The greatest Bee Gees song of all time, according to Elvis Costello
There’s a myth going around that precludes the world from untold pleasures: the Bee Gees are a cheesy disco band.
The truth is far different. Of course, they are also a cheesy disco band, but prior to the mid-1970s explosion of the genre, they were also a pop band of the classic rock variety. Well, maybe ‘classic rock’ is pushing it, but it was nevertheless apparent that the band were taking influence from the likes of Scott Walker and The Beatles in the early days.
This is a chapter that is now often forgotten, subsumed by the swagger of Saturday Night Fever. What back catalogue wouldn’t be? However, if you fail to delve into the disco BC years, you’re missing out on a few of the greatest pop songs ever written, period.
While ‘I Started a Joke’ is a masterpiece that mustn’t be missed, Elvis Costello opts for ‘To Love Somebody’ as the mightiest song that the brothers mustered. The belting track from 1969 delves into the pure depths of emotion. Costello might typically be a little more wry and weary than that, but there are few people on earth who wouldn’t be moved by this epic ballad.
In a manner that is utterly disarming, the Bee Gees classic, famously covered in stunning style by Nina Simone, simply declares how profound and poignant love can be. In a proverbial sense, it finds Barry Gibb at the top of a mountain, in his little tight pants, bellowing about how love can be so overwhelming and powerful it can feel oddly unfair.
On this occasion, that love was for the band’s then-manager, the gay icon Robert Stigwood. “It was for Robert,” Barry Gibb told Mojo in 2001 when he reflected on the track. “I say that unabashedly. He asked me to write a song for him, personally. It was written in New York and played to Otis [Redding], but, personally, it was for Robert.”
While the band had Redding in mind as the potential singer for the track, he sadly died before they had the chance to present it to him. Yet, it was also deeply personal to the group, with Stigwood serving as the inspiration.
“He meant a great deal to me,” Barry Gibb continued. “I don’t think it was a homosexual affection but a tremendous admiration for this man’s abilities and gifts.” Whether platonic or otherwise, it is clear from the level of the profundity of the song that Stigwood clearly meant a great deal to the band.
They felt indebted to their protective manager, and that comes across in soaring style as they rattle the rafters with this rip-rousing classic that Costello rightfully offered a nod to when compiling his 500 favourite records of all time list. Nick Cave, Nina Simone, and a smattering of other stars have also revered it as one of the greatest love songs ever written.
