The last Bee Gee - Barry Gibb interview on Sunday Night 09/22/2012 part 1

RAHNI: Is this the Jive Talkin' Bridge? BARRY: Yes, I suppose this is it. That's what set up the idea for the song. That was the inspiration. (SINGS) J-J-J-Jive talkin' You're telling me lies Jive talkin' You wear a disguise... RAHNI: Did lots of your songs come that way - just something that simple? BARRY: Well, some kind of source or some kind of trigger. I've got a song that I've been working on for Robin and it's called 'The End of the Rainbow'. It's all about time. "Today is tomorrow, winters are summers and the end of the rainbow is here." So whatever you're searching for, you have found. Be happy with where you are. And I always said to Rob and Mo, "You know, the dream came true. Stop, sit down and enjoy it." RAHNI: No matter how you look at it..the Bee Gees' success was colossal. But for all the joy, equal measures of pain. BARRY: My greatest regret is that every brother I've lost was in a moment when we were not getting on and so, I have to live with that. I'm the last man standing. RAHNI: Are you alright? BARRY: Yeah. I'll never be able to understand that because I'm the eldest. RAHNI: I want to take you back because I think people don't realise that you weren't born with silver spoons in your mouth. BARRY: No. RAHNI: You really were pretty poor. BARRY: Well, yeah, that's the right word. We were from Manchester and we had no fear. RAHNI: Looking for a better life, the Gibb family became Ten Pound Poms, settling in Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, in 1958. BARRY: I think growing up in Australia, there is nothing like it and that's my country, that's, you know, that's where my heart is. That's where my heart is. RAHNI: You guys knew you wanted to be stars? BARRY: Yeah. We wanted to be famous more than anything. BEE GEES (SING): Oh, my old man's a dustman He wears a dustman's cap He wears cor blimey trousers And he lives in a council flat..

BARRY: You're dealing with the older brother and two twins who were very close, although they weren't alike. RAHNI: It almost felt like you were triplets. BARRY: Well, Maurice's stock joke was that we were actually triplets and Barry's deformed, so... (LAUGHS) Always funny. And that's how we alwayslooked at each other. There was nothing serious about anything we were doing and we never stopped laughing. We used to have tin cans on brushes and mum's sweeping brush and pretend that was a microphone, you know? And that's how it started. BARRY (SINGS): Where is the sun That shone on my head The sun in my life It is dead, it is dead. RAHNI: Explain to me why you guys had to leave Australia. BARRY: Ambition. (SINGS) The spicks and the specks Of the girls of my mind. (SINGS) In the event of something happening to me There is something I would like you all to see It's just a photograph of someone that I knew Have you seen my wife, Mr Jones? Do you know what it's like on the outside? RAHNI: In London, they were picked up by the management team behind the Beatles. Legendary promoter Robert Stigwood launched their first single anonymously. BARRY: Robert put it out in America for radio but he didn't tell anybody who it was. And I think the trick, for him, was to make everyone think it was the Beatles. (SINGS): I'm going back to Massachusetts. RAHNI: Is it true that the song 'Massachusetts', not only could you not spell it but you'd never been there? BARRY: We did go there, though. Afterwards. (SINGS) And the light went down in Massachusetts. BARRY: It was about flower power because everyone went through that phrase. Massachusetts was our way of saying flower power is an era in itself and it will pass and you better go home. (SINGS): And the lights all went down in Massachusetts And Massachusetts is one place I have seen. RAHNI: I think your dad said to you to always smile on stage when you were young. BARRY: He would stand at the back of the audience..."Tell Robin!" (SINGS) Smile an everlasting smile A smile can bring you near to me Don't ever let me find you gone

'Cause that would bring a tear... BARRY: But Dad was very non-demonstrative. He couldn't show his emotions. RAHNI: So, he never praised you? BARRY: No, no. He was...he would... you'd see the look on his face and go, "That was good. That was alright." RAHNI: And that helped to drive you on, didn't it? BARRY: Yeah, because you're probably looking for acceptance all the time and if you get that too easily,you don't work for it. (SINGS) It's only words And words are all I have To take your heart away. RAHNI: In 1969, Robin left the band. But two years later, they reunited and by the mid '70s had rediscovered their mojo. (SINGS): You can tell by the way I move my walk I'm a woman's man No time to talk. RAHNI: They moved to Miami as disco erupted. (SINGS): Now it's alright, it's OK You may look the other way We can try to understand The 'New York Times' effect on man Whether you're a brother or whether you're a mother You're staying alive Staying alive Feel the city breakin' and everybody shakin' And we're staying alive Staying alive Ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive Staying alive Ah, ah, ah, ah Staying aliiiiiive. RAHNI: And then the world really exploded for you. BARRY: Yeah. And we became... I don't know, we were in a bubble. You're in it but you can't see it, so you're in the eye of a storm. RAHNI: What's that like, when people are clambering over your cars, there's thousands of people wherever you go? BARRY: It's great, isn't it? RAHNI: I don't know. It's never happened to me. (SINGS): You should be dancing, yeah You should be dancing, yeah. ('TRAGEDY' PLAYS) BARRY: Hold it. Hold it. It would be nice if we could find a bigger sound for that solo. Make it rounder. Alright. Yeah! Just like that. Yeah. Beautiful. OK, let's do it again. Second half of that

chorus but bring that sound in. That's great. Yeah. OK. One, two, three, four. (SINGS): Tragedy. (BARRY): It's usually melody first and then, a few days later, we'll sit down and do the lyrics because it's nice to let something ferment, let it find its way into your head and let it stay there. And then you do the lyrics and you make the lyrics fit the melody. (SINGS): Tragedy When the feelings gone and you can't go on It's tragedy When the morning cries and you don't know why It's hard to bear With no-one to love you You're going nowhere. RAHNI: It got to a point where you weren't IN the charts, you WERE the charts. BARRY: We had 5 in the top 10 and at one point, as a writer, I had three songs in the top five, all by different artists. BARBRA STRIESAND(SINGS): Oooh Oooh Pulses racing, darling How grand we are Little by little we meet in the middle There's danger in the dark. RAHNI: You've worked with some of the most incredible artists in the world. Is Barbra Streisand the most intimidating of all of them? BARRY: Yeah! I think so. RAHNI: Is she outright scary? BARRY: Oh, boy, yeah. I love her, but she scares me. RAHNI: Why is she scary? Does she yell at you or something? BARRY: No, she's angry. She gets happy and angry and happy and angry. RAHNI: You, of course, had the falsetto. BARRY: Yeah. RAHNI: Tell me about discovering that falsetto. BARRY: (IN FALSETTO) Well...(LAUGHS)..it's a long story. Um... RAHNI: How do you do it? How do you...? BARRY: Well, you change. (NORMAL VOICE) You go from that... (FALSETTO) ..to that. And you start singing. That scream led me to doing whole songs like that, so... And then everyone got carried away because it worked so well that Robin would say, "No, sing this song, sing this song because we are having smashes, we are having hit records, you know. We're six number one hits in a row with that sound." Robin wanted success more than anything and that's what made Robin tick. RAHNI: You have said that you never want to feel success because then you'll stop trying. BARRY: Yeah.

RAHNI: Is that why you think you've been able to keep your humility because... BARRY: Stay on the ground, don't believe any of it because everything passes, no matter what, you know? And what have we witnessed in the past 10 years? How everything really does pass. We loved it. That's why did it. Boy, did we have some fun. And that's what I miss more than anything else. I'm the last man standing. I'm looking for the reason I'm still here.