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

haha yeah I always start this record on track 2 as well

It is fuckin weird but I never skip it

I think it's really the clarinet that is the last straw for me

shit I just realized we skipped a single ("Wouldn't I Be Someone" b/w "Eliza") that was released between "Life in a Tin Can" and "Mr. Natural"

Track No. 120: Wouldn't I Be Someone (non-album single, 1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpqVkpR92q8

This was from the sessions for "A Kick in the Head is Worth Eight in the Pants" (gah, just typing that out is painful) and mostly carries on the overlong and underwritten habits that were too much in evidence on "Life in a Tin Can". It does have a very Beatle-y lead electric guitar part that gives it some character, which carries through over an inexplicably extended orchestral section. Definitely of the 70s "power ballad" school and not bad, but not particularly noteworthy either.

Track No. 121: Elisa (non-album single b-side, 1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXLDj1Upuy4

This one at least feels like a little bit of a bridge to "Mr. Natural", Robin's in fine form with these descending piano chords underneath the weepy, ascending vocal melody, even if Barry does elbow him aside for significant portions of the song. I can kinda imagine what Arif Mardin would've done with this (some goofy synths and more electric piano, probably). As it is the string arrangement harkens back more to their 60s balladry.

Could it be that both of these songs are better than anything on "Life In a Tin Can"? I can't say for sure because I've forgotten "Life In a Tin Can" again. There's a cool video of "Wouldn't I Be Someone" online. The chorus of "Elisa", if that's what it is, doesn't really sound like the Bee Gees, melodically.

possibly? I had the same reaction

They're different, less of a laidback (or somnolent, to be more accurate) LA session guys country rock sound.

Track No. 123: Throw a Penny ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glqNV3Pf4J0

Look no further for evidence of how much impact a new producer and a tight, sympathetic backing band can have to reinvigorate a band in a rut. Prior to this the Gibbs relied on their own instrumental prowess to provide the basic scaffolding of their songs. You always had Barry's acoustic guitar or Maurice's keyboards doing little more than providing the chord structure, with the vocals providing the lead melody, augmented here and there with orchestration or a guitar solo for color. For the first time, that scaffolding is stripped away. Westley's keyboard playing is not like Maurice's chord-comping style at all - he's constantly throwing in little counter-melodies, fills, and grace notes, giving the song both more space and more detail. The spare Barry-led opening verse builds up to the pre-chorus where the drums and Kendall's electric guitar enter, and then Robin comes in with a classic chorus melody, bolstered by his brothers' harmonies and the band sounds like they're in all-new, modern territory. Which then abruptly cuts to a drum-less bridge where Robin's dreamy emoting is given a wholly new, heavily-effected context, before returning to the initial verse/chorus structure. After the final chorus, the band shifts gears again for an extended vamp, and here the band takes on a completely new rhythmic energy, locking into a fantastic R&B/16th-notes on the hi-hat groove as the boys harmonize for a repeated refrain that hints at the future disco direction.

Really, the incredible thing about this song is that melodically and structurally it bears all the hallmarks of the Bee Gees classic 60s pop songs. A verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus/coda structure, simple major key chords, Robin and Barry trading strong melodies. But the instrumentation and arrangement are completely different and updated. Lyrically it's about I dunno what, personal growth and pity for the lower classes or something like that, honestly it sounds so good I don't care too much.

Yes, it's a good one, the words are still nonsense but since when did that ever bother us when it comes to the Bee Gees?

Track No. 124: Down the Road ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy-qFt9M8LQ

"And I don't care/Throw my money anywhere" indeed. This song STRUTS. Cleverly cross-faded from the preceding track, Westly's fender rhodes is swapped out for some Stevie Wonder-style clavinet, and Maurice locks into Byron's groove with audible enthusiasm. If he felt sidelined after years of being the band's instrumental backbone he more then compensates with some fantastic bass playing, those runs up the neck are ridiculous. Kendall sets up a chiming, descending counter-melody going into the choruses, with the boys' harmonies sailing over thumping drum fills. By the time the horns come in to add some extra muscle, the band's firing on all cylinders. While the particulars of the performance vary, there are still detectable tics from the past present: the chord changes are boneheadedly simple, in another era this would have been done as a Revolver/60s UK r&b tune, similar to "Bad Bad Dreams" on the previous album. The main differences are Barry's novel adoption of a brash, carefree attitude and the excellent musicianship of the backing band (Petersen and Melouney are left in the dust).

