its own flavor. In another timeline he became Dave Gilmour.

HORIZONTAL: Hmmmm, I still think "World" would be a better album-closer but I can see what they were thinking with this one. I wish it went more places - right as it's wrapping up you feel like some big psychedelic train is about to come crashing in with crazy drums and backwards guitars and piles of vocals but instead it just trails off. As performance it's fine enough.

Yeah overall, apart from a few much more focused high points, this feels like a classic rushed album - band too busy and overbooked to really let the songs percolate. It's not a total void of ideas, the singing is still good and maybe improving, and "Massachusetts" is a killer, but the derivative performances and arrangements start to pile up. In a way it's just proving the old rock historiographical cliches - a whole host of not-yet-fully-formed bands really WERE floored by "Pepper" and spent some time flailing around or playing catchup.

as I said upthread what's really baffling to me is the quality material they left off the album - it's not like they were actually hurting for material
to wit (and I know I said I wasn't going to do this but these songs are *too* good imo)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgLrZbGICS8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGAKDsnSe5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LNmurdJsLI

and these are complete, fully formed productions! There is apparently even more that has yet to see the light of day

Are we doing Robin’s Reign, by the way? I remember liking it more than Cucumber Castle.

I was erring on the side of skipping it - not because it's not any good but because it's not released under the Bee Gees moniker

that album is nuts

is it? I mean, yeah it's p weird because Robin is p weird but it's about what you would expect a solo album from him to sound like at that time. I think both Robin's Reign and Cucumber Castle are generally lacking - they were better together.

but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves

I'm not familiar with a lot of these b-sides tbh, so "The Singer Sang His Song" is just a classic Robin track, melodically and arrangement-wise, it could almost have come from "Robin's Reign".

There is apparently even more that has yet to see the light of day

They were also churning out songs for other artists.

Gee, that Idea-era TV special is incredible. For the sets and endless zoom-outs alone.

Track No. 34: Let There Be Love ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Te0-gAYEyY

Opening their third international LP with neither a single nor the title track, the boys instead deliver this slice of pop decadence with all of their particular talents well in evidence. There are lots of great details in this track, from the background vocal warbling beneath the intro and outro to the the minor lift when the harmonies come in on "I am a man" and the way the song builds up to the lead vocal trade-off from Barry to Robin. The arrangement again relies on a particular sound they had become enamored of that I mentioned previously - the super-compressed piano/acoustic guitar/thumping bass overlaid with the full range of skillfully deployed orchestral accompaniment.

I guess they couldn't afford a copy editor for their Dutch singles releases

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Let_There_Be_Love_%28Bee_Gees_song%29.jpg/220px-Let_There_Be_Love_%28Bee_Gees_song%29.jpg

lol

Track No. 35: Kitty Can ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56X9fkkoyg

A bit of a throwback to their childhood folk-rock roots, a super-simple song structure with a great melody, harmonies and stripped down accompaniment. Oddly there is also a much more heavily orchestrated version with horns and strings and bells but I think they made the right choice in going for the simpler version. Lyrically we get a "Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?" variant that's pretty conventional but serviceable. Really this is about the boys' vocal and melodic prowess, which shines through.

apparently their first song done on 8-track!

Feel like we’re moving away from the really egregious lyrics like “And now I’ve found that the world is round.” And that the music is getting better.

don't worry there are plenty of egregious lyrics to come, I don't think they ever entirely escape it

Maybe not as bad as that one, though, or “lemons never forget.”

I wouldn't be sure about that, they were still writing the occasional howler well into the 70s.

yeah I can think of literally dozens of examples

someone crown the clown with the red balloon

love is thicker than water

how can you tell humans are real?

I think the musical context is significant here, though. Was trying to get at it with an earlier post here about Horizontal. There’s a reason why “Saved by the bell on your own carousel” works better for me. It’s that The Bee Gees developed a kind of musical surrealism that is post-psychedelic. It’s not there yet on Horizontal. When their music gets better, that’s when I think it starts to click. We’ll hear it here for sure with “Kilburn Towet,”

tower

Track No. 36: In the Summer of His Years ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD465oP-ms

Robin takes his first turn at the spotlight, leaning on their aforementioned symphonic formula to deliver a mournful paean to lost youth. The arrangement does all the heavy lifting here, supporting a fairly simple song structure that just follows the lone vocal melody line. It doesn't really go anywhere or have a hook per se but at least it doesn't over-stay it's welcome, and the production is suitably luscious, swirling harps and trilling flutes and all.

this is probably the weakest of the ballads on the album tbh, the others are all top tier

Again this is very much in Robin's signature late 60s style, very like his solo material. It's nice.

Believe this song is about Brian Epstein.

Hmm timeline would kinda check out, this was recorded around the time he died

Track No. 37: Indian Gin and Whiskey Dry ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPowloNgcY

Another concise, tightly arranged folk-pop gem, with all of the band's resources skillfully deployed. Even Melouney and Petersen acquit themselves admirably, with the former restricted to some tasteful leads on the intro and the latter managing a serviceable shuffle throughout. A simple string quartet backing provides ballast, with Maurice's bass (processed with some kind of phasing effect?) bouncing along.

This is a good one.

It is! very rich

I enjoy when Robin rei(g)ns in the warble a bit - though I love the warble too.

Track No. 38: Down to Earth ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svrR9g8KeuM

In which the yawning caverns of angst that stretch across Robin's soul are laid bare. The orchestration here is fantastic, with those clanging opening chords really conveying a sense of weightless dread before the titular refrain sweeps in, Robin's tremulous lead doubled by Barry and then bursting into the multilayered "millions and millions and millions..." harmonies. Saxophones drift in and out offering counterpoint. Lyrics are again some surrealist psych nonsense, each line making sense (maybe) in isolation but appearing increasingly random when set next to each other.

Track No. 39: Such a Shame ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pv4YeUyaRY

And now for a real oddity, the only song in the Bee Gees catalog to *not* include a Gibb brothers writing credit! Melouney sings and plays harmonica, restricting his typical guitar leads to a short bit at the end. Not a bad song, really, integrates their harmonies well and moves along at a good clip, although it feels like it could use a middle eight or B section to shake up the fairly standard structure. Lyrically this is apparently about what a bummer it was to be in the band at this point, as tempers were starting to flare and egos were beginning to chafe.

no love for either of these? :(

"Down to Earth" is brilliant, "Such a Shame" isn't.

it's not great, but I don't think it's bad. Melouney apparently was itching to do "bluesier" stuff, maybe that harmonica is him trying to get in on the Stones/Yardbirds sort of action

I'd call it b-side material but the Bee Gees' b-sides are generally a lot better. "Down to Earth" really reminds me of something else but I can't work out what it is yet. Listening to it however I can understand why Tony Visconti thought "Space Oddity" sounded too much like the Bee Gees.

Track No. 40: Idea ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdCzzHJDwfc

HA! A great opening to side 2, with sort of a cod-Motown backbeat pounding away. Melouney gets off some nice vaguely Eastern/sitar-ish like lead bits, particularly on the droning coda. Some more vague lyrical nods to the group splitting up ("don't you think it's time you got up and stood alone?") and overall adopting a posture of youthful rebellion, which is a little out of character. The vocal melody isn't that great but I do like when the overlapping harmony parts come in.

Songs are still not sticking for me but I feel like we're closer with "Down to Earth" and "Idea."

I didn't realise that was Melouney singing! Obviously doesn't sound especially like a Gibb, but never considered that possibility. I don't think I even realised the adequate-but-nothing-special 'strayan rhythm section lasted this long.

I'm *really* liking Idea so far. Pretty much all of it. Call me undiscerning if you must...

Er, not "rhythm section" really. The non-Gibb members...

catching up on the thread

"lemons never forget" reminds me of rick wright - see for instance "paintbox"

yeah "jumbo" is a complete flop, i don't know what possessed them to release it as a single

"the singer sang his song" though, i have limited ability to get down with this kind of ott balladry, all i get out of it is "robin really ought to tone down that tremolo a little bit"

i appreciate hearing the outtakes, i'm mostly in it to hear some of their great stuff that's passed me by, the bee gees have a lot of great songs. "out of line" is fantastic though the shit-ness of their guitarist and drummer is one heck of a running joke (the shit drums on "i close my eyes" actually sell it for me)

i don't hear so much beatles-ripoff as a certain affinity for the monkees, particularly on their more "socially conscious" material - "mrs. gillespie's refrigerator" has the absurd title of a nesmith song for instance. not really as good though.

re: the typo on the dutch single - there's an egyptian pink floyd single of something like "point me at the sky" where the band name is spelled wrong, it regularly trades for silly money on tulips^H^H^H^H^H^Hdiscogs.com

that promo film for "kitty can" is utterly ludicrous, i wouldn't be surprised if beck at one point had done a music video tribute to it

best thing about the "idea" special for me is julie driscoll being groovy, is there an animated GIF of her dance moves during the organ solo at about 35 min in? there should be. anyway she consistently steals the show from the gibb brothers imo.

i also love how they apparently got a sesame street cartoon in for the background of "harry braff" (seriously that car is "jazzy spies" af)

"indian gin and whiskey dry" is another ridiculous video, jesus i thought i'd seen some ridiculous '60s promo films but the bee gees just top everything here, compared to this "head" is a coherent and sensible film

"down to earth" sounds like some david sylvian shit at the beginning, it's impressive

calling melouney/petersen "adequate" is an insult to adequacy imo. nick mason is "adequate", colin petersen is "what the fuck are you still doing here"

splice at 1:39 of "idea" should be entered into the pantheon of awkward splices.

I had no idea this album even existed... my mental chronology skipped right from 1st to Odessa. Which is why that whole "the Bee Gees are the new Beatles" never made much sense to me. (it makes a lot more sense now)

Loving "Indian Gin and Whiskey Dry", especially because of that awesome video.

You do know there was another album between the first album and this?

