Bee Gees: In Our Own Time

-You all sing together, eh?

-That's right.

-Come on up here.

-We just wanted to get up and play.

-Yeah. We just wanted to have fun.

# Wine and women and song will only make me sad... #

We were on an adventure together. We were loving everything we were doing.

We were just hoping that we could get more recognition,

but it wasn't till the Beatles came along that we realised how much we wanted it.

-COMMENTATOR:

-The Bee Gees. The most exciting sound in the world.

# Have you seen my wife, Mr Jones?

# Do you know what it's like on the outside? #

Massachusetts, from the Bee Gees.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I remember doing Top Of The Pops for the first time.

That was a great dream because that's the show to do. You're made if you do it.

# Feel I'm going back to Massachusetts... #

Robin, we've heard rumours the group is splitting up. Would you verify that?

If I was to say that was true then I would be the Premier of Russia.

Our career was in the valley. No record company wanted us. Management didn't want us. Nothing.

I just remember going in the car and hearing this "ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch,"

every time we crossed this bridge.

# J-j-j-jive talkin'

# You're telling me lies... #

Disco is a bad word if you're not the group

that disco is built around.

And we're the group that disco was built around.

# Controlling my mind and my soul

# Reach out for me, yeah

# And the feeling is right

# The night fever Night fever

# We know how to do it... #

BANG!

# When the feeling's gone and you can't go on, it's tragedy

# When the morning cries and you don't know why

# It's hard to bear... #

-'We loved music so much.

-Yes.'

And it's so ingrained in our souls

that we don't know how to move away from it.

We welcome back the Bee Gees.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

# I couldn't figure why

# You couldn't give me what everybody needs... #

We are in fact the enigma with the stigma. We know this.

We're aware of it. We hear it every day. We live with it.

We've suffered.

But tonight, I think we've come home.

# I'm surprised you

# Let me stay around you

# One day I'm gonna lift the cover

# And look inside your heart... #

# Well, it's a-one for the money

# Two for the show

# Three to get ready Now go, cat, go

# But don't you

# Step on my blue suede shoes

# You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes... #

I just think we were intentionally affected by the beginning of rock 'n' roll,

by Elvis Presley and Lonnie Donegan

and Tommy Steele and the Don Lang Five.

When I really felt the love, the real love of it

is when I heard Wake Up Little Susie by the Everly Brothers...

# Wake up, little Susie

# Wake up... #

..and I kept on playing it over and over again

and I kept on hearing these harmonies.

So when they were singing songs, or we heard any Everly Brothers songs, the three of us,

we'd just add a third harmony, so it'd be three-part.

# The movie's over It's four o'clock

# And we're in trouble deep

# Wake up, little Susie

# Wake up, little Susie... #

So we perfected it from listening to those guys and Neil Sedaka,

where he'd actually tripled with himself, so it was these three-part harmony songs.

Anything like that, we could sing them.

-We just wanted to get up and play.

-Yeah, we just wanted to have fun.

In that degree it was a hobby.

When did you first get together and discover you could harmonise?

The first time I remember, Robin and I were about six and Barry was nine

and we sat in the lounge room and Barry got his first guitar

for his birthday and the first thing we sang was Lollipop.

Which is... The Mudlarks sort of thing.

It was the only one... We just automatically harmonised.

Don't ask me where we got the Lollipop from,

but it was the only on that had the harmonising in each step.

Can you remember it?

MUTTERING

# Lollipop, lollipop Ooh, lolly, lolly, lolly

# Lollipop, lollipop Ooh, lolly, lolly, lolly

# Lollipop, lollipop Ooh, lolly, lolly, lolly

# Lollipop, my lollipop. #

APPLAUSE

We would just sing songs like Lollipop.

We would just sing them and try and get them better

and, um, I remember Dad coming in and saying,

"I thought you had the radio on."

That was the beginning of the harmonies.

It became instinctive for us because we loved the oldies.

-It's incredible, considering how young you were.

-I was nine and Maurice and Robin were about six.

We often thought we were triplets at one time,

because we all had the same goal, the ultimate goal

of just singing together,

and I would say we'd be more three brothers

than twins and an older brother.

Musical creativity ran right through our family.

Our father was a bang leader during the war and he then led the band

on the ferry between Liverpool and the Isle Of Man.

Work was pretty difficult in the late-50s for my dad to come up with

and he needed a fresh start and he was still young enough

to do that for himself, and he had a responsibility for us.

So it was a natural kind of move to Australia.

He was a very ambitious man, and I liked that.

And we all went and it was like a six-week trip across the world.

For us it was an adventure. We didn't know where we were going.

And we got on a ship called the Fairsea with our parents

and baby Andy, and our sister,

and travelled for five weeks to Australia with very little money.

We had a ball. We were singing on the front of the boat,

we were getting the sun...

-And you crossed...

-On the Fairsea.

-.. the Indian Ocean, you went to the Suez Canal,

the Red Sea, and you saw things that children our age...

-It was great.

-..would never have seen.

And we settled in Brisbane, which was quite tropical,

and passion fruit on the streets and banana trees in everybody's garden.

And then we started working,

found out different places that we could go and sing.

And we got the opportunities to sing in a racing arena.

We got to know a driver called Bill Goode.

He said, "You can come and sing."

We sang at the Redcliffe speedway on the back of a flatbed truck

and collected about £14 something, I remember, of the track.

People threw money on the track.

That was our first sort of public engagement.

-You all sing together, eh?

-That's right.

And your brother Barry plays. Come on up here.

Our first television shows, I had become very lanky,

very tall and lanky and thin.

And Maurice and Robin were still at their same height,

so what they decided to do was to get two tea chests

and put Robin and Maurice on each tea chest, so we'd all be the same height for the camera.

You're going to stand up on the high level?

-So, is it true that you write your own pieces, Barry?

-It's true, Desmond.

-And what was the song we sang?

-Time Is Passing By.

# Dum-du-dum-dum, dum-du-dum-dum, dum-du-dum-dum-dum

# Dum-du-dum-dum, dum-du-dum-dum dum-du-dum-dum-dum

# Dum-du-dum-dum, dum-du-dum-dum dum-du-dum-dum-dum

# Dum-du-dum-dum, dum-du-dum-dum dum-du-dum-dum-dum

# Ah-a-ah... #

We used to do all these pop shows but they were very live

and there was no such thing as taping shows.

We did various songs that we'd either written

or were hits at the time.

There was Lollipop, of course, and songs that people sang in harmony.

