CHART ATTACK! #20: 2/25/78

That’s a quote from Dw Dunphy in the comments section of last week’s CHART ATTACK!  He’s right, y’know.  It’s a scary thing when one family – one man, specifically – can occupy 50% of the charts on a given week.  Whether you like it or not, this is the week you must get on your knees and worship at the altar of Barry.  YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.

Before we start, it’s necessary for me to give credit where credit is due – Joseph Brennan’s Gibb Songs project was invaluable in tracking most this information down.  I highly recommend it if you’re interested in following the trajectory of the Bee Gees’ career.  Thanks, Joseph – this Chart Attack! would have been pretty short without you.

Of the five Gibb songs occupying this week’s Top 10, "How Deep Is Your Love" is my favorite.  I think it might be because it’s the least Bee Gee-ish of them all.  I personally find a lot of the Gibb vocals overpowering at times, and they’re just beautiful and gentle on this track. 

9.  Lay Down Sally – Eric Clapton  Have you ever listened to Grammar Girl’s podcast?  If so, you might have caught her reference to this song on back in January in her episode, "Lay Versus Lie."  She rightfully points out that Clapton really screwed this one up, since he’s using the word "lay" incorrectly: the correct word is actually "lie," unless he’s forcing somebody to lie lay her down in his arms to rest.  But what irritates me more, I think, is the absence of the comma in the title.  "Lie Down, Sally" sounds kinda lame, though, doesn’t it.  Oh well.  This little country/rockabilly tune was co-written by Marcy Levy, who also sings backup.  Levy later became a member of Shakespear’s Sister with Siobhan Fahey from Bananarama. 

8.  Night Fever – Bee Gees  This track was already completed by the time Stigwood came a-callin’.  His movie – at this point, still untitled – was based on an article in The New Yorker entitled "Tribal Rights Of The New Saturday Night."  (It was written by Nic Cohn, who – just as an aside – inspired Pete Townshend to write "Pinball Wizard.")  "Night Fever," naturally, provided the title.  As for the song itself…oh man, dig that Wah-wah!  "Night Fever" is porn-tastic.  And, like the majority of their songs, I can’t make out more than six words.

7.  We Are The Champions – Queen  I might be in the minority here, but "We Are The Champions" is one of those Queen songs I just have very little patience for.  I can only think of a handful of moments where I’ve really dug it (and I’m not saying whether one of them is in Revenge Of The Nerds).  Still, I’ll give credit where credit is due: Mercury and May did wonders for sports anthems, didn’t they?  And not only that, but the song itself, musically, is quite complicated; I’ve never been able to figure out those intricate harmonies in the chorus.

Have you ever heard Liza Minnelli’s version from the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert?  I don’t recommend it.

6.  Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) – Chic (download)  Remember, everybody, when we first heard about Snakes On A Plane?  Remember how excited we were, given the little information we had: namely, the star of the movie and the title?  Remember how let down we were by the movie?

This song is the Snakes On A Plane of 1978.

With a title like "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowah, Yowsah, Yowsah)," I was expecting nothing less than the greatest freaking disco song in the history of disco songs.  What a let-down:  this song is eight minutes and twenty seconds of boring.  It’s as if Chic assembled all the typical clichés of disco and combined them into one interminable song: the strings are ever-present and irritating as hell, the bassline is remarkably static, the vocals are more repetitive than usual, and there’s a keyboard solo that may go down as one of the most annoying in music history.  Are there any redeeming qualities?  Well, maybe the actual line "yowsah, yowsah, yowsah," but in a song that mentions the word "dance" more than 100 times, it’s only spoken in three instances.

Still, I guess I must be in the minority on this one: the song did remarkably well, peaking here at #6 (as well as the R&B chart), and reaching #1 on the Club Play charts.  More importantly, it was Chic’s first single, and so it paved the way for Chic songs that actually had something to them.  This song, however?  Laaaaaaaaame.

Here.  Share in my misery.  Is it just me?

5.  Emotion – Samantha Sang  "Okay, Samantha – the Bee Gees are freakin’ huge right now.  We’re going to need to take advantage of this turn of events.  We’ve already gotten them to write the song, and they’re supplying all the backing vocals, but…could you make your lead vocal…I don’t know, a little…Gibbier?" 

Anybody who can distinguish where Samantha ends and Barry begins gets a cookie.  I didn’t even know that this song wasn’t by the Bee Gees.

Samantha Sang (real name: Cheryl Gray) was a successful Australian singer in the late 1960s when she moved to England to work with Stigwood.  Stigwood hooked her up with Barry, who wrote, produced and performed on her hit "The Love Of A Woman," a minor hit in 1969.  Sang teamed up with the Gibbs once more for "Emotion," which was a #3 smash.  Sang had a feeling, though, that perhaps her successes weren’t necessarily because of her own merits, and opted not to work with the Bee Gees again.  Bad move:  she never charted again.  The end.

4.  Sometimes When We Touch – Dan Hill  See Mellow Gold #9.  Sadly, the video is no longer available, but read it anyway if you haven’t already.

3.  Just The Way You Are – Billy Joel  Many stories have been told about "Just The Way You Are."  Without looking it up, let me see if I can piece together all the tidbits I’ve heard over the years: so Joel wrote this song as a gift to his first wife, Elizabeth (who was originally married to Joel’s Atilla cohort Jon Small).  He brought it into the studio during the recording sessions for The Stranger, whereupon drummer Liberty DeVitto threw a drumstick at Joel and refused to play it.