Man, I really love “Down to Earth.” It feels a little like the material off Robin’s solo albums in 1970 (and I’m of the opinion we should cover Robin’s Reign as well).

“Indian Gin...” is one of my favorites from this period. The Mu-Tron bass wah is such a great little touch.

I love this thread and need to do better about keeping up.

Xpost: Yes, I was actually vaguely aware of Horizontal (though, again, I had never heard any of the tracks until this thread)

I hope Οὖτις is okay. Experiencing withdrawal symptoms here!

the Eastern guitar licks on "Idea" sound an awful lot like Jimmy Page

Track No. 41: When the Swallows Fly ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBMJBG8yzjA

Not one to be outdone by Robin in the soaring melodrama department, Barry decides that the best way to complement the intro's magisterial piano arpeggios (courtesy of Maurice) is by quoting Wordsworth and then moving on to deliver an impassioned vocal about an isolated, tragic protagonist that's closer to R&B and gospel that's a bit outside Robin's standard wheelhouse. Another Barry ballad that isn't hard to imagine in the hands of Otis Redding or Mavis Staples (ok maybe the lyric is a little weird for either of them but still). The backing harmonies and swelling strings are expertly deployed, ebbing and flowing with each verse right through to the ending's triumphal plagal cadence.

welcome back!

Excellent track.

More than anything, I'm impressed that the Bee Gees had the promotional budget in 1968 to make all these promo videos... somebody had to paint a lot of swallows for that clip.

Track No. 42: I Have Decided to Join the Airforce ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzWwtAu_J8c

In the vein of Pink Floyd's "Corporal Clegg" or the Kinks' "Tin Soldier Man", in my opinion this fairly silly military nostalgia cosplay song/character sketch achieves a little bit of added depth when it swerves into minor-key territory on the middle eight. Accompanied by a time change that switches from a stiff march to a standard 4/4, the "don't ask me why/it's my mind and it's right/don't ask me why/it's my life/it's better, it's better than being alone/alone on the ground" adds an eerie quality that undercuts the otherwise child-like arrangement and delivery. Another in a long line of Robin's misty-eyed fantasies of the bygone British empire.

These clips were shot for German TV, so I assume they were paying for it. (xp) Is that Stanley Kubrick at the start there?

Anyway, this sounds like the Beatles again. Or the Idle Race - who sound like the Beatles. It's a pity Geir's not around, this is right up his street.

I don't hear the Beatles so much in this one beyond the fact that so much of everything in 1968 sounded like the Beatles. But the Bee Gees approach to orchestration is a little different, more ornate...? The Gibbs really loved their harps and bells and whistles and trumpets just as a general all purpose approach during this period, whereas the Beatles would deploy that stuff a bit more selectively.

"Airforce" is probably my most frequently-occurring earworm since hearing Idea last month. For better or worse. I've also foisted it on others for "guess who this is!" type fun. That "better than being alone/alone on the ground" section is ridiculously affecting somehow.

Pretty blatant yellow submarine ripoff homage at 0:44 in that video.

Also, yep, that looks like Stanley Kubrick:
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjgtPnZ9e7gAhWtc98KHXyJCvcQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.goldenglobes.com%2Fperson%2Fstanley-kubrick&psig=AOvVaw3aqchSbW1C4YVlhe5IQuxn&ust=1552009922317713

Huh, I guess I still have no idea how to post images/videos on this site:
https://www.goldenglobes.com/sites/default/files/styles/portrait_medium/public/people/cover_images/stanley_kubrick.jpg?itok=_cGDj1lV&c=f23a63dc960c0657d00358e974a41cbf

In the vein of Pink Floyd's "Corporal Clegg" or the Kinks' "Tin Soldier Man"...

... Bowie, "The Little Bombardier"... Idle Race, "(Don't Put Your Boys In The Army) Mrs. Ward"...

glad this thread is back, i've missed it

Track No. 43: I Started a Joke ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyS34v09zso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vo5M-CdNd8

What to say about this song? Ostensibly Robin's first real masterpiece, it's so good I had to post two videos, one from the Idea TV special and another live rendition from the same year. It's concise construction is a marvel, from the opening descending bass run and Melouney's delicate filigrees over one of the most common chord progressions in Western music through to Robin's quavering melody and the gradual introduction of orchestral elements in the bridge, which is where the song really takes off and becomes something unique. For all their Beatle-isms (and you can definitely hear echoes of McCartney in Maurice's bass part), here the band is doing something the Beatles never really bothered with: the pop song as operatic tragedy. The chamber pop trappings and Robin's vibrato are key to putting over the self-pity at the song's core, where one's personal failings and disasters are blown up into world-shattering proportions. I like to think of it as being sung from the point of view of Adolf Hitler.

I love it. Robin sings as if he construed the title as "I Am the Joke."

I passively absorbed this song during childhood (this was apparently their first number #1 single in Aus) but it took Low's cover, maybe twenty years ago, for me to reinvestigate the original and the Bee Gees generally. I barely remember that cover now but I was suddenly all "OMG, what's going on in those lyrics!?"

I still like the idea that this song is sung from Lucifer's perspective.

or yeah, Hitler works too. but the Devil is less icky

Track No. 44: Kilburn Towers ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8n8S4HsArI

A lovely little deep cut, and a primarily Barry-led effort that dips into a kind of breathy bossa nova territory that is maybe best described as "dreamy". The combination of Maurice's mellotron flute, Barry's multi-layered 12-string guitars, and some tasteful accompaniment from Melouney and Petersen (contributing some clean guitar lines and bongos, respectively) make this something of an outlier in their catalog to-date. Lyrically it sounds like Barry was getting drunk in his penthouse apartment and wistfully wondering what it would be like to be a pigeon or a sidewalk. In an odd way, I feel like this melody and its breathy delivery are very much of a piece with their mid-70s output - with a slightly different instrumental arrangement I can imagine it sitting nicely next to the other songs on Mr. Natural or Trafalgar.

Love "Kilburn Towers". Has no-one pointed that the narrator of "I Started a Joke", be it Adolf Hitler or whoever, actually dies in the course of the song?

wracking my brain for whether or not that's unique in their catalog - it might not be!

Song rules. I love that stretch where the lead guitar and the strings are playing the melody together.

kilburn towers is one of the few i knew before this thread started, probably tipped to it on ilx, fucking amazing song

Track No. 45: Swan Song ("Idea", 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1NrPRui87A

Actually the last song recorded for "Horizontal" and in the running for a single release but ultimately passed over in favor of "Words", which - to be honest - this bears more than a passing resemblance to. The overall structures and arrangement are similar, Barry latching onto a winding melody which then just repeats throughout with embellishments and variations from the orchestra. One of several songs with a theme of escape/things ending, possibly presaging further internal tensions with "Odessa" and the subsequent breakup. Overall I find this song just okay - the melody is serviceable - but nothing special, a bit formulaic at this point.

and that's it for "Idea"! We'll cover one more classic non-album single tomorrow before moving on to "Odessa"

Definitely see the resemblance to 'Words' now that you mention it.

I'm pretty impressed by Idea. Might be their most satifying collection of pop songs to this point, which is not really the impression I was left with when I skimmed through early deep cuts in the distant past. Hurray for deeper listening!

From here on it's almost completely alien territory for me...

Track No. 46: I've Gotta Get a Message to You (, 1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j17DUw20law

While there were morbid undertones aplenty in British psychedelia, I don't think anyone ventured so consistently for inspiration into the graveyard of gothic melodrama as Robin Gibb. Here a man on death row (possibly for the murder of a rival for his love's affection?) contemplates his last wishes, full of regret and longing while staring into the abyss of his welcoming grave. Barry and Robin trade off on the lead, underpinned by some Gregorian chant-like harmonies on the refrain, and the arrangement makes great use of (again) Maurice's mellotron and the super-compressed piano sound they were so enamored of. Orchestral flourishes and a key change towards the end nicely echo the narrator's growing desperation. This was their first US Top 10 hit(!) and their second UK #1, and taken together with "New York Mining Disaster 1941" and "I Started a Joke" it's clear they were carving out a bit of an ouevre in the doom pop department.

didn't realize above was a fully live version (sounds like Maurice is covering some of the orchestral bits on organ?!)
here's the studio version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKzF6TgiIKU

Track No. 47: Odessa ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zPjBiN1GJ0

And at last we come to both the apex and terminus of the band's flowery psych period. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the album was considered both a commercial and critical failure at the time, a judgment which has of course been largely reversed in posterity. This titular opening track continues Robin's trajectory as the writer with the most consistent, fully-formed aesthetic - an aesthetic that both gets them farther away from the Beatle-isms and pushes them into relatively unique and uncharted territory. Here we get the Bee Gees version of a "pocket symphony", complete with a noisy intro, an overture, two verses interspersed with choruses that slow down the tempo, and a coda, all wrapped around a 19th century romantic tragedy maritime narrative. Lyrically the overall picture is a bit unclear but it is filled with compelling imagery - the shipwreck, the lonely surviving sailor carving an iceberg, the abandoned (and perhaps unfaithful?) wife. Geographically it's a mess and it is not at all clear what exactly connects Finland, Odessa and England in the story, but whatever. The arrangement is thick and lush, anchored by an acoustic guitar that provides the overall song structure, with Robin's voice swimming through what I can only assume is the deepest echo chamber in the UK at the time. A beautifully weird song.

This song is completely insane.

I came here just to say that.

I have to say the first time I heard this album, and this song in particular, I just did not get it. Mostly because I was expecting something else more in line with other British psych opuses of the time that tended to be more electric guitar and r&b derived. But this was just too weird and mannered and wimpy.

I came around, to say the least.

It's a weird wonder, and listening to it for the first time inspired Gibb list last year.