And it was great experience because you were on the spot.

Nothing was pre-recorded.

You picked up your guitar and you went on and you played and you sang.

APPLAUSE

Between 1960 and 1965 was the era of rock'n'roll in Australia.

With its own environment, its own TV stars, its own pop stars,

rock stars, totally unknown to the rest of the world.

# Wine and women and song will only make me sad

# Love and kisses and hugs The thing I never had

We were, like, on an adventure together.

We were loving everything we were doing.

We were hoping to get more recognition.

But I don't think it was until the Beatles came along that we realised

how much we wanted to have the approval they had.

-# Come on

-Come on

-# Come on

-Come on

-# Come on

-Come on

-# Come on

-Come on

# Please me, oh yeah

# Like I please you. #

When the Beatles came to Sydney, the magic was unbelievable.

I mean, the whole city was in this mood of Beatlemania.

I'd never seen anything like this before.

And I remember going down Pitt Street and getting the Beatles Fan Club books and looking through

what gear they've got, what boots they're wearing, what outfits,

what clothes, the amps, the guitars, the recording session pitches,

all this stuff. I was mesmerised by them,

because they were doing something that we loved to do

and they were successful at it.

# Like I please you. #

APPLAUSE

So we began to believe in ourselves.

We began to believe, "Well, OK, if they can do it

"then we should be able to have a go at doing it."

It was not born out of arrogance but it was just a blind belief that...

Why can't we've a shot at that?

# Oh, where is the sun

# That shone on my head?

# The sun in my life

# It is dead

# It is dead

# Where is the light

# That would play in my street? #

So we felt a little bit left out of the Mersey boom.

We wanted to be a part of that.

There was so much energy and so much excitement about it.

That was our world. We wanted to be a part of...

We were from Manchester, as far as we knew -

we knew we were Isle of Man-born

but brought up as kids in Manchester.

And we were northern, just like the Beatles. "What are we doing here?"

-Right-o, chaps. Let's have a check. Flaps?

-Check.

-Check.

-Right.

-Right.

# Where is the girl I loved all along?

# The girl that I loved She is gone

# She is gone... #

You had to remember, this was an era where the UK

-was dictating whatever happened...

-What happened in the world.

-Yeah.

-Culturally, musically.

And we had to be where the action was. London was the hub.

As much as we loved Australia, we'd had 13 records in a row,

and not doing that well at all, record-wise.

So we released our last record, which was Spicks And Specs,

in Australia, and we decided to go back to England.

We'd left but a week out, we'd found out that Spicks And Specks had gone to number one in Australia,

and it just blew us away.

And we're a week out now. And we're thinking, "Oh, great."

The only people who knew were the Australians on the ship,

going, "Hey, great, nice one - you got a number one."

"Yeah, great for us now."

So we ended up going back.

So we came back to England and kissed the docks at Southampton when we got off.

There was a pop group standing on the docks,

dressed like the Beatles were dressed in Help,

and they said to us, "Don't go any further.

"Go back to Australia."

"Go back. Groups are dead. Clapton lives."

We sent tapes and records to the Beatles manager,

Brian Epstein, and his partner, Robert Stigwood.

We didn't know whether or not they would hear them.

Robert Stigwood spoke to us and he had heard the records.

He had heard the tapes. He wanted Brian to actually play the songs to him,

that we'd sent from Australia. He said, "I hear you write your own songs,

"I like what I hear. Can we do business?"

So we go up to the Saville Theatre in London.

Robert came in, supported by two gentlemen,

and he looked a bit weary for wear, and he'd had a late night, obviously.

And we were still performing our nightclub act,

even the Peter, Paul and Mary section we'd do.

And we did this whole act.

And he said, "Right, be in my office at five,"

got up and staggered out.

So we thought, "Oh, OK. I wonder if he liked us."

So that afternoon we went in and then he offered us a five-year contract...

to be signed to NEMS.

I remember walking in there and we saw Ringo for the first time,

-and went...

-HE GASPS AND STAMMERS

We weren't full-fledged rock stars.

We were a pop group and there was only three of us,

so it wasn't really a band.

And Robert Stigwood brought in Vince Maloney

and Colin Peterson to help us to become a band.

Two months after that we were in the American top 20

and the British top 20 with our first single, New York Mining Disaster.

Robert Stigwood was actually the champion...

and the jewel in our crown,

as far as our career went, because if we hadn't met Robert

at that particular time, I don't know which way we could have gone.

# In the event of something happening to me

# There is something I would like to you all to see

# It's just a photograph of someone that I knew

# Have you seen my wife, Mr Jones?

# Do you know what it's like on the outside?

# Don't go to talking too loud

# You'll cause a landslide

# Mr Jones... #

I remember doing the demo first, of New York Mining Disaster.

Robert thought it would be a good idea before we go in to make the album.

You're going to need more songs to write. Go in and use the studio.

To see what we'd written or what we'd had since what he'd heard.

And we came up with about eight to ten songs

and there was still that missing song that he thought he could turn into a hit.

All of a sudden there's a blackout. We had no power at all.

So we went outside and while we were waiting for the power to come back on,

in the area where the cage is, where the elevator goes down,

there are steps on either side, we just sat on the steps

and Barry was playing his guitar and this was so echoey.

Wonderful echo in this place and it was like being in a mine.

# Don't go to talking too loud

# You'll cause a landslide

# Mr Jones

# In the event of something happening to me... #

And the premise was the Aberfan mining disaster.

-It had broken everyone's heart.

-It was only six months before we wrote the song.

But it also started us writing about drama

and pulled us away from The Beatles Me To You.

We were working at IBC Studio which was the place where The Beatles used to record,

I believe, up to Abbey Road.

On its own stage there was mellotron,

and for the first time in our lives, we saw a mellotron.

# A certain kind of light

# That never shone on me

# I want my life to be

# Lived with you

# Lived with you

# There's a way... #

I remember a time, at 2am in the morning, Robert would come in

and he said To Love Somebody was playing and he'd call up New York

and play it in the speaker to Ahmet Ertegun,

the head of Atlantic Records,

down the phone. "Listen to this. This is their next single."

# Baby, you don't know what it's like

# Baby, you don't know what it's like

# To love somebody

# To love somebody

# The way I love you. #

And that's how it was done. It was very organic.

It was very gut-instinct.

So different to the way things are done now.

What was really fantastic about that first year is that New York Mining Disaster

and then To Love Somebody were charting in the American Top 20,

which is very unusual, even by today's standards, for first time records and British artists.

