Barry Gibb on his lifelong love of Burt Bacharach

BEFORE THE BEATLES, and before we all popped up and stuck our heads out there, it was Burt Bacharach  He was the reason I started writing songs. The Story O fMy Life, which he wrote for Marty Robbins, shocked me to my roots.How simple yet sophisticated. I’ve sung that song a million times.

I realised early on that Burt had a rare genius. He had so much knowledge, but he understood the heart. He would change keys without you knowing it, slip in extra bars, change time – it was all subliminal and brilliant. He dominated what you thought as you went through a song. And I just couldn’t help but be inspired

 .For me, if I have an idea for a song, it has to ferment. If you wait long enough, the song will be completed in your head or your heart. And that sounds like what Burt and Hal were doing. They would take their time. I understand Burt’s preference for getting away from the instrument. I do it too. It gives you total freedom. Emotional freedom, mental freedom, the freedom to bring the melody wherever you want it to go in your head without having a guitar or a piano to establish chords. You want to go somewhere you’d never imagine you would go melodically, and that was Burt’s gift. 

 One day in 1979, there’s a knock on my front door. We were going through the Saturday Night Fever thing at the time. I open the door, and there’s Burt Bacharach. I nearly fainted. I was ranting about his songs. He said, “Will you call my daughter for me? She’s a fan and would like to speak to you.” And so I did that. But what a thrill. Later on, he asked me to collaborate on a song, but I was in a session with Maurice and Robin, and they wouldn’t have liked that (laughs).

 In 1982, we made an album, Heartbreaker, with Dionne Warwick. She was a very strong-minded woman, so you have to let her fly, and come up with the ideas that might inspire her to fly. What an honour to work with the instrument of Bacharach & David. 

After Burt passed, and I read he was still writing into his nineties, I thought, Incredible. I don’t think Icould do it. I’m 76, and pretty well retired now.

 I’ll quote Bob Dylan: “If you want to be a performer, you’ve got to have a purpose.” 

That has always stuck with me. Once my brothers were gone, those moments and those feelings weren’t around me any more. So I’m happy to be retired. My songwriting became wha tit did because of Burt Bacharach. There was only one of him, only one Hal David, and what they did together was timeless and beautiful. We will never stophearing their songs.

 

.As told to Bill DeMai © Mojo Magazine 

 

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