I started loving the BeeGees in the early 70s, though they’d been around. I had put a Bee Gee documentary in my Netflix Instant queu a couple months back and finally watched it after Robin died and it made me remember why I love so many songs they sang and wrote. And why they impacted music like they did.
I think that a lot of people who didn’t “grow up with the Bee Gees” think of the 70s disco-craze and believe that is all they had, but that just is not true (though they did it bigger and better than anyone, truly). I am not going to defend them or try to prove their great worth to musical history in the century just past, though I would be remiss not to mention that they are among the top grossing performers of all time. I will just say that they were really brothers (in case you didn’t know), and that three-part harmony in hit after hit through 4 decades will remain, ever, one of the most beautiful sounds on my stereo and in my heart.
Here are my top-ten favorite Bee Gee songs, in a slightly organized order but only because today this seems right.
Other days – something else. But today, in this order:
1. How Deep is Your Love.
2. Words (1968)
3. Run to Me (1972)
4. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (early 1970s). Did they better with age? 1971 vs. the late 90s
5. Love You Inside Out
6. More Than a Woman…OK the suits on this video are a little ungodly. Boys, please. Don’t cause a sister to sin.
7. Love So Right
8. Fanny Be Tender, just before their disco days exploded, I loved this one.
9. Too Much Heaven
10. To Love Somebody (late 1960s). Written for Otis Redding, but covered by a gazillion artists over the years, I still enjoy this 1960s rendition from one of their early albums (which I own, of course).
My favorites that they wrote for others:
Emotion (which they wrote for Samantha Sang)
Come on Over (for Olivia Newton-John)
Rest Your Love on Me (Olivia Newton-John and Andy Gibb)
Heartbreaker (Dionne Warwick). Dionne is Whitney Houston’s aunt.
Islands in the Stream (Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers)
If I Can’t Have You (which they actually wrote for Yvonne Elliman, 1977)
Immortality (for Celine Dion, late 90s). I don’t know if it’s the song or the beautiful video? Lovely words (“We don’t say good-bye…”). Classic little melodies within the melody. Just intoxicating. And they are all three there, the BeeGees, Barry, Maurice and Robin. Immortality in song.