It was due to Robert Stigwood and Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic working together.

We had the NEMS team, we had The Beatles team behind us

and that's what kicked it off for us.

To crack America was the ultimate dream. You've got to remember, when you're from that generation of kids

growing up in Liverpool and Manchester or wherever, America's pavements are gold.

Everything is two cars for the family, huge houses!

You know, I mean television, like, five, ten channels. We had...two!

Tonight, Massachusetts from the Bee Gees.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I remember doing Top Of The Pops for the first time, a great dream

because that's the show to do. You're made if you do it.

# Feel I'm going back to Massachusetts... #

We were so over the moon, we thought we could get away with murder.

To have a number one in England, you have no idea how much we dreamed of this in Australia.

To have a number one in the UK charts - we felt like we'd arrived.

The Bee Gees, the most exciting sound in the world.

We were very anxious to make our mark.

If it was a choice between partying and being in the studio,

it would defiantly be in the studio.

It wasn't about having a good time,

a good time to us was being in the studio.

A good time to us was a good woman.

That women became the, sort of, voom!

You know, music, women.

Women became the confliction between the two subjects.

It was going out with a girl or it was writing a song,

or it was being a group or going out with a girl.

So we began to fall in love.

# I been thinking sitting on a pole

# I'm getting sick of doing what I'm told

# Just me and the mirror and my brain

# But that was when I got an idea

# Came like a gun and shot in my ear. #

There was a lot of hits in that short time, all the things were happening.

There was a lot of money all of a sudden and cars

and girlfriends and love-interests were happening,

and jealousies were happening, so the drink came more, the money became more.

When you're 18, 19 years of age, you know, and after all the work

we'd done through clubs and everything, I felt grown-up.

I felt like I had been through the mill.

# But that was when I got an idea

# Came like a gun and shot in my ear

# Don't you think it's time you got up and stood alone? Ah! #

In 1967, we became members of the club called the Speakeasy

which was an underground club which was only for The Beatles and The Stones

and The Who and Otis Reading and Sam and Dave,

Ahmet Ertegun and Robert and Brian Epstein.

It was virtually a closed club.

You went downstairs and there was a coffin.

If you were allowed in, if you were somebody they know

and you were supposed to go in, the wall would turn round.

And the coffin would turn round.

In you would go, and there'd be George Best playing the machines,

and The Stones would be lying around all over the place,

and it was one of those days that I met John Lennon from the back.

I never met John Lennon from the front.

# Last night I got an idea

# Last night I got an idea... #

And it was Pete Townsend who introduced me to John Lennon, and what I remember is,

"Barry, I'd like you to meet John Lennon." "John Lennon, pleased to meet you."

And carried on talking to somebody else.

So I thought to myself, "Well, I've met John Lennon.

I had John Lennon's black-windowed Mini Cooper, bought that off him.

I became part of the inner circle of all those guys.

I was going to parties, and Magical Mystery Tour.

It was like a wild world for me.

When you think that five months before all of this was going on,

I was in Pitt Street buying The Beatle fan club book

and now here I am partying with these guys, my heroes.

Let's have a warm reception for the attractive Bee Gees and soloist Barry Gibb.

# Smile an everlasting smile

# A smile can bring you near to me

# Don't ever let me find you gone

# Cos that would bring a tear to me... #

Dick Cavett, Mike Douglas, Nev Griffin, Johnny Carson,

we did 11 Johnny Carson shows over the years.

There wasn't any decisive point where we moved to America because

it was an international scene from 1967 onwards,

wherever you were based, you had to go to America.

It was England or America. It had to be one of the two.

No other country in the world could give you international fame.

# It's only words And words are all I have

# To take your heart away. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

It's hard to speak about Odessa in any coherent way

because it was not a planned album. It was just a collection of songs.

We thought we were going to do a concept album.

Because of Tommy and Robert, Robert's connection to these type of things,

he wanted us to do a rock opera and we wanted to put it on stage.

Instead of writing a rock opera, we just came up with a mish-mash.

We came up with...

a bunch of songs that we thought we were going somewhere with it, but I think we were extremely weary.

Even at such a young age, we'd been through quite a number of albums very quickly.

We could no longer deal with each other.

We could no longer deal with each other.

The three of us drifted apart, in fact, I'd say the four of us drifted apart, including Robert.

What really happened is First Of May, the record, was coming out

and everybody went for First Of May as being the A side and Barry was singing the lead on that.

On the other side was Lamplight, which Robin wound up singing the lead,

and everybody thought Lamplight should be the single so Robert chose First Of May,

and thinking he was biased towards Barry, Robin said, "That's it, I've had it,"

Robin, we've heard rumours the group is splitting up.

Would you verify those rumours?

If I was to say that was true, then I'd be the Premier of Russia.

Then Robin decided to leave when were doing the Cucumber Castle film.

# Don't forget to remember me

# And the love that used to be

# I still remember you

# I love you

# In my heart... #

Barry left after that, and I was all of a sudden a Bee Gee.

I don't think there was a design in the break-up itself,

we just wandered off.

It was a crazy period because we didn't know what we were doing

unless we read the trades.

We sort of tried to get together,

but every time we tried we knew it was the wrong time.

It was inevitable, I think, this would happen,

because it was something that was growing anyway.

But being young, you don't know how to handle it.

Of course we were excited, we were very high on ourselves, it was a dream come true.

Yeah, I had, like, seven Aston Martins and six Rolls-Royces

before I was 21.

I don't know where they are now!

But that's how crazy it was.

The first fame syndrome, we called it,

when you go through that. If you survive it, it's great.

And we managed to have the foresight and strength to say, "This is stupid, let's get back together."

Lonely Days was an instrumental I was playing on the piano,

Barry and Robin came round and we sang,

and before we knew it the song was taking shape.

# Lonely days Lonely nights

# Where would I be without my woman

# Lonely days Lonely nights

# Where would I be without my woman

# Lonely days Lonely nights

# Where would I be without my woman?

# Lonely days Lonely nights

# Where would I be without my woman? #

So those first times together, we knew, it was inevitable.

Look what we'd done in these few days together.

# Lonely days Lonely nights

# Where would I be without my woman?

Come on!

# Lonely days And lonely nights... #

I felt like we'd never done it before.

We were like new. It was like fresh.

The energy that each one had on expressing what they'd learned

by being apart, it all came out in that week.

It was brilliant, a wonderful session, wonderful.

Thank you all very much, and good evening.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

After Run To Me we went into a valley, totally.

