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

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.