The Songs - Nights on Broadway

This is another entry in my ongoing “songs that visited me and decided they wanted to stay” series. I hope you like these enough to become a paid subscriber, because I really need you to keep this series going…

Nights on Broadway - The Bee Gees

The producer said, “can you scream?”

And I said, “under certain circumstances…”

And he said “can you scream in tune?”

And I said, “well, I’ll try…”

—Barry Gibb

None of us could admit we loved the Bee Gees during the disco era, for fear that Ted Nugent was gonna beat us up or something. It was a strange time. There was lots of testosterone about. If you think male egos are fragile NOW, you should have seen them back in the mid 70s.

Loin cloths were acceptable attire, and everybody thought “Disco Demolition Night” in Chicago, in which a crate full of mostly Bee Gee records was blown up in the outfield of Comiskey Park in between games of a doubleheader, was gonna be a hoot. Instead it turned into a beer-fueled riot, fanned by a radio shock jock who commanded an almost cult-like following of young white males. Police in riot-gear had to be called in to restore order. In retrospect the entire thing resembled a Nazi book burning.

Ah, the 70s.

But still. Where was I? Ah yes.

Still, in secret we loved the Bee Gees because we always loved them. Because they wrote some of the best songs ever, and could sing like the Beatles. How Can You Mend a Broken Heart. To Love Somebody. New York Mining Disaster 1941. I Started a Joke. Massachusetts. And the absolutely savage Nights on Broadway. That’s just off the top of my head. The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack should not have been a shock to anybody, but it caused everybody to lose their damn minds. Including, perhaps, the Bee Gees themselves, who were subsequently somehow talked into appearing in one of the worst films ever made, while at the same time facing an enormous backlash for the sin of being better than everybody else. For a time, anything they touched turned to gold. Suddenly, even being in their orbit could kill your career. See “Frampton, Peter” for more on this.

Saturday Night Fever became a cultural phenomenon. Of course a film of such brutal (and almost casual) misogyny would never be accepted today, but at the time its multiple rape scenes passed without much comment. I recently watched the film again and was a bit shocked, honestly. But it was driven by an iconic performance by its star, and by its soundtrack (which was largely created after the fact. As Travolta noted, “during filming I was dancing to Boz Scaggs and Stevie Wonder”). Take away either, and the film is probably dead on arrival. With both, it changed the world.

Disco only became a thing to be loathed once it became a bandwagon artists were forced to jump on. Whether it was Disco Duck becoming a hit, or everybody from the Stones to Elton John feeling the need to release “disco” songs. Disco had it roots in gay and black culture, which is the main reason Comiskey Park was filled with haters that night, although nobody wanted to admit it at the time. Or even now. The Bee Gees were straight, but could out-gay you. And they were white, but could out-soul you. They could also out-write and out-sing you, and anybody paying attention knew this long before Saturday Night Fever.

Cue up Nights on Broadway. Call it what you want. Funk. Soul. R & B. Yes. Yes. And Yes. It’s ominous and thrilling and gritty, like film noir. And then that chorus. It was the world’s introduction to what would become the most famous falsetto in pop music history. Barry Gibb had no idea he could sing in falsetto. He was simply asked to ad-lib, and told to sing louder and louder…until there it was. The Big Bang. Nights on Broadway is as good as anything Stevie Wonder ever delivered. It’s a song that could not have been created by anybody else, because nobody in pop music history had the unique set of talents of the Gibb brothers. Their ability to find a groove, and to wail over the top of that groove in perfect 3 part harmony, was unmatched. The Beatles never created anything as funky as Nights on Broadway. The Bee Gee’s epochal Stayin’ Alive, released 2 years later, would not have been possible without Nights on Broadway clearing the runway.

We can all admit it now. We loved these guys from the very beginning. All these years later this music is as sacred to me as the Beatles. In their own way, the Bee Gees were the fab four’s only true peers.

Well, I had to follow you
Though you did not want me to
But that won't stop my lovin' you
I can't stay away

In a bit…

—tf

Songs That Visited Me and Decided They Wanted to Stay

Intro
In a Big Country
Found Out About You
Tutti Fruitti
Surrender
Who Knows Where the Time Goes?
Nightswimming
Fast Car
Take Five
Romeo and Juliet
Wichita Lineman
Waterfall
There She Goes
A Sort of Homecoming
Purple Rain