Our career was in a valley, no record company wanted us, management didn't want us, nothing.

At the end of every decade, there's a tendency that the business

tries to eject artists from the last decade.

So, you're either the artist of the '60s

or an artist of the '70s or an artist of the '80s,

and it still goes on now.

So, we were suddenly out of favour by the beginning of the '70s.

You think it's going to last for ever, and it doesn't,

-and that's when the

-BLEEP

-hits the proverbial fan.

Because all of a sudden you turn to drinking a bit with your friends, "Oh, you'll do it again,"

then you turn to drugs,

and before you know it you're on a collision course with death, that's it.

And to us, we thought maybe that's it, maybe that was our career.

Oh, yeah, your ego's deflated enormously.

But that was meant to be, too. It wasn't good stuff, it was OK.

At that time we were trying to be experimental,

Sly And the Family Stone where huge with hits.

It was a different kind of period, like early disco or something,

there was something going on that was really strange.

And we just were off the mark - we were so off the mark we released an album,

To Whom It May Concern, because we didn't know who the hell was going to buy it!

That's how totally... You know, "Where are we going?"

# Burning embers and I still remember

# All of those little things

# But I can't feel it so much

# Cos I am so out of touch

# With my heart and it won't sing... #

We needed to have bigger records than we were having.

We weren't moving that well at all.

Robert had become acquainted with Arif Mardin,

who had done some of the Aretha Franklin early records,

and suggested we explore those roots,

which is how we ended up doing Mr Natural with Arif.

# Darling, there ain't no doubt... #

Arif was so instrumental in producing black artists.

He produced a lot of people, and we wanted that input.

# So I try, try, try, try, try

# Mr Natural, come on, baby

# When I walk in the rain

# You won't know that I'm crying

# A smile on my face says I'm trying

# I'm trying to understand

# That a love that is lost can never be found again

# And you can see me dance

# I look like a happy man... #

-We always loved black music.

-Yeah.

In the '60s it was just...

-And...

-Sam Cooke and Otis Redding...

Wilson Pickett, all the influences had been there,

we just explored them more.

We felt it was a time we needed, and Arif was the ideal tool,

he encouraged it, more so.

Because that's when I said, for To Whom It May Concern

and all those albums before, we had no direction.

Arif went, this is the way you go.

We'd given up on the psychedelia, we'd given up on that whole

'everyone has to be like The Beatles to succeed'.

We thought we were on the right track, we thought we were doing the right things,

we were moving into that R&B vein.

But we weren't really succeeding.

Mr Natural was a total disaster,

but it was like a rehearsal for Main Course.

and working with Arif for the first time.

Fortunately for us, Arif said, "This was a good start,

"let's do another album," and we didn't expect that.

That was the opening of 461 Ocean Boulevard, wasn't it?

And that's when Eric Clapton said, "I've just done this album called

"461 Ocean Boulevard, why don't you go and rent the same house

"and record in America instead of England?

"See what that does for you, spiritually."

He said, "It really worked for me,

"I feel like a totally different artist

"having moved away from that whole English syndrome."

# Get on up, look around

# Can't you feel the wind of change... #

When we got to Miami and all of a sudden sunshine, oh!

This is paradise compared to where we just came from.

And we got Arif Mardin of course,

because we wanted him after Mr Natural.

When we worked with him on Main Course, he knew us.

And he brought out the best in every one of us, Arif.

He taught me bass, I didn't even know I could play,

that's how much I admire that man.

He wouldn't play himself.

A brilliant pianist but he didn't believe in playing on his own records.

He would come up with these little things and suggest them to the band.

He was like a little boy with his enthusiasm, wasn't he?

Arif knew exactly where we needed to go,

and he taught us everything we know about production.

He's been a great teacher, a great mentor.

We spent about three or four weeks

writing about three or four songs, three of which were rejected,

and one which was accepted called Wind Of Change.

When it came to dubbing the bass on Wind Of Change,

I came in the next day and Arif said, "OK?" I said, "Yep."

We start the track and I did one take.

He went, "Wonderful."

Without changing a part. I looked at him and said,

"You don't want to change this?" "No, that was brilliant. "Wonderful."

I knew I'd made it in his eyes because he never told me to change anything.

But because of what he'd taught me from all the previous tracks on what I'd played bass on,

I was like... I was with him, I was behind the beat.

He was going, "Great. Great." I was chuffed.

I went home laughing my head off. I couldn't believe it.

I'd played the way he loved it.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Next thing that happened after Wind Of Change was Nights On Broadway.

Arif said, "I want more like that."

# Here we are

# In a room full of strangers

# Standing in the dark

# Where your eyes could not see me

# Well, I had follow you

# Though you did not want me to

# But that won't stop my loving you

# I can't stay away

# Blaming it all on the nights on Broadway

# Singing them love songs

# Singing them straight to the heart songs

# Blaming it all on the nights on Broadway

# Singing them sweet sounds

# To that crazy, crazy town... #

And so Nights On Broadway,

or rather Lights On Broadway, which is what it was called in the first place,

became the second accepted track, and it just moved on from there.

Jive Talkin' happened during the middle of the sessions

when we were driving home one night over a bridge.

I just remember going in the car and hearing this "ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch,"

every time we crossed this bridge.

And Barry had noticed, he's going "J-J-Jive talkin'..."

thinking of the dance, "You dance with your eyes."

That's all he had.

And we're going, "ch-ch-ch, ch-ch-ch,"

exactly 35mph, that's what we got.

# J-J-Jive talkin'

# You're telling me lies

# Jive talkin'

# You wear a disguise

# Jive talkin'

# So misunderstood, yeah

# Jive talkin'

# You're really no good... #

We played it to Arif, and he went,

"Do you know what jive talkin' means?"

And we said, "Well, yes, you're dancing."

"He says, "No..."

I'm putting on this Turkish accent, because this is how he talks.

-And he said, "No, it's a black expression for bull...

-BLEEP."

And we went, "Oh, really?"

# Jive talkin', you're telling me lies... #

And changed it.

# Good lovin' still gets in my eyes... #

He gave us the groove, the tempo, everything.

"This is your groove."

Because we were English, we were less self-conscious

about exploring the no-go areas than a lot of American artists and groups would have done,

especially the white ones, because they were always, like soul, "Don't go to the black area.

"You've got to be," you know. If you were white, you stayed out of that,

they were scared that if they did they would make fools of themselves,

but we did it because we were serious,

we didn't think there was any no-go areas, it's music.