What's with the video? Also, "I don't care/ Sell my body anywhere" I think!???!

hmm internet says "show my body"? yeah i dunno, I always heard it as "throw my money" but whatever

also lol @ "Ain't no heavy Mister Leather's gonna paddle my butt anywhere"

this is like when I thought he sang "and bagels I have never seen" in "Walking Back to Waterloo"

(xp) Is there some subtext to this song we should know about?

lol yeah these lyrics are like proto-"53rd and 3rd" stuff

Track No. 125: Voices ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhHrNZWTWNg

Now this one *really* feels like an old track dressed up in new clothes. Robin's never sounded sweeter as he does on the folk throwback-style verses, and Barry's circular melody on the chorus is straight out of his standard playbook. Lyrically they're also back to familiar if hazily defined topics: childhood, longing, nostalgia for ages past. As with the prior tracks it's the backing musicians that bring in the modern touches. There's a bit of an island rhythm to the drum part, accented with claves and bongos, plus Kendall's super-flanged electric guitar lead. The latter half of the song relies extensively on repetition of the chorus, but there's enough details layered into it (I think that's Maurice singing the higher register backing vocal? and then there's the strings, etc.) to keep it from getting boring. Another solid track.

Robin's voice on this is so gorgeous but I do find the chorus, if it is a chorus, a bit repetitive. Still good stuff though.

Track No. 126: Give a Hand Take a Hand ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAg3K_bTuO0

This is straight-up gospel. On an Elvis-to-Mahalia Jackson scale this is closer to the former, what with the tremolo guitar, strings, and stately tempo. Barry's in the spotlight, but you can really hear both him and Robin trying to out-vibrato each other once the harmonies come in for the refrain. Composed by Barry and Maurice (maybe that's Maurice on the organ? It's definitely Westley on the piano), this song was actually a leftover from the Robin-less "Cucumber Castle" era, and P.P. Arnold put out a single version of it in 1969, and the Staple Singers also picked it up in 1971, giving it a more swaying feel by switching the time signature to 6/8. Not hard to see why they went back to it for this album, where they're overtly digging into African-American genre styles. Not my favorite, a little plodding, but not bad either.

Oh, I like this, very rousing, great vocal from Barry.

Track No. 127: Dogs ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB8yjZvCNmM

So much to love about this song. Lyrics that pose an either/or question that is then immediately answered with a "no." The hilariously non-specific detail of "It was a quarter to three in the summer of '73". The debut of Barry's chipmunk falsetto in the backing vocals on the pre-chorus (I'm not sure what else to call it, it isn't really a falsetto). Bryon's nimble drum fills guiding the band through the rhythmic shifts coming into and out of the choruses. This is a Barry number all the way; I don't hear Robin on it at all, and Maurice sounds like he's been relegated strictly to the bass. Barry's vocal on this is very sharp, the weird narrative of an estranged father-bum figure does come through as genuinely affecting. Lastly, this is that rarity in their catalog where I can't really think of any clear-cut stylistic inspiration for it - it's not an R&B or funk song like so much of the rest of this record, and it isn't particularly Beatle-y either, it's just kind of it's own thing.

Lyrics are completely insane. Great song, even if the arrangement is on the bombastic side.

as far as I can tell, the narrator's dad is homeless and lives in the park with some dogs that follow him around

... in a tree trunk in the park.

as one does

Needs must.

Track No. 128: Mr. Natural ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFulEf2aylE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uel1AGFb5z8

Possibly my all-time favorite Bee Gees song, Robin absolutely slays it. Otherwise I'm just going to c+p this excellent take from the poll results thread:

I think "Mr. Natural" might be the most emotionally vivid song in their catalog. They have plenty of other songs that successfully convey powerful emotions, but they usually seem to be done in much broader strokes. Like, just to pick examples off the top of my head, I know the guy in "I Started a Joke" is bummed out, and I FEEL it, very powerfully, through the words and the music, but in the end I still don't really know precisely what his deal is. The dude in "New York Mining Disaster 1941" is PROBABLY GOING TO DIE REALLY SOON, but he doesn't connect with me the same way the narrator in "Mr. Natural" does. And the way the song is constructed, the way that chorus just keeps going and going, winding up and getting so tense, that the resignation in "And you can see me dance, I look like a happy man" hits me so hard...I mean, it's not often that I legitimately empathize with the narrator of a song, and I guess, subconsciously, that's really important to me?

I don't know, I had more to say, but I'm only semi-articulate as is, so I don't want to overdo it. Anyway: best Bee Gees song.

― cwkiii, Wednesday, June 20, 2012 8:21 AM (seven years ago)

Track No. 129: Lost in Your Love ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K9qUA83cHI

Slow burning R&B ballad a la the Righteous Brothers, albeit without Barry and Robin trading-off between lead vocals as one might expect. I hear a bit of Al Green too, in the vocal delivery and the string arrangement. Lyrically it's generic as hell, just a vehicle for Barry to emote. Not bad, not particularly remarkable either. This feels the most like something that could have been on their last few albums.

