It has been playing on the radio for almost 50 years - but still many Bee Gees fans have no idea what one of their most popular songs is about. The Bee Gees, composed of brothers Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb, have sold more than 120 million records worldwide throughout their music career, with hits including Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, How Deep Is Your Love, Massachusetts, More Than a Woman, You Should Be Dancing and Don't Forget to Remember.
But while their Stayin' Alive tune is known to be a groovy number, its subject matter is actually quite serious. According to Smooth Radio, RSO Records wanted to name the song 'Saturday Night' - but the Bee Gees turned this down as "there had been too many songs with Saturday in the title". Not only this but their album already included a song called Night Fever. Speaking about Stayin' Alive, Robin said: "The subject matter of 'Stayin' Alive' is actually quite a serious one; It's about survival in the streets of New York, and the lyrics actually say that". Barry added: "People crying out for help. Desperate songs. Those are the ones that become giants. The minute you capture that on record, it's gold. 'Stayin' Alive' is the epitome of that.
"Everybody struggles against the world, fighting all the bull**** and things that can drag you down. And it really is a victory just to survive. But when you climb back on top and win bigger than ever before, well that's something everybody reacts to everybody". Finally, Maurice said: "We'd also written a song called 'Saturday Night'. But there were so many songs called 'Saturday Night' even one by the Bay City Rollers, so when we rewrote it for the movie, we called it 'Stayin' Alive'." It took the three brothers only a few days to write the iconic song while working on a staircase at the Château d'Hérouville studio near Paris.
Like many artists at the time, the band recorded the majority of the soundtrack in France for tax reasons. A statement on Smooth Radio reads: "The track was recorded at Criteria Studios, with Maurice Gibb playing a bass line similar to the guitar riff, Barry Gibb and Alan Kendall on guitar riffs, and Blue Weaver on synthesizers. Barry chose to sing falsetto on the whole song, except on the line "life’s going nowhere, somebody help me".
Due to the death of backing drummer Dennis Bryon's mother in the middle of the sessions, the group looked for a replacement. "However, as there was a shortage of qualified drummers in the area, they tried out a drum machine, with unsatisfactory results. After listening to the drum track of the already-recorded 'Night Fever', they took two bars from that track, and re-recorded thebulm as a loop on a separate tape.
As a joke, the group listed the drummer as 'Bernard Lupe' (a riff on session drummer Bernard Purdie). 'Lupe' became a highly sought-after drummer soon after!" Commenting on the song in response to the Reddit thread, ' What was it like when the song “stayin’ alive” by the bee gees came out?, one user said: "It was a gigantic hit, as were most of the songs on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