# Jive talkin'

# You're telling me lies, yeah

# Good lovin... #

Robert Stigwood wanted Jive Talkin' as the first single.

Ahmet Ertegun said we think Nights On Broadway because we don't think people

will accept this from the Bee Gees because, first of all,

you haven't done anything like this before and secondly, it's very black.

Robert said, "That's exactly why I want it to be the first single."

When Jive Talkin' came out, everyone went, "Who? The Bee Gees?

"Broken Heart Bee Gees? Are you kidding?

"You mean, the same group that did... Whoa.

"Nobody knew." And that changed our whole career.

And it became a number one record, and we knew that was the start...

of our black music influences, with Arif Mardin,

being expressed to its full potential.

We were completing Nights On Broadway,

we'd done the vocal tracks and harmonies and stuff,

and usually at the end you have some ad-libs, or some kind of thing

to take us away from the original melody and have some fun.

So Arif wanted us to try to scream

like Paul McCartney would sometimes scream in falsetto, you know?

So, Barry said, "I'll have a go"

so we went out there and he did the "blaming it alls" ad-lib on the end of Nights On Broadway.

-# Blaming it all

-Blaming it all

-# On the night on Broadway

-On the nights on Broadway

-# Singing them love songs

-Aha

# Singing them straight to the heart songs

-Blaming it all

-Ah, baby love... #

And he screamed and it's the first time I'd heard him scream in tune with a melody.

And in doing so I discovered I had a falsetto voice.

-# Straight to the heart songs

-Aaaah, yeah, yeah, yeah... #

I knew it was back there somewhere,

because we tried things like that early on.

And we thought, that's brilliant.

So, after that we wrote Fanny Be Tender.

because we wanted to do a whole song in falsetto.

We loved The Stylistics. We loved...The Spinners, Delphonics

People were coming out with these records like, # Betcha, woah... #

They were all falsetto lead singers and they were black.

R'n'B, at the time. That's they called it.

We were into all that stuff.

# Be tender with my love

# You know how easy it is to break it

# Fanny be tender with my love

# Cos it's all that I got

# And my love won't forsake me... #

Fanny Be Tender convinced us that we were now recording the kind of music

that was going to take us to the next plateau.

What was happening for the first time also was apart from going on to the Billboard pop chart,

we were appearing on the black charts as well

where there were no white acts.

That was telling us something,

that we were in an area that we would never have gone into.

# Ah, ah

# Ah, ah

# Ah

# Ah, ah, ah-ah

# Fanny be tender with my love. #

We just felt tremendously happy.

We were just so knocked out that we had an audience again.

And to have that success, because even before that

we weren't looking for a thing like Fever.

We were just making music.

And Children Of The World, which followed that,

we had You Should Be Dancing, the only obvious dance song we ever wrote.

And Love So Right, two number ones off that.

They were like triple platinum. We were just coasting along here,

we were having a ball, this is great!

We were having a great time. Then the Fever thing happened

and that's when everything exploded. The world just went crazy.

# Well you can tell by the way I use my walk

# I'm a woman's man no time to talk... #

We had a call from Robert saying Paramount was making a movie and he was producing.

He said it was about a guy who worked in a paint shop in Brooklyn,

and he blows his wages every Saturday night in a club

and wins a dance competition. We thought, nice one, Rob!

John Travolta was dancing in the film to You Should Be Dancing,

which had been a hit off Children Of The World,

which was the previous album.

And Robert wanted to know if we could write more songs for the film.

And we went, "OK". So we had Stayin' Alive,

How Deep Is Your Love and If I Can't Have You -

they were the first three he heard.

And he said, "Great, this is fantastic."

And to us this was most likely to be our new album.

So he came back about a month later and asked for some more.

Our album's gone now!

So we ended up with about eight of our songs in the film.

But in those days, you thought,

"God, you'd pay people to put your songs in a film."

It was great promotion.

There was a suggestion that Stayin' Alive

should be called Saturday Night.

And Robert said, "No, we should keep it. It is like Buried Alive."

"It's the opposite. It is actually 'Stayin' Alive'."

Robert dug his heels in. They thought it was a sophisticated title

for a popular song. But we wouldn't budge and neither would Robert,

There were so many songs called Saturday Night. We did have a song called Night Fever,

and the compromise was that we suggested the title of the film

should be Saturday Night Fever,

but we would have the song, Night Fever,

on the album without "Saturday" on it.

# Listen to the ground

# There is movement all around

# There is something going down

# And I can feel it

# On the waves of the air

# There is dancin' out there

# If it's something we can share

# We can steal it

# And that sweet city woman she moves through the light

# Controlling my mind and my soul

# Just reach out for me and the feeling is bright

# Night fever, night fever

# We know how to do it

# Night fever, night fever

# We know how to show it... #

We stayed on the path we had always stayed on,

and that is, let's just make what we believe is a great record.

And we continued with that for about six or seven songs.

Never really knowing if they were going to be used in the movie.

We didn't go near the film. The only time was the premiere.

We stood at the back of the theatre listening,

and at least being able to say to Robert, "It is wonderful,

"but when you're in a club you can't hear people dancing."

That is right.

The music was too soft.

And if you're in a club you don't hear people going like...

You don't hear their feet.

You don't hear this stuff.

Robert got the point, pumped the music up,

took out all the noises of the feet and that's what you have now.

# I know your eyes in the morning sun

# I feel you touch me in the pouring rain

# And the moment that you wander far from me

# I wanna feel you in my arms again

# And you come to me on a summer breeze

# Keep me warm in your love

# Then you softly leave

# And it's me you need to show

# How deep is your love?

# How deep is your love?

# I really mean to learn

# Cos we're living in a world of fools

# Breaking us down

# When they all should let us be

# We belong to you and me... #

Being in Miami, you're in a goldfish bowl here.

You don't see much of what's going on out there.

When we were here writing stuff for the Spirits album,

we didn't think about what Fever was doing

or what was happening out there. We didn't really know that much.

We were locked away for about a month before How Deep Is Your Love came out.

That was a number one before the film.

I remember everyone saying what a great R'n'B ballad.

As soon as the film came out - what a great disco ballad!

It was so opposite, it was so funny.

The one thing that still affects us is How Deep Is Your Love.

No matter how it's sung, it's still a beautiful song.

It wasn't all what you would call dance music.

But then we became the biggest disco band around, which amazed us.

We always thought KC was the disco thing, Donna Summer. It was all great, fun stuff. Party music.