Elsewhere in the studio, Phoebe Snow and Linda Rondstadt were having sex.  (I think I’m remembering this correctly.)  They heard the smooth, dulcet tones of Joel’s bossa nova masterpiece, and insisted that it be included on the album.  Joel, never being one to say no to poontang, kept it as a part of The Stranger.

"Just The Way You Are" ended up giving Joel his first top 10, and his first Grammy nominations (and wins) for "Song Of The Year" and "Record Of The Year" in 1979.  I don’t know how DeVitto felt about the wins, but I can’t imagine it’s worse than he probably feels right now, being ousted as Billy’s drummer…but I digress.  The song was obviously hugely popular, and while Joel was appreciative of the success, he was never a huge fan of the tune to begin with.  He’d zone out while singing the song, thinking about what to get on the room service menu, and lose his place in the song.  He’d look to DeVitto, who’d sing the words to every song, and supposedly wound up singing the divorce-tribute lyrics "She got the house, she got the car."  (This is one of those stories that probably never happened, but sounds great.)

It’s true that Joel did get bored with the tune, however, and for that reason, he stopped playing it.  (I’m sure his divorce also had something to do with it.)  In the late ’80s, though, he did realize that Weber’s anonymity had its benefits; Joel couldn’t write another love song without speculation that it was about Christie Brinkley.

The song has been brought out of retirement a number of times in the past 10 years.  Say what you want about it – I’ll take "Just The Way You Are" any day over "All My Life," the pap that Sony’s promoting the hell out of at this very moment.

2.  (Love Is) Thicker Than Water – Andy Gibb  You know what?  Screw Andy Gibb.  Not only because I don’t understand the appeal of this stupid song, but also because Andy was halfway to destroying his own career by the time this song became a hit.  If we’re going to give any credit at all, let’s give it, once more, to Barry:  the week after this one, "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" replaced "Stayin’ Alive at #1…which was replaced by "Night Fever," which was replaced by Yvonne Elliman’s "If I Can’t Have You," also Gibb-penned.  This not only means that Barry Gibb was responsible for the #1 spot from February 4 to May 13, 1978, but remains the only performer to have written four consecutive #1 hits.  In fact, if not for three weeks in January, he would have had #1 hits since December of the previous year, with "How Deep Is Your Love."  (The song that ousted the Gibbs for three weeks?  "Baby Come Back."  Don’t worry, it’s on "the list.")

1.  Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees  Well, here it is, folks:  the most popular Bee Gees song ever recorded or released.  I’m not saying it deserves to be the most popular Bee Gees song, but "Stayin’ Alive" is really a fantastic tune.  It’s hard to look at it objectively, though, due to:

– its mass media saturation
– endless parodies utilizing the song
– the fact that your relatives do the fucking John Travolta dance at every wedding you go to, despite the fact that John Travolta never did the dance to this song in the movie, and you’re stuck being the only one on the dance floor NOT doing the stupid dance, and then you look like a party pooper, and…oh wait, is this just MY life?

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yes.  The song is fantastic for a number of reasons – the unbelievable vocals, the bassline (supposedly influenced by Betty Wright’s "Clean Up Woman"), the orchestra – but even more interesting to me is the story behind the song, including the elements that didn’t make it into the final release.

When Stigwood called the Bee Gees and asked them to contribute to Saturday Night Fever, most of the songs were already in various stages of development.  "Stayin’ Alive" was created just for the movie, a request from Stigwood to have a song with an upbeat dance tempo and a romantic interlude in the middle.  A version of the song with a completely different middle section (incorporating the requested interlude) was created, but Barry nixed it almost as soon as it was recorded.

The Bee Gees were already recording at Le Chateau in France, where they had recently completed mixing their live album.  "Stayin’ Alive" was written  while they were sitting on the staircase – a staircase that, according to Robin, had been used in a number of porno flicks.  Drummer Dennis Bryon was unavailable for the recording session, so the group’s engineer simply looped a small snippet of the drum track to "Night Fever."

One final note: this is yet another Gibb songs that is practically indecipherable.  Who knew this song name-checked the New York Times?  I only figured that out recently.  So next time you’re at a wedding, tell your annoying cousin that she can’t do the dance if she doesn’t know the words.

Whew!  I don’t know about you, but I’m all Gibbed out!  Seriously, I couldn’t Gibb any more if I tried.  I mean, here a Gibb, there a Gibb, everywhere a Gibb-Gibb.  Okay, this joke’s dead.  (However, if you need more Gibb in your diet, Jefito can feed you.)  But you know what?  I just realized that this Chart Attack! has been completely devoid of YouTube filler clips.  So I’d like to present you with two on your way out.  The first is the "Barry Gibb Talk Show" parody with Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon from SNL.  This clip cracks me up every time – Fallon does a hysterical impression of Barry freaking out on a talk show.  I don’t think it’s accurate, necessarily, but it still makes me laugh.

The second clip is actually Barry Gibb actually walking out of an interview on Clive Anderson’s talk show.  The interview is full of little barbs back and forth, but in the last 20 seconds, Gibb has enough and just walks off, leaving the others to follow.  The look on Anderson’s face is priceless.