To its credit, it still sounds mannered and wimpy.

finally a record I actually own! will give side 1 a spin this evening

I might skip the instrumentals on this tbh. They always seem like the equivalent of side 2 of the Yellow Submarine soundtrack to me.

and I don't think any of them feature a Bee Gee except for Maurice's piano on one of them

yeah, i'd say go ahead and skip whatever you feel would be best to skip. there's always time to come back around to the missed stuff later!

the first bee gees song i got into was "every christian lion-hearted man will show you". the second was "odessa". mostly i think it's that i sort of have a thing for the mellotron...

robin's greatest, i think

The instrumentals are crucial to the album imo

since I assume we're not going to talk about it itt, just wanted to mention that something from Robin's Reign should really be used in a horror soundtrack at some point. maybe that new Ari Aster joint could make it happen.

Odessa - album that deserves a 33 1/3 book?

The picture in the gatefold...

robin's greatest, i think

"Black Diamond" coming up, though.

"Lamplight" kills, too

weird and mannered and wimpy

Ladies and gentlemen, Robin Gibb *applause*

Robin was tough, you gotta be to sing "Black Diamond" the way he does.

Track No. 48: You'll Never See My Face Again ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFQ5yndB8WY

Barry delivers an uncharacteristically bitter broadside. The incongruity of the instrumentation and vocal delivery to the lyrical sentiment tends to make certain lines leap out ("it makes me laugh/you've got no friends", for example). I don't think any of the Bee Gees were particularly suited to conveying anger via song. That being said, there's lots of nice countermelodies in the orchestration, and for such a rich production the arrangement doesn't feel fussy or cluttered - just Barry, some multi-tracked 12-strings, and the orchestra, Melouney and Pedersen thankfully absent. The opening of this song always makes me mix it up with "Sinking Ships" from Horizontal.

just Barry, some multi-tracked 12-strings, and the orchestra

I like that for this era of the Bee Gees, this actually counts as "stripped down"

haha yeah

for half a second I considered making an argument that this album isn't so much their "Sgt Pepper" (as is sometimes claimed) as much as it is their White Album

double album, band is starting to seriously fray, a bunch of weird genre exercises

member quits halfway through, goofy country song, iconic sleeve design

no massive avant-garde noize jam tho

member quits halfway through

I wish this literally happened with band splits, like one member just drops out of the mix at a certain point on the album

Notorious Gibb Brothers

Straight up beautiful song.

This may be the instant at which they unknowingly invented The Clientele.

Track No. 49: Black Diamond ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHgAHcD_r9w

The gradual build in the arrangement is beautifully done here, from Robin's fully committed vibrato to the backing harmonies-as-orchestra on the verses to where the strings come in for the choruses. Very much of a piece with the title track, albeit here the similar tragic-lost-love narrative is much more compact and pop-oriented, with a great vocal hook. I have no idea what black diamonds are, or which white mountains are being referred to, and the vibrato is a bit over the top in my opinion, but otherwise this is Robin at the top of his game during this period.

Track No. 50: Marley Purt Drive ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwHz79Aoik

Their first of several forays into the sounds of American country, complete with American session musicians including Bill Keith of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. Which is a little odd, since the song isn't structured or performed like a country song at all - its leaden tempo and lack of swing make it a far cry from its ostensible source material. Nonetheless, the track *sounds* great, a number of cool sonic touches like Melouney's chiming guitar part and the swaying string section. The lyric doesn't make a whole lot of sense (no idea where all those extra children come from in the last verse), and I don't think there were any orphanages in LA by the 60s, and there's definitely no road named Marley Purt Drive. Not a bad track, but not a great one either, and I feel like it could've been shortened by a verse or two.

I don't know why they didn't just call it "The Weight" and be done with it. The lyric is nonsense, even by Bee Gees standards.

I got some serious "Stone Me" vibes from this one, also like a weird refracted take on CCR/Band style rural rock

This seems like a step down from the first three tracks. (Which after a few listens each had me thinking "Jesus, I think I understand Odessa's cult following")

Can't get past that leaden tempo, I'm afraid. Resume the orchestral florishes and vibrato overdose whenever you're ready chaps.

Track No. 51: Edison ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExHvAH3PiLo

One key figure in this period we haven't talked about much (at all?) so far in this thread is the Bee Gees' orchestra arranger/conductor, Bill Shepherd. "Edison" is a prime example of what he brought to the table, cloaking fairly simple material with creative arrangements and countermelodies, and blending the boys' backing harmonies as if they are a part of the string section. The melody and song structure here are nursery-rhyme level basic, but the way the different elements are woven in and out of the mix - the farfisa piping in here, the backing vocals underpinned by the seesawing cello there, the pounding compressed piano on the bridges - keep the song moving and engaging. Apparently this song originally had different lyrics and was called "Barbara", the switching of subject matter to the world's most famous inventor seems like a total Robin move that adds to the song's overall baroque charm.

Love this song.

Track No. 52: Melody Fair ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wjlmNNuMQ

Not released as a single for some inexplicable reason, this baroque pop gem was (according to Barry) intended to be in the style of "Eleanor Rigby". But where McCartney was disarmingly somber, the Gibbs come across as more wistful and dreamy. Overall the track reminds me a lot of "Massachusetts" just in sound and technique. The orchestration is perfect right from the start, with the intro's interwoven melodies gradually ascending in octaves, concluding with the trumpet line that is later echoed on the turnaround after each chorus. The melodic leap in the chorus is also impressive, with Barry (possibly for the first time?) deploying the falsetto that would serve them so well commercially nearly a decade later. Robin is apparently not on this track at all, but Barry and Maurice demonstrate they are still capable of delivering their trademark harmonies. The patronizingly sexist lyric is a bit much, although not especially egregious for its era.

Catching up:

"Marley Purt Drive" - There has to be some country tradition of songs at this tempo, no? It certainly seems to be hitting at some archetype. The nonsense words work for me more than some of the abstractions on previous albums...Basically love this song!

"Edison" - Agree, brilliant arrangement, great contrast between their two main lead singers' voices. Serious craft, love this one.

"Melody Fair" - Agree that it starts out beautifully and certainly has beautiful moments, but I think the chorus is a little static. My least favorite of the songs so far.

I love Melody Fair; it turns up as the title track of a surprisingly good Lulu LP, keeping it in the family. (She had signed to Atlantic and was doing a kind of Dusty In Memphis thing, Swamp Dogg covers and suchlike; the following LP, "New Routes" was of a piece and had two Bee Gees covers, Marley Purt Drive and In The Morning".)

There has to be some country tradition of songs at this tempo, no?

Bill Keith certainly didn't play anything like that with Bill Monroe - slower bluegrass songs tend to be either in waltz time or blues shuffles, def not the straight 4/4 they employ on "Marley Purt Drive". That kind of rhythm is def a rock thing.

I can think of plenty of slow country songs but they don't use *that* rhythm

Yeah, listening to "The Weight" right now and thinking...maybe that beat just comes from R&B.

yeah I was trying to think of late 60s R&B that uses that rhythm, it's kind of a slow proto-funk thing. was obviously all over the place by the early 70s.

"Melody Fair" is kinda gorgeous.

dunno how I never noticed "Marley Purt Drive's" resemblance to "The Weight" before, but now that it's been noted I can't unhear it. Pedersen was no Levon Helm, that's for fucking sure.

"Melody Fair" is luvly if I don't dwell too long on the chorus. Which I, unfortunately, keep doing. She's 'only' a girl/woman, rather than...what?

a well coiffed and hairy chested manly man, presumably

I mean in the first verses you could forgive the narrator for talking down to a child but then he throws down with "woman" so

I think Melody Fair is my favorite Odessa track so far, even though it loses some steam when it gets to the chorus (only to pep back up with each subsequent verse)

I think the chorus is great but I guess I’m in the minority.

ok, edison... i'm gonna go out and say it, the bee gees had some fucking weird songs

neither "melody fair" nor "marley purt drive" grabbed me the same way, it's that casual misogyny that doesn't come close to robin channeling his inner they might be giants (?!?) for a baroque pop song

jesus christ, "HUMPY BONG"? after leaving the bee gees colin petersen was in a band called humpy fucking bong? i think we have a new contender for worst band name ever

their single a-side is fucking awful too

I like that "MF" chorus from a musical point of view. It's one of the prettiest previously-unknown-to-me-before-this-exercise tracks. I'm going to try to convince myself he means something like "you're only human [in this case a female human]" :)

Track No. 53: Suddenly ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAb6-WqmVXI

Maurice takes his first turn at lead vocalist. He sounds a lot like Barry, but with a slightly more resonant, deeper range, and he's also prone to goofy asides ("aw yeah!" + assorted chuckles), a propensity which also crops up in other songs he sings lead on later. While this track is not especially remarkable or mind-blowing I do find it charming for all sorts of reasons - the random oboe, the most PKD Bee Gees lyric ever ("How can you tell humans are real?", ref'd upthread a ways), the rolling bassline, the wordless three-part harmony chorus. Pedersen's drumming is characteristically regrettable but everything else really works. Maurice played such a pivotal if unobtrusive role in the band, I kind of think of him as the equivalent of John Paul Jones in Zeppelin - the multi-instrumentalist "secret weapon" that really glued so much of the material together.

I was gonna get to the Humpy Bong detail a little later but rusho beat me to it :)

Melouney joined Fanny Adams after ditching the Bee Gees, which is only slightly better

honestly, the 60s psych period stuff is great almost in spite of them. From here on out, the boys were able to hire a much higher caliber of sidemen.

i didn't know they lived in chorlton, manchester! - it's where i live. enjoying this thread.

Petersen and the Gibbs attended Humpybong State School in Queensland. ( https://humpybongss.eq.edu.au ) I guess it's possible that the word means something really, really cool in a local indigenous dialect. Or... not.

Aaaaah...

[Buildings from an earlier settlement] were left standing at Redcliffe and it is claimed that the local Aborigines, with a rather nice sense of irony, called the houses 'oompie bong' meaning 'dead house'. The name stuck and the Anglicised 'humpybong' was applied to the whole of the Redcliffe Peninsula.