We never regarded ourselves as that.

All I know is when we were recording these songs,

we didn't think about dancing, we were just thinking about songs.

We didn't even know the word disco music existed.

It was coined after the film because of the film's success.

None of us expected the success that Fever had.

The album started doing a million a week.

This was pretty shocking for us.

We couldn't look at the numbers, or understand it.

Such a phenomenon. Other record companies were printing it.

Ours couldn't keep up the pace.

# If I can't have you I don't want nobody, baby

# If I can't have you, ah-ah-ah. #

It was an incredible feeling, like being in the eye of a storm.

You didn't have a real sense of what was going on around you.

You couldn't answer your phone. You had people climbing over your walls.

So yeah, it was extremely crazy and something we weren't used to.

We had never experienced that kind of fame,

that kind of good fortune.

It has affected in many ways the culture in a very sub-conscious way,

that very few vehicles have.

That is the amazing thing, it still gets played.

And we don't even understand that. We just... We're bewildered by it.

There is something magical about when something happens.

You just don't know where this is, where this captures the imagination

of millions of people at the same time.

It goes beyond being just a hit album.

# If I can't have you

# I don't want nobody, baby

# If I can't have you, Ah-ah-ah-ah. #

Disco is a bad word if you're not the group

that disco is built around.

And we're the group that disco was built around.

-And so based on that, we're very, very happy with the word disco.

-Oh, absolutely.

It was an amazing experience

in the recording industry.

There was no radio station that wasn't playing, back to back

Gibb brothers songs.

Of course, the record business was pretty angry because they couldn't get records on the playlist

because there was no room.

It was number one on the Billboard charts for six months unbroken.

Fever did around 30 to 35 million.

Thriller did approximately 50 million.

We're quite happy to be second to Michael

and we've had a lot of giggles about that.

Ladies and gentlemen, our brother Andy.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING DROWNS SINGING

CHEERING DROWNS SINGING

The door was always open for Andy. It was never closed off.

Andy wanted to be one of us.

He always wanted to be part of us.

The difference in the age was quite radical

so it never quite worked out.

As time went on, Andy watching, listening,

witnessing what we were doing,

began to feel that this was something he could do too.

as an individual.

That's really how it came about.

The first time I ever saw Andy perform

in the way that we had performed, was on stage in Ibiza.

# Through the night

# Taking me through the night

# Shadow dancing

# Baby, you do it right

# Oh, give me more

# Drag me across the floor

# Shadow dancing

# Always having more... #

I made sure Robert heard what Andy had been doing,

Andy invited Robert and I to Bermuda.

We'd convinced Andy to get together with me

to see if we could come up with something.

The first thing was I Just Want To Be Your Everything.

The second was Thicker Than Water.

The third was something that all four of us wrote together,

called Shadow Dancing.

# You do it right taking me through the night

# Shadow dancing

# Baby, you do it right... #

Then he started writing more and he was getting better.

He was doing very well in terms of numbers ones

and consecutive singles.

If it was an artist today, it would be loud and proud.

# I wish you were here

# Drying these tears I cry

# They were good times

# And I wish you were here

# And calling my name

Andy had great strike not unlike Maurice and perhaps, perhaps not,

that's what ended his life.

But with the drugs and cocaine abuse that he had done LA over his young life...

He'd been involved with a lot of people doing drugs.

About six months before he died, he went back to stay

at Robin's house, then we heard he was hitting the liquor store.

And he did it for 48 hours, I believe he was drinking

when he was taken into hospital.

And the day before was his 30th birthday and I called him up

and Robin said he can't come to the phone, he's out of his skull.

I thought, tell his to sod off, I said.

Go away, and I put the phone down.

I got very angry. I thought, when will he learn?

And it was three days after that. Ken who works for Robin called us about 6 or 7 in the morning

and said that Andy has passed away. I just dropped the phone.

# Ah, I wish you were here

# Drying these tears I cry

# They were good times... #

The last thing that happened between me and Andy was an argument

which is devastating for me because I had to live with that all my life.

There was a phone call, "You've really got to get your act together."

Instead of being gentle about it, I was angry.

And because someone had said to me, tough love is the answer, you know.

So for me, it wasn't because that was the last conversation we had.

That's my regret.

We approached him to be a Bee Gee and we'd have loved him to be a Bee Gee.

I think if he had have been, he may still be with us.

# I tried to throw our love away And I can't let go... #

We had to go in the studio the week after.

We thought if we go back to work, we can get recentred.

And I was playing the strings, it was very beautiful.

Barry and Robin started crying and I started crying.

We went home.

About a month later we came back in and we did

Wish You Were Here for Andy and that was very difficult to sing.

But we wanted to do it.

It was such a hauntingness on this sound

I was getting on the keyboards that was so pretty.

I was playing chords that went into beautiful melodies.

Barry and Robin were like, maybe next week.

And we left.

# Tragedy

# Tragedy... #

Solo now.

Hold it!

It would be nice if we could find a bigger sound for that solo.

Yes, just like that. Beautiful. Let's do it again.

Second half of the chorus but bring that sounding, that's great.

-Yeah.

-OK. 1, 2, 3, 4.

# Tragedy

# Tragedy... #

When somebody stops singing something really interesting,

as soon as he stops singing an instrument takes over doing

something equally interesting.

And when that instrument stops and the voice comes back the voice

has to be equally interesting as the instrumental before it.

So anywhere there's a space you make an interesting situation happen.

When we were doing tragedy, for instance, we knew we wanted the sound

of an explosion to come at a certain point to a accentuate the track.

So we all gathered in the control booth and listened to the track back.

It might work. Now listen...

THEY ALL TALK OVER EACH OTHER

What might work is...

Like then, go to the mic and go, "kkkrrrr."

And maybe if we can turn it into an explosion.

Let's try overloading it.

What about a real explosion in the studio?

There's an air force base.

-Where do we find one?

-Max has some dynamite in his office!

-Let me give it to go before we get the dynamite.

-OK.

-This will be interesting.

-I hope everything comes out all right.

-See if he finds a downbeat.

-He's got to get it in at the right spot.

Give me some track. Let's give it a shot.

HE MAKES EXPLOSION SOUND

LAUGHTER

I think, Barry, loosen your shirt.

Close your eyes and concentrate on the metre.

I'll be counting. I'll be counting!

HE MAKES EXPLOSION SOUND

Thank you, fabulous.

It was a hair early but when we're all together.

Let's hear it back.

