One bored afternoon back in 1977, I decided that I would join a fan club. At the time, as a 12-year-old, my favourite groups were Boney M, Abba and The Bee Gees. I bought How Deep Is Your Love and adored the whole Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, despite never having seen the film. But everyone loved it. I was no different.
In the days before the internet it was really quite hard to track down info on your favourites. I bought Record Mirror and Look-In, though I thought I was getting to old for the latter. I had asked my newsagent to order me the Abba magazine, but it never turned up, so I realised that the only way I could keep abreast of what was going on in the lives of the bands I loved was to join their club.
There was no Boney M fan club listed in Look-In, but there was a Bee Gees one. So I wrote off, did the whole stamped address envelope thing, got mum to post it and waited. And waited. And Waited. Nothing ever turned up.
Oh well. I was reminded of this today was I was driving to work. In place of his usual Golden Hour, Simon Bates was playing a selection of Bee Gees songs to mark the passing of Robin Gibb. I'm sad about this, as only in recent years have I truly come to appreciate how utterly amazing the Bee Gees actually are.
Like everyone else, I loved them in the Seventies, went off them in the Eighties and never gave them much thought. Of course, I had my favourite songs like Massachusetts and I've Gotta Get A Message To You, but I'd totally gone off the whole disco era stuff and, if I'm honest, feel it's been played out. Night Fever is guaranteed to see me exit the dancefloor.
But their pre-SNF stuff, especially at the turn of the Sixties, is a goldmine. How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, Melody Fair, Jumbo, Idea, IOIO, the Odessa Album. What's not to like?
So in tribute to Robin Gibb, we won't have How Deep Is Your Love. That was just a hook to hang it on. We'll have my very favourite I Started A Joke. It's possibly one of the oddest lyrics I've heard and I've mulled over the meaning in my mind. I guess I'll never know. A bit like Saturday Night Fever. To this day I've still not seen it.