Track No. 54: Whisper Whisper("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTOP5ugBiXY

Hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for this one, its apparent sole reason for existing possibly being Barry's interest in having a song that's divided between half-time and double-time sections. Unfortunately, he didn't bother to come up with any other interesting elements to make a decent song. There's no chorus, the verse is a simple melody over two chords interspersed with an instrumental middle 8, and the lyric is garden variety, sexist, "free love" drivel common to the era. The promise of the intro is presumably all Bill Shepherd's doing, creatively orchestrating what is essentially a single chord being strummed for 16 bars, but that peters out once the vocal comes in. The half-time section's drumming is terrible and vocal phrasing feels very forced, although you can hear Maurice trying to make something interesting happening with the two interlocking electric piano parts. When it ultimately shifts to double-time after a typically hamfisted drum fill the vocal melody snaps into focus, but it's still pretty boring, and when the horns come in it's like we're in bumper-music-cue-for-Laugh-In territory. Then we get one more falling-down-the-stairs drum break before the song mercifully cuts out.

that's the last track until next Wednesday fwiw

if i was their record company in 1969, that might have been their last track ever. god that's awful.

Stigwood had way worse shit than that on his label!

I'm finding this one hard to hate. There's enough going on in the arrangement to make this mildly satisfying ear candy despite ropey raw material. I should probably look into Bill Shepherd's broader career.

Wouldn't mind hearing this, tbh.

Don't the Gibb hardcore consider Odessa their best album? Or have i been misinformed?

idk about that. It’s probably their best album from their early period.

Maybe my expectations were set unreasonably low by that intro paragraph, but, lyrics aside, i found that song kinda delightful.
There a certain White Album rawness to Barry's vocal, and i could see this providing some nice variety in the context of a double album.

Track No. 55: Lamplight ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7jO7wcHvHE

They only released one single from "Odessa" and much to Robin's dismay, this was not it, and the ensuing bad blood between the brothers led to the group's official (but ultimately temporary) break up. Frankly, I can't fault Robin for feeling slighted, as this tune is definitely a stunner. A few weeks ago I was listening to this in what is probably ideal circumstances, ie blasting on a huge sound system, and when the harmony vocals come in on the chorus it was just incredible, such a rich sound. Compositionally, Robin pulls out all the stop, opening with a regal fanfare and a bit of inexplicable french, then rolling into the pathos-laden verse, betrayed and lonesome once more ("Then I may end/She had things to buy/I close my eyes/Yet I don't know why/I gave her money/said she knew someone/and she said she won't be long"). The strings play counterpoint, the guitars pound underneath, and Robin's vibrato sails overhead, before dropping away for a second verse and building up to a wordless, choral third verse and the trumpets' closing triplets. The chorus, amazing as it is, only occurs twice, but always leave 'em wanting more, I suppose.

this is the best song on Odessa imho, love the almost hymnal opening vox

there is a terrible pun in my post extra points to anyone who spots it

It probably is better than "First of May". Something about the chorus and the overall grandeur brings Eurovision to mind. (Not a dis.)

Yes, there's definitely a very European feel about this song. This is really Robin at his best, a singular talent. I can see why it wasn't released as a single, but then "Eloise" by Barry Ryan reached No. 3 in the UK charts and this is a much more commercial song than that!

Lamplight has always sounded to me like the great lost Aphrodite's Child single. I can totally hear Demis Roussos singing it.

^ YES !!!!

glad we skipped the instrumentals in this, in retrospect

Really there’s just not much to say about them

Sure there is.

Track No. 56: The Sound of Love ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjTofeHVQTU

Barry's fast-developing affinity for R&B balladry points the way toward a sound and style they would increasingly explore in the 70s, and this track bears more than a passing resemblance to similar material that would make it onto their post-reunion albums. Lyrically Barry takes a very Robin-esque sad-sack turn here, although he doesn't deliver much in the way of memorable lines or imagery and there's a lot of lazy rhymes. The minor key verses are fine, and the string arrangement does a lot of melodic heavy lifting on an otherwise unremarkable chorus, but where my ears really prick up is at the suspended chords and horn stabs on the coda, which doesn't feel that far from an Isaac Hayes production.

Track No. 57: Give Your Best ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEL5epnH5lU

The boys take another stab at the country genre and land a little closer to the mark this time, thanks to a comfortable western swing rhythm, excellent backing from actual American bluegrass session musos (Tex Logan on fiddle and Ben Keith, again, on banjo), and a decent lead vocal melody. The ad libs on the intro are funny if incongruous given that there's no way you could square dance to this, sounds like Barry and Maurice just goofing around, which continues through the track as the boys laugh and whoop it up in the background. While Barry's singing lead the overall feel of this seems very much like Maurice may have been the driving force behind it. I don't detect Robin's presence on this track at all, unless he's there in the backing harmonies somewhere. An enjoyable little genre detour.

Looks like i'm in the minority who prefer First of May to Lamplight, Lamplight is just too Robin and overlong (although i expect there would have been a single edit). I find the voice only end of First of May spooky, is it a deathbed memory? Regardless, Melody Fair was the obvious single so discussion is weird, they made the wrong choice full stop.

also Whisper Whisper is cool but this thread has revealed that Shakes and I are not on the same page Gibbs-wise so no biggy

Fwiw I agree that Melody Fair was the obvious single choice

the instrumentals on Odessa are my favorites

Feel free to elaborate

Track No. 58: I Laugh in Your Face ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJRiYmaOA3s

Recorded on the same day as "I've Gotta Get a Message to You", this less coherent but still engaging ballad draws once again on the clown and circus imagery that repeatedly pops up in both Barry and Robin's lyrics. Otherwise it feels of a piece with "You'll Never See My Face Again" in lyrical sentiment, with an uncharacteristically combative chorus. The song has a fairly simple quiet verse/loud chorus structure that is repeated throughout, bolstered once again by Shepherd's sympathetic orchestration (especially great in the song's closing bars) and thick and gooey harmonies on the choruses. Petersen sounds absolutely lost behind the drumkit, seemingly randomly thumping the bass drum during the verses, and just bashing quarter notes on the cymbals on the choruses. The song soars in spite of him, since everyone else involved is on-point. I have to say, hearing this makes me try to picture Barry Gibb actually laughing derisively in my face and it's just too funny.

https://morobinbarrystories.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/molaugh1.jpg

Track No. 59: Never Say Never Again ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYs2nlbu-hg

The undercurrent of bitterness that runs throughout this album is something of an outlier in the Bee Gees catalog; nonetheless, the brothers' penchant for confusing romance with megalomania results in my favorite single line from "Odessa": "you said goodbye/I declared war on Spain". Says it all, really. Reminiscent in style and arrangement to other tracks like "Massachusetts" and "Melody Fair", we are once again treated to Barry's double-tracked 12-string, Shepherd's orchestral countermelodies, a bunch of nonsense lyrics, and the boys (or, at least, Robin and Barry) harmonizing on a serviceable chorus. The strings seem to be doing a bit more work than usual to make the song melodically interesting, and this maybe could have used a middle eight or some other sonic element to change things up, but overall a solid track that fits in well in the context of the album.

All good stuff, just rolling along. The piano intro for "I Laugh in Your Face" obviously follows directly from the end of "Seven Seas Symphony" - maybe a serendipitous sequencing possibility that came up. I also love the sequencing of "Give Your Best" into "Seven Seas."

This all gets me to thinking about alternative visions of what progressive rock could be. A progressive rock that's not oriented in instrumental virtuosity and however you might characterize progressive rock proper's tendencies in terms of song structure and rhythm.

"you said goodbye/I declared war on Spain"

honestly one of the funniest lines ever written

I don't deny that the orchestral songs do contribute to the "epic" scale of the album, they're obviously of a piece with the overall (albeit vague) concept album feel, I just don't find them interesting as songs in and of themselves.

They do leave me with the impression that the Bee Gees had no interest in or knack for something like Revolution No. 9, so when it came time to do their own White Album they just wrote a few extra "Goodnight"'s with no lyrics instead

I don't think a Bee Gees "Revolution No. 9" would have been a great idea tbh.

I think of Odessa as more their own Days of Future Passed and that they pretty much knock that out of the park.

I don't think a Bee Gees "Revolution No. 9" would have been a great idea tbh.

oh, totally. They wisely played to their strengths.

"Days of Future Passed" def not as good as "Odessa"!

xp

Mmmm...I wonder if the Gibbs would concur so readily with that. Odessa is better in sonic realization and better by virtue of its more epic length - that I wouldn't argue with.

MB guys are just inferior songwriters imo

Don't think I agree. I think the band tracks on Days of Future Passed are probably better on the whole than what the Bee Gees came up with on any of their first three albums. Odessa is where they become stronger.

I think the Gibb Brothers were pretty useful songwriters tbf.

"Days of Future Passed" just does not bring the hooks/melodies imo. To say nothing of the Gibbs' other charming idiosyncrasies (Robin's vibrato, perfect harmonies, impenetrable lyrics etc.), that is the one area where the Gibbs were head and shoulders above a lot of their competition. idk the MBs just never did anything for me, it's all well-made but their stuff just sort of drifts past me in an orchestral haze.

Can't see myself thinking "If only the Moody Blues had lyrics as charmingly idiosyncratic as 'Lemons Never Forget'..."

I'll take "bizarre but memorable" over "competent but forgettable" any day. Having just listened to the entirety of "Days of Future Passed" I have to say I can't recall a single lyric or melodic figure aside from the one I (and everybody else) already knew ("Nights in White Satin"), which I have never thought was a particularly good song, certainly not on the level of "To Love Somebody" or "I Started a Joke" or "Massachusetts" or "New York Mining Disaster" or "Every Christian Lionhearted Man".

"NYMD" is classic. Sometimes early Bee Gees veers a little into that late '60s, poetic easy listening, though.

Some people might say that's true of "Nights in White Satin" as well, I know. I'm not one of them.