Listen, it's going to work with three together

and maybe you can do something sound wise to make them work.

Shut up and get in here.

Let's hear it back.

Was he still the same guy as he was before?

There you go, fantastic.

Very nice.

# When the feeling's gone and you can't go on, it's tragedy

# When the morning cries but you don't know why

# It's hard to bear with no-one to love you

# You're going nowhere

# Tragedy

# When you lose control and you go no soul

# It's tragedy

# When the morning cries and you don't know why

# It's hard to bear with no-one to love you

# You're going nowhere... #

In retrospect, we could have actually waited a year or so

before Spirits came out.

Saturday Night Fever was still in the top 10 when we brought Spirits out.

That was a 30-ton tour, they call it! A lot of gear.

We had six semi trailers, we had the 707 plane.

It was huge.

I mean, Dodgers Stadium, places like that. We used to dream of this.

Having people in the audience like Barbra Streisand

watching your show and loving it.

These were fantasies. These were all dreams.

And to have a 707?!

Black with red bottom and our three heads on the tail and all this.

We are going, wooh! Even getting bomb threats was great!

Because if you weren't important, they wouldn't bomb you!

# Night and day, there's a burning down inside of me

# Burning love

# With a yearning that won't let me be

# Down I go

# I just can't take it all alone

# I really should be holding you

# Holding you

# Loving you

# Loving you

# Tragedy

# When the feeling's gone and you can't go on

# It's tragedy

# When the morning cries and you don't know why

# It's hard to bear

# With no-one to love you

# You're going nowhere... #

It was a great tour and Andy joined us on that tour in a few shows,

even John Travolta. It was a fabulous experience.

To go on stage and see the audience, that's the only way you can

say thank you - by going on stage live - for putting you there.

That was our way of thanking people. It's the only way you can do it.

If it wasn't for the audience, we wouldn't have been up there.

The 50-city tour we did for Spirits

was really the beginning of Maurice's alcohol problems.

But, you see, I was always very protected.

I didn't get all the arrests that people would have got

because I was always protected by people looking after me.

"He's just having a good time, it was all right."

They would take me up to my room, I wouldn't worry about getting

to bed because they would take me to bed.

We had security and people looking after us and roadies and things.

Saved me from a lot of driving and speeding fines

and drunk-driving tickets.

The only time I got the first one was in the Isle of Man

because I was the only guy in a blue Rolls-Royce

driving around the Isle of Man drunk.

I stuck out like a sore thumb.

It was more of a question of denial.

It is was more, let's keep writing, Mo will be OK.

And the reason the Streisand Guilty album

doesn't really involve Maurice on more than one song, Guilty,

was because at that point Maurice had reached the razor's edge.

He really needed to be in rehab.

And so this was really the whole family um,

coming to the same conclusion.

Robin and I confronting Maurice in his home with Yvonne, his wife.

Basically laying down a law which we didn't want to lay down.

Which was Mo, it ends now or it ends forever.

And... at that point Mo went into rehab.

And took the step and Robin and I waited for about six months,

for him to come back around.

And then we went back in the studio together and carried on as we had before.

The whole it's time to kill fever, kill disco period came in so we took a back seat.

# Living eyes

# When out in the rain will fall... #

The saturation point was ridiculous.

That's why we had to sit back and produce other people and write for others.

When we heard that they were having Bee Gee-free weekends

in Chicago and places like that, it was scary stuff.

We thought the Bee Gees had better go on the back burner for a while

until this dies down or something.

So we couldn't do anything as the Bee Gees at all.

We didn't make an album until '87.

We had done so much in the studio over so few years

that I think it caught up with us.

Brrch!

Personally, I thought this'll give us a chance to explore

and write for other artists. We got offered Barbra.

I called Neil Diamond and I said what's Barbra like to work with?

He said she's fantastic, just go for it.

# We got nothing to be guilty of

# Our love will climb any mountain

# Near or far we are

# And we never let it end... #

Me and Barry writing in his bedroom.

We'd do a song each day and then the following week we'd do

the lyrics to each respective song that we'd written.

And we sent the seven songs that we'd finished at that point to Barbra Streisand.

We had an immediate 'yes'. She wanted to start right away.

So that was a very enjoyable experience.

From then on it was Dionne Warwick's album.

Kenny Rogers and Dolly. We all worked together and wrote.

I did some solo stuff with Robin which was great.

Everybody was doing something.

We were all scattered at that point.

We all wanted some time away.

Robin wanted to live in New York for a little bit.

Maurice was having back surgery.

And so all of these opportunities opened up.

We had nothing else to do.

And that led to the Diana Ross album Chain Reaction.

And the Kenny Rogers album with Dolly Parton and Islands In The Stream.

# Islands in the stream

# That is what we are

# No-one inbetween

# How can we be wrong?

# Sail away with me

# To another world

# And we rely on each other # Ah-huh... #

Islands In The Stream started out as a soul song.

We came up with Islands In The Stream in our writing room upstairs.

We all loved each other and knew we had a monster song

we just didn't know who was going to record it.

It was very like, HIGH PITCH: # Islands in the stream... #

We viewed it as an R&B song and not a country song.

And in the end it came to show that those two types of music

are very close together and Islands In The Stream became a country song.

Really, we're talking about two careers here. Composers and artists.

The two go together, but then they are separate as well.

They're both meaningful to us.

We see ourselves as composers first and artists second

because we can't have the second without the first

and we enjoy writing for others.

The greatest thing about being a writer, a songwriter,

is when you write a song with someone in mind that you really love

and then that person ends up singing it, there's no reward like it.

We wrote a song for Celine Dion called Immortality.

She inspired the song, she inspires us.

Probably the finest female pop singer in the world.

It was a dream it she might sing one of our songs one day.

And the dream came true.

# So this is who I am

# And this is all I know...#

We wrote Immortality for the Saturday Night Fever musical

and they wanted one big song at the end so the guy could come out, # Immortality! #

The whole thing. There was a guy that sang it in the show

but he wrote it with Celine totally in mind.

# And I will stand for my dream if I can

# Symbol of my faith in who I am

# But you are my only... #

# One day I'm going to lift the cover

# And look inside your heart

# We gotta level before we go

# And tear this love apart

# There's no fight you can't fight

# This battle of love with me

# You win again

# So little time we do nothing but compete

# There's no life on earth

# No other could see me through

# You win again

# Some never try

# But if anybody can, we can

# And I'll be... I'll be

# Following you. #

I keep a dictaphone next to the bed.

