Barry Gibb – My Favourite Vinyl

We asked the Bee Gees icon Barry Gibb to dig through his song catalogue and reveal which of his classic hits mean the most to him…

Heartbreaker –  1979

“Funnily enough, Dionne Warwick didn’t like Heartbreaker when we first played it to her. She told me, ‘this song doesn’t get me off’.
I diplomatically said, ‘why don’t you do it anyway, and we can always toss it away if you dont like it?’. You have to be pateient in the studio sometimes and this one paid off.”

I Just Want To Be Your Everything – 1977

“This was our young brother Andy’s first No. 1. We never selected who should sing what in the old days, there was no sense of competition, Robin would sing one or I did. The sense of competition came when we had success.
That’s when everyone in the group wanted a bit of individual attention. But this one felt right for Andy and we loved hearing him sing it.”

Barry Gibb – Shadows – 2016

“This is a new one, it’s my Roy Orbison song, the constant drive upwards, like he did with Crying, which I consider to be the greatest pop song ever.
The shadows are looking through his eyes, but I also suppose it’s me reflecting on the idea that I still see my brothers when they aren’t there.”

Islands In The Stream – 1983

“It’s probably his biggest hit but Kenny Rogers stills says to me, ‘I dont understand what Islands In The Stream is all about’. It’s about a No. 1 record, Kenny, get over it! My brothers wanted us to record this one but it was at a time when nobody wanted to hear our music.
I figured we should become songwriters because the most important thing to me was the that the songs got heard.”

Love You Inside Out – 1979

“This was our sixth consecutive No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and very special moment. It was Michael Jackson’s favourite song [of ours], we became friends through that song.”

Tragedy – 1979

“This song has a life all of its own. We have quite a few songs worthy of closing a live set but nothing quite beats Tragedy. It was a big compliment when Steps recorded it years later but I never learned their dance steps.”

Words – 1968

“I always love it when people tell me how they fell in love to a certain song of ours and Words is one of those. It was wonderful when Boyzone revived it.”

Emotion – 1977

“Samantha Sang did a great job with this and Destiny’s Child had a huge hit too, years later. I still havent met Beyoncé, my daughter went to see her live. I would love to write a song for her but I’ll wait for the day she asks for it.
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