If the Bee Gees did a version of, say, "Dawn Is a Feeling" on Horizontal or Idea, I think it could have easily been one of the best tracks.

"Another Morning" - strong Toytown psych.

"Peak Hour" - good freakbeat. OK, I'm done!

promise?

I might ask you that as well

But I didn't because I'm always willing to listen to opinions. Sorry I gave opinions on some songs if that bugs you.

Sometimes early Bee Gees veers a little into that late '60s, poetic easy listening, though.

... and this is a bad thing?

I'm just teasing, was a little worried this was going to become a Moody Blues thread :)

xp

and no, I'm not finished, after all we have uh over 120 more songs to go!

xp

I think it was a bad thing, sometimes, yes. I'm not sure how to characterize it - I guess I'm talking about like McKuen/Goldsboro/"MacArthur Park" type stuff? I hate to lump the Bee Gees into something of this nature, but I am honestly not a fan of something like "I Started a Joke."

xxp

Or Scott Walker, I know what you mean. I like that stuff.

Track No. 60: First of May ("Odessa", 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHyZSx8s9Gc

The song that ended the album also happened to end this phase of their career as well as (albeit temporarily) the band itself. In a career rife with comparisons to the Beatles, I'm not sure anyone's ever pointed out the parallels between Robin and George Harrison's positions within their respective groups at this point in time - both overflowing with ideas, with a backlogs of songs, feeling slighted by their more prolific (and spotlight-grabbing) bandmates, and eager to move on. As the lone single released from "Odessa", the band performed it on Top of the Pops, during which an extremely awkward Robin, who does not appear on the studio track at all, was relegated to just standing around with nothing to do. Robin had wanted "Lamplight" as the A-side, but Stigwood had favored "First of May" and that was that. The song was not a huge hit (no. 6 in the UK, no. 37 in the US).

The song itself is a fine example of Barry's balladry at this particular juncture - it's got Maurice's signature piano sound, another gorgeous arrangement from Shepherd (I particularly like pairing the bells, strings and piano on the intro melody), and a decent lead vocal melody that matches the wistfulness and regret of the lyrics. But it feels a little slight; there's no real chorus and the song is over after just two run-throughs of the verses and a brief solo/sotto voce repeat of the refrain at the end. As a single choice, is it better than "Lamplight" (or "Melody Fair")?

Worth noting that at this point, following the release and relative commercial and critical failure of "Odessa", the brothers' activities splinter considerably. While they had all been involved in writing and producing for other artists (particularly the Marbles, but also Samantha Sang, P.P. Arnold, Lulu, Lori Balmer, etc.) at this point Robin goes off to record "Robin's Reign" and Maurice, Barry and Petersen soldier on as a trio, officially releasing another single initially intended for Joe Cocker (which we will get to tomorrow) and one more full LP before officially splitting completely. I'm not going to get into all the side-projects and will be sticking strictly with songs released under the official Bee gees moniker.

Track No. 61: Tomorrow Tomorrow (Non-album single, 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvzeG-5cP3U

Originally intended for Joe Cocker but subsequently recorded by Barry, Maurice, Petersen and Shepherd the same day Robin publicly announced his departure from the band, and then rush-released in June 1969. Kind of a weird pick for a single, what with the abrupt shifts in tempo between the songs A and B sections. Its structure is sort of the inverse of "Whisper, Whisper" - starting out with the faster section and then downshifting to the slower one, and then repeating it twice. The overall sound is solid, with some nice horn accents. The melody and vocal phrasing do seem suited to Cocker, but it isn't hard to guess why he passed on it, it's a bit odd and shapeless.

Bit of a clunker.

'69-'70 was generally a period where they were making a lot of inscrutable decisions a la "let's make a slapdash costume-comedy film set during the middle ages"

I mean right after they released this single (with a B-side that's better than the A-side imo), they went to work on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiAvgBXjEik

Petersen was also fired during this time. They got the Pentangle drummer to fill in for the rest of the studio sessions to fill out the album that accompanied the above-linked TV special.

wow, that's certainly a step up in the drummer department

Yeah from here on out their supporting session guys represent a marked improvement

The music took a bit of a nosedive for a while though.

Says you!

The next two albums are distinctly average.

I think Cucumber Castle has more decent songs on it than 2 Years On but... yeah, both albums are p inarguably a step down from "Odessa". Nonetheless, I think the early 70s period is a bit unjustly overlooked/undervalued.

Undoubtedly some great things on those albums.

Track No. 62: Sun in My Morning (Non-album single, 1969)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr7lY0D1yBE

Not a mindblowing deep cut by any stretch, but still a nice little slice of country pop. Shedding Melouney, Petersen and (unfortunately) Robin, this track is all Barry, Maurice and Shepherd, and you can hear all their respective talents bleeding into each other. Has that hazy, acoustic, soft-focus sound that was very au currant in the early 70s.

Interesting how misleading some of the single sleeves were, re membership:

https://www.discogs.com/Bee-Gees-Tomorrow-Tomorrow-Sun-In-My-Morning/release/11809866

This one is quite catchy, it turns out. It's been cycling around in my head for several minutes after one listen.

They did an hour long tv special for Cucumber Castle?? And it had Frankie Howerd and Eleanor Bron in it?! Or appears to at least..

There was an hourlong “Frankie Howerd Meets the Bee Gees” tv special in 1968.

And who can forget Frankie Howerd's performance, alongside the Bee Gees, as Mr. Mustard in the film of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"? Not that I've ever seen it, of course.

Must have been some sort of Stigwood connection going on there.

https://editorial01.shutterstock.com/wm-preview-1500/1795394a/c8111fd5/pop-manager-robert-stigwood-at-the-merger-between-his-company-and-associated-london-scripts-picture-shows-writers-ray-galton-and-alan-simpson-comedian-frankie-howerd-and-pop-group-the-bee-gees-1968-rexscanpix-shutterstock-editorial-1795394a.jpg

Pop Manager Robert Stigwood At The Merger Between His Company And Associated London Scripts. Picture Shows Writers Ray Galton And Alan Simpson Comedian Frankie Howerd And Pop Group The Bee Gees 1968. .

Stock image, 24 Feb 1968

Track No. 63: If I Only Had My Mind on Something Else (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdxULCTRok8

For a band that always chased trends, it's interesting to track *which* trends they actually chose to hook onto. Never having really been a "rock band" in any traditional sense, come 1970 they don't opt to go the stripped down route, they don't get heavier, and they don't attempt to rock harder. Similarly, they don't get spacier or more proggy either, as some of their peers-in-psychedelia did. And their guiding light is clearly no longer the now-defunct Beatles - if there's any act their overall sound and approach generally parallel in this period, imo it's the Carpenters. "Soft rock". "Easy Listening". "Adult Contemporary". This song's opening "do doo doo doo, doo doo, doo doo" melody/refrain, drifting gently over the string arrangement, leads into Barry's wistful self-pitying lyric, which honestly seems like something Robin would sing - all those lines about being a ship's captain or a fighter pilot or a king. He practically chokes up when he gets to the choruses, dropping a beat and switching rhythms for a bar at the top of each one. And this tricky bit is, for once (finally!), handled with aplomb by a competent drummer - Terry Cox. A solid song and a good opener for an album that is, at best, a weird grab bag.

I don't know who's singing there (or rather trying to sing) but it isn't Barry Gibb!

Far too heavy on the schmaltz this song.

whoah sorry, dunno what happened there, totally the wrong youtube link (why are there so many amateur covers of this song!?). Here is the original, featuring Barry (and only Barry) singing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dmj_sdhnU

Jesus, this is really good. The TV special left me a little fearful, but I don't think this appeared there. The aforementioned rhythmic shifts in the chorus totally make it. (Plus I'm a sucker for this sort of arrangement. And the Carpenters, for that matter.)

lmao at the recording on the original link

always liked this one

Track No. 64: I.O.I.O. (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1SUVq8IHO8

I have no idea where the ridiculous footage above is from but it seems appropriate. I think this might be the first time the Bee Gees use the tried and true arrangement tactic of opening with the chorus, which in this case is Maurice singing some nonsense syllables over a drum break courtesy of both Colin Petersen *and* Terry Cox (I doubt longtime followers of this thread will have any difficulty picking out which one of them is doing what). Reportedly inspired by a trip to Africa that Barry took, the song was initially worked up in 1968 during the sessions for "Idea" - which is why Melouney is credited on the track with acoustic guitar - and then dusted off and completed in 1970. In a somewhat typical yet still baffling move, this was selected as the second single from the album. As far as purported exercises in "world music" go this is fairly weak ("Mother and Child Reunion" it is not) but it's not bad as a dopey, lightweight singalong.

That has to be an Italian movie. God knows what the record company thought they were doing releasing this lame novelty number as a single.

I thought the woman, er, featuring in the video might be Florinda Bolkan but it is, of course, Edwige Fenech and the film is "Five Dolls for an August Moon" by Mario Bava.

to be fair there are not really a bunch of obvious singles on the album. Still, for this single the b-side was "Sweetheart", which is definitely better and might have been a smarter A-side bet.

xp

looks like the single tanked in the US and UK but did fairly well on the continent

Track No. 65: Then You Left Me (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw6ZaEgrnkQ

Barry's lament for a departed Robin? My suspicion is that this is one of the earlier tracks recorded, it feels like a leftover from some previous album session and features Petersen behind the kit. The descending vocal melody in the verse over the by-now familiar lush bed of strings, piano and acoustic 12-string strikes me as a bit catchier and stronger than the choruses. Some nice details in the orchestration - church bells, mandolin, and I think a vibraphone? Barry's spoken bit on the first chorus is a tad over the top.

Without Robin around Barry appears to have fallen back on maudlin schmaltz.

it was a default mode for him generally, the sillier stuff on the album (more tomorrow!) seems to come more from Maurice

Perhaps not quite as good as the opener but still well-crafted maudlin schmaltz. Saving up the full-bodied chorus until the end mostly works, I think. Thumbs-up! A spot of pre-listening suggests that I'm going to continue to dig quite a few of the less goofy tracks on this record.