About four in the morning I woke up with this melody

which was, "there's no fight you can't fight this battle of love with me,

"you win again" and that was it.

I thought if I lose this it'll be gone forever.

Because the next day it's gone. It's just gone.

-So I checked the machine, there was no cassette in it.

-It's always the same.

I was running around the house trying to find a cassette

and I found a cassette and got whatever I could down and played it

to Robin the next day.

# There's no fight you can't fight

# This battle of love with me

# You win again

# So little time

# We do nothing but compete... #

It was funny.

Unfortunately the record was never released here but You Win Again when it came out in 1987.

We had signed with Warners and this was the first record and everybody went gung ho.

And really did well. And I remember we had these stomps put on.

There was something in my garage we had come up with

and got it all together.

There's no drums at all. It's sounds that we made.

I remember Reef was producing the album with us

and he said great when you come to New York we'll do

You Win Again again because we had done the demo in my garage.

We got to New York and I thought they would do the whole thing again.

Where do we start?

And we had some programmers and he went, "Have you got the stomps?"

"No, I thought we were going to do the whole thing again."

"Oh no, you've got to get the stomps. The stomps make the record.

"We've to get the stomps to make the sound is part of the back track.

So, I had to get them sampled on my drum machine in Miami

and the discs sent up.

We embellished it a bit more in the studio

And the record company wanted them off.

We went, "No."

"Can you take them off the intro?" "No."

"Can you turn them down in the mix?" "No." It's as it is.

That's the record. And they didn't like that. They weren't too happy.

And now everybody says when the record starts on the radio you know it's the Bee Gees.

And that was a great single - it signalled the song is coming.

It became Princess Diana's favourite song.

It was amazing, the success that record had.

I knew I had made it in the sampling when Phil Collins came up to me

and said can you give me a copy of the stomps?

# Feel my heartbeat

# When you run your fingers through my hair

# I can tell you

# I can feel you by my side when you're not there

Yeah

# Just as my life fades to darkness

# You make me see the light

# Show me that my search is over

# I pay the price

I pay the price

# Tell you some day

# Baby, you and I should be one, one

# Do it always

# Brighter than the eye can see

# We hide the sun

I think the Bee Gees sound...

I don't know how to describe it.

I guess it's a mixture. It's us.

You've to remember we come from an era where everybody was experimenting with sounds.

And it was almost a rite of passage.

It's a mixed bag.

I think we were fortunate that it wasn't just one lead singer.

We could alternate and sometimes sing the same song together.

When we sing songs like you know how easy it is to hurt me.

Barry and Robin sing in unison but it sounds like one guy.

A bit more Robin, a bit more Barry, are you sure which one is it?

It's a sound of the two.

Then the three of us go into harmony on the finally be tender.

And you know how easy it is. It's just Barry and Robin.

But they mesh together so well it sounds like one voice

but it's a different voice from them separately.

To us, it was like The Beatles. Having that alternative lead,

and being able to mix it up.

# Make somebody mine

# I come down on my knees

# You say love can be blind

-# It's that hunger you feel

-You know my life is in your hands

# And every breath you take is planned

# And all this love goes on forever

# Tell you someday... #

I think people today in the world of music are far more conservative in what they do.

They don't use harmonies like they should. It's because they're too lazy, it's hard work,

because there's no technology that can create the human voice in harmony,

or even a machine that could create a melody. You've got to do that yourself.

Those are the basic vehicles of all popular music.

That's what's going to make music what it is, and the songs what they are,

and there's still no technology for those principle ones. Thank God there isn't.

So that blend has been used quite a lot.

It's when we do the harmonies, we bank them underneath with doubles and falsettos on top,

so you get the full richness of the harmony, which is what I love to do.

I love to arrange, get the records all... Put this and that there.

Paint the picture, add the colours. They're like our children,

we send them out in the world, hope they'll do well.

# I stumble in the night

# Never really knew what it would've been like

# You're no longer there to break my fall

# The heartache over you

# I gave it everything but I couldn't get through

# I never saw the signs

# You're the last to know when love is blind

# All the tears and the turbulent years when I would not wait for no one

# I didn't stop, take a look at myself

# And see me losing you

# When the lonely heart breaks

# It's the one that forsakes It's the dream that we stole

# And I'm missing you more And the fire that will roar

# Hole in my soul

# For you it's goodbye

# For me it's to cry

# For whom the bell tolls... #

I think people will always love songs about human relationships and melody.

These are the songs that will reach out over the decades to the unborn,

Because they are perennial as the grass. Human emotion.

It's not ego that makes you write a great song.

-It's the belief that you can't that makes you do it.

-Sometimes even envy, jealousy.

You hear a great song on the radio and you think, "I wish I could write a song like that.

I think you need things to motivate you,

but also there's that belief that you can, as well.

You know, Damn The Torpedoes.

What Robert said to us in 1967, write for 40 years from now.

Don't just write for now. In other words, don't write for trends and fashions,

which we tried not to do. That's the one thing I remember him saying,

write for the future.

# For you it's goodbye

# For me it's to cry

# For whom the bell tolls... #

Please stand and welcome Barry, Robin, Maurice Gibb

into the Hall of Fame. The Bee Gees!

APPLAUSE

'Being in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was just a dream for us.'

Not only getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but being inducted by Brian Wilson,

to me was a knockout. That blew my night.

We are in fact the enigma with the stigma. We know this,

we're aware of it, we hear it every day, we live with it,

we have suffered.

But tonight, I think we've come home, and we thank you very much for this honour.

So every single award you get has a different kind of intense, emotional experience for you.

The Brit Awards, it's been a long time since we've been involved in anything like that.

To get the lifetime achievement award was a wonderful honour.

Beautiful, Quincy Jones coming out any giving us that award in the American Music Awards.

Quincy, I've known for a lot of years,

and it's so sweet he could do that.

Gentlemen...

let me just sum it up with this phrase on your international award.

Their recordings have sold well over 100 million copies worldwide...

CHEERING

Making them one of the top five most successful artists ever.

Congratulations, and good luck on your upcoming world tour.

Barry!

CHEERING

How times change. 10, 15 years ago, you wouldn't have put on a Bee Gees record. Now it's sort of OK.

# I was a midnight rider on a cloud of smoke

# I could make a woman hang on every single stroke

# I was an iron man I had a master plan

# I was alone

# I could hear you breathing with a sigh of the wind

# I remember how your body started trembling

# Oh, what's a night it's been

# And for the state I'm in I'm still alone