Yes, title track is awesome, great vocal by Robin. Lost In Your Love, OK.

Track No. 130: I Can't Let You Go ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqkZfbLd92o

This is a really weird song, a mashup of old school Beatle-isms (that lead electric guitar sound, for ex.) and their more recent dabbling with R&B (ie that drum groove). There's a bunch of sort of choppy rhythmic turnarounds and suspended beats, not to mention a pretty creative chord structure that modulates up a full step for the choruses. Robin sneaks in some good backing vocals, and the interplay between the lead guitar and the strings sounds sweet. The lyrics are ridiculous and open with probably the creepiest line of the whole song ("tell me your my virgin queen/and it may not be right"). Feels like a lesser version of the title track.

I'd forgotten about this one, definitely a clever song with a lot of hooks and yet somehow not very memorable?

Track No. 131: Heavy Breathing ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvqHeI7InyY

It's a short journey from leonine romantic to bare-chested lothario, and here Barry confidently swaggers to the end of that road. This time the R&B reference points aren't so much Philly or Memphis as Detroit, and specifically where P-Funk and Motown intersected - the bass groove is straight out of "Ball of Confusion", and the wah wah guitar and blaring horns could've been lifted straight from the Temptations' (or Chairmen of the Board) records that were backed by Funkadelic. Barry and Maurice (who again can't resist some over-the-top swoops up the neck at the end of each bar) both seem energized charging through this familiar tale of how hard it is to be on the road maaaaan, with Robin a bit sidelined.

"Mr Natural" not only my fave Bee Gees tune but an all time overall favorite.

Track No. 132: Had a Lot of Love Last Night ("Mr. Natural", 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vECf3Ti70cE

The boys close out their strongest set of material in years with this little humblebrag of a song. I mean seriously what kind of thing is this to say to another person ("So what did you do last night?" "Well, I had a lot of lovin, I tell ya what") Musically this is by far the biggest throwback on the album - just pianos, strings, and the brothers harmonizing, with Robin sweetly leading the refrain. The strings sound a bit more baroque than Shepard would have done, but otherwise this pretty strongly resembles various ballads of theirs from years prior. Barry covers the verses less effectively, imo, but overall it works well as a palette-cleansing album closer.

Track No. 132: It Doesn't Matter Much to Me (non-album b-side, 1974)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9DaUzv4yi8

This sounds more like an outtake from the previous album than anything else, although it definitely gets more interesting as it goes on. At first there's the familiar structure of a fairly simple chord structure + melody, augmented by country session musos (a banjo!) and it doesn't seem like it's going anywhere. But then that weird echoing guitar part gets into a call-and-response thing with Robin on the chorus, something of a Spector-ian touch with the strings underneath, and then after the third chorus the chords switch up and the song switches gears into a totally bombastic coda, Robin hollering over Barry's falsetto backing vocals.

Track No. 133: Nights on Broadway ("Main Course", 1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuUxT1NWDas

This is the inflection point imo, and it's a masterpiece. Having decamped with Mardin to Miami and swapped in new keyboardist Blue Weaver, the band is a well-oiled R&B machine at this point, with Byron, Kendall and Maurice all locked in as the rhythm section. The song is incredibly striking from the get-go, opening with that killer synth bass riff. Barry and Robin are just overflowing with hooks, alternating from one line/part to the next in a way that is nakedly emotional: Barry's initial expression of bewilderment and exposure followed by Robin's pre-chorus "Well I had to follow you/though you did not want me to" can be read as both a statement on their struggling position in the music biz as well as a repurposing of their standard love-sick puppydog romanticism for the disco era. They just want *so badly* to please us! Incredibly, the single mix omits the slowed down middle section, which is an otherwise surprisingly successful curveball in the arrangement; it comes out of nowhere and then smoothly builds back into the chorus with that ascending synth line matching the vocals. And then at the end we get the falsetto. Note that that's actually Maurice that does the strong falsetto at the end in the live performance above; I assume it's Barry on the recording but it's interesting that that inimitable vocal trademark was something they could both do, and I wouldn't be surprised if Robin occasionally filled that role as well. I think what I love most about this song is that it is both very much of its time and completely unique - no other band could have come up with this song, it has too many of their weird idiosyncrasies embedded in it, and yet they've successfully pushed those elements into this perfect pop shape.

recent news taking the wind outta my sails but couldn't not note how glorious this song is

Missed a few of these. I love "Had a Lot of Love Last Night" though. "Mr Natural" album, sooooo good despite the opening track, doh!