Track No. 66: The Lord (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CynqbEwYF_0

Even when they are being inexplicably bad (and this song is comically bad) you kind of have to give them credit for so thoroughly committing, with good humor, to their bad ideas. The song is repetitive, rudimentary, and performed badly. A flubbed vocal line is left in (Barry clearly sings "the lord says the stole sticks around"), Petersen's drumming is as stiff and awkward as ever, the harmonies are sloppy and they throw in a rote key change in lieu of anything else interesting to do with the song, which otherwise just cycles through it's half-assed verse + chorus structure. Maurice's bass playing is at least decent, and as a goofy throwaway it's incongruity makes it funny maybe once or twice. I assume the lyrics are "in character", given that religion never seemed to otherwise be a lyrical preoccupation for any of the Gibbs. For some reason this was selected as the b-side to "Don't Forget to Remember".

a lot of pointing in that video. my wife has noted that she likes this song.

They seem to be adopting some approximation of an American accent (or 'country singer voice'?) too, further reinforcing the 'in character' vibe.

I'm finding it to be a devastatingly infectious earworm. Which is some sort of achievement, I guess.

on a bit of a weird one the past few weeks. my ex-gf (first love, relative of frank zappa, 5000 miles away in wisconsin) played me 'gotta get a message and 'i started a joke' and though i admired it at the time, its taken ten years for me to kinda come round and realize just what she was feeling at the time. a decade feels like a moment. i'm always late for the train. "it's only morning and you're still to live your day"

I know it is Barry but it doesn't sound like him. Seems to want to be a Dylan/Band parody at first but rapidly turns into a joke number. If they hadn't written some (apparently) sincere attempts at country on this album I would say it was some sort of sniggering pastiche along the lines of the Arthur Lee/Love song "Abalony".

Track No. 66: I Was the Child (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Fwq9LxyzY

Another track of soft-focus schmaltz from Barry, you can practically hear the breeze whistling through his exposed chest hair as he staggers about in a lovelorn haze. The verses plaintive, minimal minor-key arrangement segues into major-key choruses accompanied by some simple but effective strings. Nothing too notable or unusual about this one, they had hit on a formula by this point and drew on it frequently. As usual it sounds like Maurice is really holding the arrangement together with his bass and piano playing.

I know it is Barry but it doesn't sound like him

yeah I would have guessed it was Maurice singing lead on "The Lord" as well but apparently not. It def feels kind of joke-y.

Well, Barry is looking exceptionally handsome in the video but that's about all I have to say about that last track.

yeah it isn't terrible but I can't work up much enthusiasm for it either

Track No. 67: I Lay Down and Die (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WDuOBRibdk

I wouldn't be surprised if, excited about having a drummer that can think in terms of actual, musical drum parts, they built this entire track around Cox's opening tattoo on the toms. After that, things get downright Spector-ian - Barry's vocal bears more than a passing resemblance to Ronnie Spector's whoa-whoah-oh's, as does the pounding quarter note piano part, the simple, repeated three chord motif, and the keening strings that come in the second time around. Wallowing once more in a morbidly self-pitying lyric worthy of Robin, at least this time they've found some slightly different clothes to dress it up in. Only knock against it is that the song itself seems a little bit half-formed and sloppy; the three chord structure doesn't vary much, and Maurice actually appears to hit a couple wrong notes towards the end on the transition to the coda (or, at least, he misses a cue).

I don't think I have a problem with Robin's voice, but I am enjoying this extended stretch of Barryness quite a bit.

they're both fine on their own but honestly it isn't hard to envision the extra something Robin could have brought to some of these songs

Easily the best song on the album so far. As you say, very Phil Spector! And Maurice does miss his cue at the end there.

it's so weird that that flub got left in. I would think it wouldn't be that hard to just punch in the right note. maybe they were just in a hurry.

cuz they were definitely able to isolate instruments/using 8-track recording (if not 16-track) by this point

Track No. 68: Sweetheart (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRo3-Sly0Xk

No idea why they thought "I.O.I.O." was a better A-side than this charmingly succinct slice of lite country-pop, which was relegated to the B-side. While not particularly remarkable or unusual, this is just a sturdily constructed and competently produced tune with a beginning, middle and end, a decent hook in the chorus, a gentle country swing rhythm courtesy of Tony Cox, and syrupy two-part harmonies from Barry and Maurice. Apparently both Dean Martin AND Englebert Humperdinck recorded covers lol.

Pretty sure I first heard this perhaps two weeks ago but it feels like an obvious 1970 hit and minor easy listening radio fixture through to the present day. In reality, it was b-side a couple times, seemingly. Oh well.

Engelbert's arrangement is not attractive, it turns out. Someone should sample the first few bars. LOL.

Not UNattractive, rather.

haha I can hear that!

I think they should have left this one for Engelbert.

Track No. 69: Bury Me Down By the River (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQTniNIWHNE

A proto-Bohemian Rhapsody narrative wrapped up in a gospel package. That's frequent Bee Gees collaborator P.P. Arnold singing with Barry; certainly the first (not sure if it's the only?) instance of a non-Bee Gee singing on a Bee Gees record. Features some of Barry's most furious emoting to-date, even if he doesn't quite reach the frenzied heights of subsequent records (thinking of "Trafalgar", but we'll get to that soon enough). The song itself is fine, nothing particularly special in the arrangement although there are some nice horn flourishes and other details worked in,and certainly by this point this kind of woe-is-me-on-the-gallows lyrical posturing was well-worn territory for them. As far as the genre-dabbling that characterizes this record goes, this dalliance with churchified dramatics works better than some others.

forgot to note that Petersen's drumming is once again like a lead weight dragging the song down

Track No. 70: My Thing (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlU9faiIAC8

Maurice's discovery of major 7th chords apparently inspires him to write and perform an entire song, by himself, about his dog. And honestly aside from the muffed piano chord at the beginning, it's pretty great! The structure is fairly basic - a repeated two chord pattern that drops the major 7th when it gets to the refrain and then shifts towards the end to a major key I-IV-V pattern, and the wistful melody and drifting mellotron are coupled with an endearingly dopey lyric that eventually devolves into wordless harmonies. For something that was obviously conceived as something of a jokey bit of fun it's actually quite pretty. A welcome bit of silliness amidst all the other maudlin weepiness on this record.

(er that first sentence was supposed to be a separate post in ref to previous song)

This stunned me a little in the film, which is where I started with the album. The best of the goofier tracks, I'd say. The faintly 'tense' tonal relationship of some of the piano plonks and mellotron (seemingly largely absent from the mix in that film segment?) to everything else feels surprisingly menacing for a song about dogs!

weird yeah that film mix is a bit different (I think it's even slowed down/pitched differently?) Here's the album mix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RenmZOxUm-k

Track No. 71: The Chance of Love (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZJpLBIGTCo

What, yet another plaintive piano + acoustic + orchestra ballad? Barry's beginning to approach Mike Love levels of commitment to not fucking with the formula. This song is not bad, the melody and lyrics and arrangement are all fine, it's just getting a bit repetitive at this point. It's evident he could churn this kind of thing out in his sleep, but nothing particularly remarkable or unusual happens in the song. It's tracks like this where you can start to feel the lack of Robin's presence. I suppose more input from Maurice might have been welcome as well.

This last song is irritatingly anonymous and unmemorable without being actively bad - also seems to be missing another chorus. "Bury Me Down By the River" however is good, I much prefer Barry doing gospel/soul than country. The Maurice song is a Maurice song.

Track No. 72: Turning Tide (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycmxKwrK08A

In some places this feels like a lazy re-write of the previous track, somehow becoming even more irritatingly anonymous and unmemorable in the process. Here we get 6/8 verses interspersed with choruses in 4/4, a switch that's barely noticeable thanks to Terry Cox's restrained drumming, but there's nary a memorable melody or hook in sight, and there are places where it seems like Barry's not even sure which note to sing. The track is not actively bad but it feels pretty shapeless and lazy. What's baffling is that they were hardly hurting for material - they could've swapped in "Give a Hand, Take a Hand" (which Barry had passed on to P.P. Arnold), or dug up some other castoff like "Chocolate Symphony" from previous albums, but instead they threw in this piece of filler.

Should maybe be noted that between the recording for this album being completed and its release, the band essentially broke up. Barry announced his departure in December 1969 and proceeded to work on his solo album "The Kid's No Good", while Maurice was also working on his own solo album "The Loner" (neither of which got released), and both were writing for and producing other artists (P.P. Arnold, Tin Tin, etc.) Robin had finished "Robin's Reign" a couple months earlier, but that wouldn't come out until February/March 1970. "Cucumber Castle" followed in April 1970. None of them really seemed to enjoy this state of affairs, and their competing singles both stalled out at no. 2. Within months, Robin and Maurice had reunited and recorded 14 songs, and by the time August 1970 rolled around Barry had a planned solo single pulled from release and returned to the fold as well.

Track No. 73: Don't Forget to Remember (Cucumber Castle, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCnthhfVuJI
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/65/Dont_Forget_To_Remember.jpg/220px-Dont_Forget_To_Remember.jpg

The last song on the record also happened to be the first single, going to number 2 in the UK. Reportedly an homage to Jim Reeves, it's another country ballad sung in a register that's a bit lower than normal for Barry, featuring the by now well-worn combo of Barry's 12-string, Maurice's piano, Petersen's fumbling drum fills, and loads of syrupy strings and bells. But at least they hit on a strong melody this time around, and overall it hits that sweet spot of yearning country-pop balladry that the boys were fixated on at this particular junction. For all their purported interest in country around this time, it's odd that they never really got in a good pedal steel player.

I can only surmise that the reason this song reached No. 2 in the UK charts was that the entire middle aged population of Scotland and Northern Ireland bought a copy - this being the constituency that has lapped up this kind of lachrymose faux-Countrypolitan schmaltz since Jim Reeves flew his plane nose-first into the cold cold ground somewhere outside Nashville.

... the Gibb family was originally from Paisley. That explains it.

never really listened to Reeves, that's a wing of country w limited appeal to me.

next up - the reunion album!

great song, was probably my gateway into the early stuff I think

It is quite good. I like the bulk of this LP a whole lot more than I was expecting to. And possibly more than I should!? Wouldn't hesitate to buy a used copy. (Though I get the impression the post-Odessa era is largely out of print anyway -- if "out of print" even means anything in 2019.)

I had the opposite reaction, this album seems a lot worse than I remembered.

if you think that one was bad...

Track No. 74: 2 Years On (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Rj7ojTesQ

Opening with a striking choral a capella bit directly referencing the split and reunion is a canny move, serving as an immediate reminder of what was missing in the intervening period as well as whetting the appetite for things to come. An abrupt jump-cut into the main body of the song opens the door on Maurice's rumbling bassline and a steady backbeat from
new drummer Geoff Bridgford (borrowed from the Maurice-produced Aussie band Tin Tin) and an uncommonly strident lyric and lead vocal from Robin. Barry apparently does not sing on this track, but I assume that's his guitar (I suppose it could also be Maurice). The chorus is great, everything a Bee Gees chorus should be. And although the transitions from the chorus back into the verses feel a bit forced, the tune is capped off by a brief ascending falsetto melody at the end. A solid albeit nakedly autobiographical opener. Unfortunately, things go downhill from here imho...

Yes, this song is not bad, a relief to hear something that sounds like the Bee Gees and not Englebert Humperdinck, even then Robin had much better songs lying about unreleased. Taking a minute and half to reach the chorus is pushing their luck though.

ha yeah I almost mentioned that the verses in this feel really long

Track No. 75: Portrait of Louise (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-FCMzI_xSM

Actually, things don't go downhill quite yet, as evidenced by this compact little tune. While Robin is apparently absent from the track, the vocal harmonies still sparkle, particularly on the overlapping "you can shelter in my arms/and I won't ask you why" refrains after the key change at the end. The orchestration gets a little busy in places, can kind of tell Shepherd was trying to fill the bars of some fairly simple chord changes. Bridgford acquits himself nicely; after his deceptive opening kickdrum hits suggest a more uptempo song, he settles into a gentle groove with Maurice that rolls along with none of the stiffness that characterized Petersen's playing.

can hear some traces of Barry's disco-era falsetto peaking through as well

OK song, nothing special though.

I think a lot of their weirder, more idiosyncratic edges got sanded off in 1970. There's not many surprising elements on either Cucumber Castle or 2 Years On. Maybe they were feeling skittish after the relative commercial failure of "Odessa" and the breakup, hedging their bets by playing it safe.

I don't know, some of Robin's vocal performances on this and the following albums are pretty weird and idiosyncratic!

oh, yeah, next album is def a different story imo

Indeed, these two albums are pretty dull.

Wikipedia makes the reunion sound kinda tentative at this stage. With Maurice perhaps being the glue holding things together?

Maurice and Robin announced that the Bee Gees were back with or without Barry's participation ... Despite the album marking the musical reunion of the Bee Gees, only three songs credited all three Gibb brothers as composers: the single "Lonely Days", its flip side "Man For All Seasons", and "Back Home". Maurice sings on all songs, but Barry and Robin are only on the ones they wrote or co-wrote.

I didn't feel myself missing Robin much in his absence but it probably was about time for a track like that there title track, if only for variety.

Track No. 76: Man For All Seasons (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te2ssm3IZp0

At first this sounds like another ho-hum sadsack Barry piano ballad, but Robin's entry toward the end of the second verse as the melody climbs upward definitely kicks the song into a different gear as the chorus blossoms into those inimitable three-party harmonies. Laid back drums and a fuller orchestration follow, and it sounds like we'll get their by now standard two verses + two choruses and done structure, but instead there's an extended coda which briefly features one of my favorite arrangement tricks: a melodic call-and-response between the vocals and the horns. I wouldn't say this song is great - the chorus hook is a bit generic - but it is refreshing to hear all three singing together.

Yes, it's another decent song and demonstrates how much they'd missed The Robin Factor in the last snoozefest of an album.

toward the end of the second first verse

correction!

Track No. 77: Sincere Relation (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBmSnk4QZ4U

This song isn't bad exactly but it's hard for me to work up too much enthusiasm for it. Robin spins a mournful ode on the tragic death of a hapless Londoner, his melody gradually spiralling upward over his isolated piano, unexpectedly complimented by the occasional thunderous drumbreaks. The second verse rolls around and Maurice's bass enters the mix along with the orchestra, Barry altogether absent. Feels like a leftover from Robin's Reign, and something about the melody seems reminiscent of one of his solo tracks but I can't quite place it.

Apparently the song is about Robin's father-in-law, who'd recently died, which might explain the overwrought vocal performance but I'm not sure it excuses it. A more stripped down arrangement might have suited the song better as this slightly bombastic approach only makes it seem silly and melodramatic.

idk if his vocal is especially overwrought (at least, not any moreso than his lead vocals normally were), I just don't think it's a very strong song. The drums in the first verse are over-the-top/distracting though.

The way his voice cracks up in the chorus is a bit o_0 tbh I can't help wondering a bit about Robin's mental state in these early 70s albums, the songs are so relentlessly gloomy and some of the vocal performances are a bit unnerving.

Track No. 78: Back Home (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug9cYcSuh6g

Regrettably, all three Gibb brothers participating on a track has never been a reliable guarantee of quality, as this track amply demonstrates. And what really sinks this song is just how lazy it is, you don't hear any of the formulas or attention to craft that usually at least makes their lesser material listenable. Granted, they step out of their comfort zone to apparently try out what it's like to be a rock n roll band; I don't think there's a single track preceding this one that is based around a distorted electric rhythm guitar riff. But it just doesn't work, as a song it feels like no thought or energy went into it. Maurice gamely thumps away in an effort to give the song some heft, but there's really nothing for him to work with, no real hook, no melody, no chorus, nothing but the basic drum track, Barry's two-note riff, and the boneheaded vocal. The nonsensical travelogue lyrics don't add much either.

(Not so) tragically overlooked for the sub-two minutes poll!

Sounds like a demo or a track they couldn't be bothered finishing.

Very early Beatles harmonies and Barry sounds kinda like Davey Jones - the Manc connection - that as much as I have to say about this song.

The Beatles connection did occur to me too - like this was a leftover Revolver knockoff from '67 that had was never polished up and, by the time it was exhumed, had gone to rot

Track No. 79: The 1st Mistake I Made (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMbORTuTjus

Honestly this song makes me a little irrationally angry, its half-assedness is practically an insult to the listener. With little more than a barely-there 4-bar vocal melody repeated ad nauseam, Barry delivers a nonsensical lyric that consistently undercuts the titular refrain (how can you have more than one first mistake?), begging the question of how something this stupid was not immediately flagged as a mistake in its own right. The one mildly interesting detail is the brief snatches of Maurice's phased electric guitar, which was a relatively new sound in their arsenal. But this is the second song in a row where their usual attention to craft and innate melodic skills really fail them, as they don't seem to have been deployed at all.

Track No. 80: Lonely Days (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3YC5sc_V6I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX_fEzeCgzo

Included two clips here because the official video is p great, esp mopey Robin and Voltron-style "Go Team!" bit at the end, but the audio seems slowed down and warbly. The audio on the TV show clip is much better and also features classic live performance emoting and swaying so felt compelled to include that as well. In contrast to the previous two tracks, at least here it seems like they're trying a little harder, and that paid off when it was released as a single and became their first Top 5 hit in the US. The arrangement see-saws back and forth between the stately verses and the marching rhythm and pounding piano of the choruses, and when the chorus comes around the second time they switch up the vocal arrangement as well. Melodically it's not bad, but it's not *that* catchy. The wiki entry makes a lot of rhapsodic comparisons to the Beatles' "Abbey Road" but I don't really hear that so much myself.

Never rated this song, God knows how it got to be a Top 10 hit in the US, but it's pretty damn good compared to most of the material on this fairly lamentable album. Sounds like two songs bolted together - there's a few songs like that on these 70s Bee Gees albums. Hopeless as the lyrics are I wish they'd written some more for the chorus.

As you pointed out, "The 1st Mistake I Made" is dire.

Yeah for some reason they seem to fare a bit better on the US charts during this period, at least compared to the UK, but I really don't see what propelled this to number 3.

I've done some, er, field research with some of the songs in this thread. Namely asking an older relative (and non-fan) whether they "have much sense of this being a hit" or whatever. For the first time since "I've Gotta Get a Message to You", the subject started SINGING ALONG with the intro to this one before I even asked. Gawd. While most of their singles apparently charted (to some extent) in Aus I certainly didn't anticipate "Lonely Days" being the one to break this particular drought.

Track No. 81: Alone Again (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeumu6sTPmA

This feels like another one where Robin is recycling a melody from one of his other solo songs (in this case "Down Came the Sun", I think?), came up with a pretty good chorus, and then just couldn't be bothered anymore. The harmonies, which is just Robin and Maurice, are very nice, but they aren't enough to carry the whole song, which is otherwise pretty standard fare. Some of the horn accents are cool, I suppose.

Quite a perky song by Robin's standard, the lyrics are as morose as ever though. One of the better songs on this album too.

I do like the drum break where the bass drops out

Track No. 82: Tell Me Why (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xG0Jz8ZUfs

Barry shakes things up every so slightly by going with a 6/8 time signature for his latest breathy R&B ballad, which tbh seems like something of a precursor to a certain much superior hit single that appears on their next record. The elementary rhyme schemes don't do the song any favors, and this is yet another instance where there's no chorus per se (much less a bridge or intro or pre-chorus or anything really), just the lead vocal melody that repeats a few times. Barry's delivery, though, does put me in mind of other, different and primarily black R&B singers that might have turned this song into something more substantial or interesting, just with a more powerful range or degree of emotive power. As it is, this is just yet another fairly uninteresting bit of glop.