"Nights On Broadway", as you say, a masterpiece.

I only remember the full version (so including the middle section) ever being played on the radio (in the Netherlands) at the time. Checking Discogs, it seems the single was released in two versions (at least in the US and Canada), the 4’32 album version and a 2’52 promotional version for radio.

Fantastic song, obviously. “Jive Talking”, which came out before, was great, but this was something else.

Track No. 134: Jive Talkin' ("Main Course", 1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oALKAh_bL5g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2beD9XzT3_8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtAXkgpb7Po

The official "comeback" single: first single released from the album, and their first to hit #1 since "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (which makes for a very interesting contrast in terms of their artistic trajectory). The oft-repeated story behind the song's genesis is that its rhythm was inspired by the sound their car made traveling over the the Julia Tuttle Causeway each day from Biscayne Bay to Criteria Studios in Miami, which sounds like an explanation more likely to come out of the mouth of Iggy Pop than Barry Gibb. I can't think of anything previous to this in their catalog that was built around a rhythm pattern; having never really had a strong rhythm section prior to this incarnation of the band maybe that isn't so surprising. As an early disco song its overall rhythmic template feels right in line with stuff like Shirley and Company's "Shame Shame Shame" and the Hues Corporation's "Rock the Boat", transposing a Bo Diddley guitar figure over a four on the floor beat. But it also features a couple Bee Gees-specific innovations: the ARP 2600 synth bass line is nuts, and then, of course, their newly reconfigured harmonies. The song also features a bunch of clever breakdowns, not the least of which is that rapidly descending and ascending melody-line that's doubled by the synth and the vocal. Lyrically its a bunch of gibberish, albeit of a different kind given their naive re-appropriation of black slang. Classic.

Perfect, of course, but Barry's various explanations of the writing of this song have always struck me as pretty farfetched - they had no idea that 'jive' meant anything other than a dance, for instance. Yeah right, Barry.

Track No. 135: Winds of Change ("Main Course", 1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfi-UdmTEKM

Moreso than the previous two tracks, this one is practically the platonic ideal of the disco sound. The strings, the clavinet, the synth bass, the snapping hi hats and steady pulse of the kick drum. Barry doesn't so much as transform his standard melodic approach as just slather it over the top; it's not hard to imagine this melody or its changes with a completely different backing and arrangement. The vocals sound like they're all Barry, and that's obviously him at the end leaning into his disco shriek for full effect, especially after the breakdown. Robin appears to be absent, Maurice relegated to thumping away on the low end. Honestly I get tired of this song fairly quickly, although I wouldn't say that it's bad per se.

Track No. 136: Songbird ("Main Course", 1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl3vabbDASA

Just in case you thought it was going to be a non-stop groove-fest, Barry pumps the breaks to make way for what is essentially an Elton John song. While the opening song bird/wrong bird rhyme is head-slappingly stupid, at least the rest isn't quite as bad as Taupin's usual dreck. Barry's double-tracked vocal is underpinned by a piano part that builds up to the end of each verse, eventually joined with the requisite strings and drums to add some power to the balladry, as well as Robin and Maurice's harmonies. It's not terrible, but it's not great either.

Oops, missed "Winds of Change", which is great. I really like "Songbird" too. The songs on this album are just so catchy and memorable.

I like both okay and they are definitely catchy, just a step down from that initial 1-2 punch of the first singles.

Track No. 137: Fanny (Be Tender With My Love) ("Main Course", 1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgDbE6WOyws

The third single, one of Quincy Jones' "favorite R&B songs of all time", and the first to really spotlight Barry's shout-y falsetto as a lead. The singing on this is crazy, all three are at the top of their registers in full voice. This vocal style isn't without precedent (tons of black singing groups incorporated a showboating falsetto - the Temptations, Curtis Mayfield etc.), but it is rather freakishly unique in terms of Barry's tone, how heavily they leaned on it, and how successful it was. Barry's story about how this is based around the name of their housekeeper in Miami rings false to me - I much more suspect that this is similar to "Harry Braff" in the "lol let's put over some slightly dirty British slang" department. Musically it's something of an extension of "Nights on Broadway" and some of the tracks on "Mr. Natural", combining that gauze-y soft focus rock sound on the verses (acoustic guitars, twinkly fender rhodes, unobtrusive strings) with a tight in-the-pocket rhythm section that picks up energy in the choruses, which build through the key change at the end.

Fanny is such a fucking great song my god, despite/because of the absurd title/refrain

Also since this is the active Bee Gees thread of the moment, Barry was just in the studio with Jason Isbell, which is neat!

huh that's not a combo I would have expected

Probably my all time favorite bee gees track, once I got past snickering at the title.