Seems as much country as R&B tbh, could have been on the last album. Barry going through an uncharacteristically fallow period, his songs on this album just don't lodge in yr brain.

agree that Barry's lack of memorable melodies on this one is pretty unusual

With Robin you can at least use the excuse that he'd used up about two albums worth of good material on his solo projects, from what I've heard of Barry's unreleased solo album it's as unmemorable as his work on this album.

yeah that like 60-track box set of Robin's solo backlog from this period makes it abundantly clear that he was firing on all cylinders, whereas Barry's songs from the same time seem aimless. Needed his bros, perhaps.

Track No. 83: Lay It On Me (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsey6yk6NUc

Just in case you thought it was Robin and Barry that had been stockpiling second-rate solo material, we get this tossed off country-funk ditty from Maurice. Singing and playing everything on the track himself, with the exception of the drums, courtesy of Bridgford, I have to admit that it sounds relatively together, and you can hear Maurice trying to inject some levity and life to the proceedings with the chuckling asides and goofy interjections that he resorted to on "Suddenly" (from "Odessa"). But the lyrics are muddled (he's so proud of being a loser that he doesn't want people to drink with him? okaaaayy), the melody is practically non-existent, his bros aren't around to fill up the sonic space with harmonies, and the underlying structure is rote and boring as hell. Essentially the track seems to exist as an exercise in isolated instrumental versatility and little else.

Sounds like Neil Innes. But not very good Neil Innes.

Track No. 84: Every Second, Every Minute (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDzCWPMb1rQ

While this song doesn't fully break Barry's string of underwhelming and half-formed tunes on this record, it does at least have a few distinguishing characteristics. As with the comparatively dreadful "Back Home", we can hear the band again trying out a relatively traditional "rock n roll band" format and sound, reverting to the Beatle-isms of previous years. Interestingly - and this was driving me crazy trying to figure out what specific Beatles song this reminded me of - the opening bars bear more than a passing resemblance to the Ringo/Lennon/Harrison collaboration "I'm The Greatest", which was still several years down the road. Thanks to Bridgford locking in with Maurice's distorted rhythm guitar part and thumping bass, the track actually kind of rocks a bit, especially on the coda after the seesawing strings and horn accents have come in. This augmentation of a more rocking track with the orchestral flourishes is a little unusual in their catalog, and it's a nice blend of sounds. Lyrically and structurally the song is weak, we are again stuck with a single melody line repeated throughout, but the overall delivery and sound go a fair way to redeeming it.

for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ4EmA5X-PQ

I doubt this is a case of the master stealing from the disciple (and the riff isn't really *that* unique) but who knows

Track No. 85: I'm Weeping (2 Years On, 1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfy4Po3gw7Y

Well, at least this album ends on an unexpectedly bizarre note, and with the most Robin-esque of Robin song titles to boot. Sounding very much like a Robin solo track, I can't detect the presence of either of the other Gibb brothers; even Maurice's bass is absent. Sonically there's no question this is the most unusual and interesting song on the album, from the opening trudge of the drum and tambourine, followed by the twinkly organ riff, through to where Robin's voice triggers a pronounced reverb effect and the strings come in. It's bleak and ethereal and almost creepy in its evocation of poor, bombed-out post-war Britain - at least until the horns come in at the end, striking a more elegiac note, but even that is almost immediately cut off by the switch back to the intro rhythm and organ riff.

Robin skirting self-parody with this song, but I agree it's interesting. The lyrics are awkward but still affecting - I don't think the song refers to a post-war bombed out Britain so much as it does to slum areas being demolished, which would certainly have happened in Manchester, whether it happened to the Gibb family's old neighbourhood, I don't know. As a whole, this album is sloppy, lazy and half-baked, and almost certainly the worst album they ever put out - what a comeback! Plus I don't what was going on with Barry, but the best parts are almost entirely down to Robin, Maurice meanwhile does his thing as reliably as usual.

lol yeah why does he emphasize the "drivinG a car" line, for example? definitely awkward

Also agree this album is definitely sloppy, lazy and half-baked and that it's mystifying that this was a "comeback" effort. Very possible it's their worst album, the only one that might conceivably give it a run for its money on that score is "Life in a Tin Can", which I don't know as well. Pretty much every other album at least has some redeeming, standout tracks and this one just... doesn't.

As it is, we have a non-album track to get to tomorrow, before we move on to the far superior "Trafalgar".

The "drivinG a car" thing is dialect tbf. Robin not being one for putting on an American accent.

ah. well pronunciation aside it's not exactly such a emotionally resonant a line that it requires being repeated

It doesn't make too much sense as hardly any working class people were driving a car in the 1950s - if this song is really about Robin's own experience, which it probably isn't as he was in Australia by the time he was 10.

Track No. 86: In the Morning/Morning of My Life (Melody soundtrack, 1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6ESHJlqkM

During the sessions for "2 Years On" the boys dusted off this old nugget, originally written by Barry in 1965 when the Gibb bros were still in Australia, and subsequently passed the recording on for inclusion in the soundtrack to the movie "Melody" in 1971. While not particularly remarkable, it does display a level of craft and care that was often absent from "2 Years On" - the harmonies throughout are great, the orchestration subtle and effective, and it even has a bridge (albeit one that is mostly a slight rearrangement of the verses). The only real knock against it is that it lacks both a real hook and a chorus. The lyrics are standard issue daydreamy nonsense.

It's a nice song, better than anything on "2 Years On". Had to check when Donovan's "Colours" was released (May 1965), because I'm pretty sure Barry had that song in mind when he wrote this.

huh, I'll grant the lyrical sentiment is similar but I don't really hear a musical similarity...?

I can hear it, the original version could easily have been sung in a coffee house by earnest young men squatting on high chairs.

ah, I hadn't listened to the original - yeah, that rhythm puts it close to Donovan

Track No. 87: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Trafalgar, single, 1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fbOr9q2IBA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LmoEv7LwB4

The apex of their soft-rock balladry era. Remarkably recorded just two months after the release of "2 Years On", and apparently written around the same time as some of the material for that album, including "Lonely Days". This song is one of only a handful so far where Barry deploys major 7 chords, and that suspended chord at the beginning and end of each chorus adds a dreamy undercurrent to the melody and the harmonies, a compositional trick they would return to often in subsequent years. The singing here is also top-shelf, with Robin and Barry trading verses and all three brothers chiming in the choruses, as is the orchestration, with every element (a wistful trumpet countermelody, a chiming bell, a harp swirl) deployed just so. Really I just lover everything about this song, every detail feels just right. And apparently I am not alone in this reaction. While the single inexplicably failed in the UK, it was the band's first number one single in the US. Funnily enough, I knew this song well before I knew it was the Bee Gees, I think I probably heard the Al Green version first.

No. 1 in the US, completely bombed in the UK. I suspect most people this side of the pond are more familiar with the Al Green version, so much so that I'm always taken aback when I hear Robin squawking the first line instead of Al.

man that Al Green version has really shown up in a lot of soundtracks

Until this year I imagined that this came quite a few years later in their career. No doubt because the vocals in the chorus kinda sorta presage stuff they were doing in the second half of the seventies. (Though the broader arrangement doesn't really support that.) It was a big hit in the antipodes. The original -- I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone else's rendition broadcast anywhere!

Also: I think I'm going to have to watch Melody now.

Glutton for punishment eh

Track No. 87: Country Woman ("How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" single B-side, 1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGEJJQictCQ

Released in May 1971 just a month after it was recorded and 4 months ahead of the album proper. Strictly a Maurice track, Robin and Barry don't bother to appear, although the rest of the band (Bridgford, new guitarist Alan Kendall, and arranger Bill Shepherd) all contributed. Maurice seems to have been the Bee Gee most interested in American country music, but his grasp of the mechanics of the genre seem a bit tenuous and perhaps rooted in second-hand sources such as the Band. Definitely feel like Bridgford's drum part here is going for Levon Helm's surefooted country funk, for example. Maurice's multi-instrumental facility and baseline level of competence keep this from being outright bad. Still, this is b-side material for sure, and not even close to the level of quality of the song that he *did* manage to get on the album.

Well, it's not great but it's not bad, Maurice confident enough to drop the jokiness he'd relied on in his previous solo outings at least.

Yeah, no goofy ad-libbed asides here.

His other songs on the record are p remarkable and show really rapid development as a songwriter.

Man, the original of "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart" really doesn't hold a candle to the Al Green version, huh? He really worked some alchemy on that song.

I think they're both excellent to be honest

Track No. 88: Israel ("Trafalgar", 1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m04tAiqAM-Qi

Love Maurice's opening bass wobbles as this tune settles into its mid-tempo groove. The inscrutable motivation for the lyric makes Barry's increasingly histrionic vocal all the more baffling as it goes on (and this is definitely among the most unhinged lead vocal he has in their catalog). Head-scratching lyrics aside, the arrangement is very effective, particularly when the harmonies split on the 7th chord in the chorus, with Robin and Maurice's backing vocals nestled in with the strings as the song sails into the second chorus. Things get even more dramatic as the song draws to a close - more timpani! more ascending string lines! more harp swoops! more howling! A fine ballad, but really why did they feel compelled to write a song on this subject?

er

as the song sails into the second chorus verse

fixed

The lyrics occasionally threaten to mean something but mostly don't make much sense. Great song though, very stirring!

I went back and forth about whether this song is actually about the country or if it's about a person named Israel but yeah it doesn't really make much sense in either scenario. It does make me wonder what prompted it. There was also a reference to Tel Aviv on the previous album.

He does mention sand, I believe they have quite a lot of that in Israel.

where there's sand, yeah
YEAH