"How Deep Is Your Love" | ||||
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Single by Bee Gees | ||||
from the album Saturday Night Fever | ||||
B-side | "Can't Keep a Good Man Down" | |||
Released | September 1977 (US) | |||
Recorded | 1977 | |||
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Length | 4:02 | |||
Label | RSO | |||
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Bee Gees singles chronology | ||||
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"How Deep Is Your Love" on YouTube |
"How Deep Is Your Love" is a ballad written and recorded by the Bee Gees in 1977 and released as a single in September of that year by RSO Records. It was ultimately used as part of the soundtrack to the film Saturday Night Fever . It was a number-three hit in the United Kingdom and Australia. In the United States, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 on 24 December 1977 and stayed in the Top 10 for 17 weeks. It spent six weeks atop the US adult contemporary chart. It is listed at No. 27 on Billboard's All Time Top 100. [2] Alongside "Stayin' Alive" and "Night Fever", it is one of the group's three tracks on the list. The song was covered by Take That for their 1996 Greatest Hits album, reaching No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks. [3]
"How Deep Is Your Love" ranked number 375 on Rolling Stone 's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In a British TV special shown in December 2011, it was voted The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song by ITV viewers. [4] During the Bee Gees' 2001 Billboard magazine interview, Barry said that this was his favourite Bee Gees song. [5]
Following mixing for Here at Last... Bee Gees... Live , the Bee Gees began recording songs for what was to be the follow-up studio album to 1976's Children of the World . Then the call came from Robert Stigwood requesting songs for a movie he was producing. The Bee Gees obliged and gave him five songs, one of which was "How Deep Is Your Love". This track was written mainly by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. Barry worked out the structure with keyboard player Blue Weaver. Co-producer Albhy Galuten later admits the contribution of Weaver on this track, "One song where Blue [Weaver] had a tremendous amount of input. There was a lot of things from his personality. That's one where his contribution was quite significant, not in a songwriting sense, though when you play piano, it's almost like writing the song. Blue had a lot of influence in the piano structure of that song". [6]
Weaver tells his story behind this track:
"One morning, it was just myself and Barry in the studio. He said, 'Play the most beautiful chord you know', and I just played, what happened was, I'd throw chords at him and he'd say, 'No, not that chord', and I'd keep moving around and he'd say, 'Yeah, that's a nice one' and we'd go from there. Then I'd play another thing - sometimes, I'd be following the melody line that he already had and sometimes I'd most probably lead him somewhere else by doing what I did. I think Robin came in at some point. Albhy also came in at one point and I was playing an inversion of a chord, and he said, 'Oh no, I don't think it should be that inversion, it should be this', and so we changed it to that, but by the time Albhy had come in, the song was sort of there. [6]
A demo was made at Le Château d'Hérouville in France, with the additional recording done at Criteria Studios when they got back to Miami. [7] As Weaver says, "We started work about 12 o'clock maybe one o'clock in the morning, and that demo was done at about three or four o'clock in the morning. Albhy played piano on the demo, I'd drunk too much or gone to bed or something. Then I woke up the next morning and listened to that, and then put some strings on it and that was it. Then we actually recorded it for real in Criteria. The chords and everything stayed the same, the only thing that changes from that demo is that when we got to Criteria, I worked out the electric piano part which became the basis of the song. It was the sound of the piano that makes the feel of that song." [6] Despite Weaver's absence on the first demo of the song as he fell asleep, Galuten claimed, "Even though I did the demo because he wasn't there, there were a lot of things from his personality [on 'How Deep Is Your Love']". [6]
On the song's lyrics, Barry revealed:
"A lot of the textures you hear in the song were added on later. We didn't change any lyrics, mind you, but the way we recorded it was a little different than the way we wrote in the terms of construction. A little different for the better, I think, the title 'How Deep Is Your Love' we thought was perfect because of all the connotations involved in that sentence, and that was simply it". [6]
There was some talk of Yvonne Elliman recording "How Deep Is Your Love," but, according to Barry, their manager Robert Stigwood said, "You've got to do this song yourself, you should not give it to anybody". [6]
"How Deep Is Your Love" was released as a single in September 1977 everywhere except in the UK, where it was released on 29 December 1977. [8] By the time Children of the World was recorded, it was pretty much established that Barry was now the primary vocalist of the group, mostly being falsetto leads with the occasional natural breathy voice. Even most of the backing vocals were done by Barry, such that Robin and Maurice are barely heard in the mix, even though they are there. Despite this, Robin sings the melody for the chorus and audibly sings various ad libs during this song. Two music videos were made for this song, with minimum lights. In one (the precursor to the main music video released later), the brothers are shown singing while a shady image of a woman shows throughout the video, accompanied by a big white light shining around. Barry Gibb had his beard shaven off in this video, the same as in the "Night Fever" video. [9] A second video (the main one) was later made in which features the brothers sing while passing by a stream of rainbow lights. In this video Barry Gibb is bearded. On the Cashbox charts on the week 4 February 1978, when it was at No. 13, the soundtrack's second single "Stayin' Alive" was at No. 1 with "Night Fever" debuted at No. 71 on the same week. [10]
When "How Deep Is Your Love" reached No. 3 in the UK, Barry exclaimed: "You have no idea what a thrill it is to have a Top Five single in England. With all the new wave and punk rock out, I would have thought something like 'How Deep Is Your Love' wouldn't have a chance. We always kept going forward and we're getting stronger every day". [6]
Billboard described the song as "a warm tender ballad," saying that after a slow beginning it grows to a "heightened expressive delivery." [11] Cash Box said that it's "a beautifully harmonized, melodic ballad for music lovers of all ages." [12] Record World said that it is "one of their most controlled, delicate efforts, with the vocals almost whispered at times" and that it has "a good melody and expressive love lyric." [13]
The song won Best Pop Performance by a Group at the 20th Grammy Awards which were held on 23 February 1978. The song also received a nomination for Best Original Song at the 35th Golden Globe awards held on 28 January 1978. The award went to "You Light Up My Life" by Joe Brooks. At the time of both award ceremonies, the song was still in the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys spoke positively of the song, stating, "I always liked the Bee Gees very much. 'How Deep Is Your Love' is ... one that I think is really great ... I turn the radio up a little bit when it comes on." [14]
In 1983, the Bee Gees were sued by a Chicago songwriter, Ronald Selle, who claimed that the Gibb brothers stole melodic material from one of his songs, "Let It End", and used it in "How Deep Is Your Love". At trial, the jury returned a finding for Selle. The Bee Gees attorney immediately asked for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The basis for the motion was that Selle had failed to show, as was required by the law, that the Bee Gees had prior access to his song. Even Selle had admitted that he'd sent out his demo tape to only a few recording companies, none of whom did business with the Bee Gees. Selle also admitted that there were some similarities between his song and several Bee Gee compositions that predated his song by several years, as well as similarities with the Beatles song "From Me to You" written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney (under Lennon-McCartney). The federal judge ruled in favour of the Bee Gees. Selle appealed that ruling, but it was upheld by the appellate court, which agreed that Selle had not proven his case. [15] [16] [17]
Bee Gees
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Technical
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Year-end charts
All-time charts
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Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
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Canada (Music Canada) [44] | Gold | 75,000^ |
Denmark (IFPI Danmark) [45] | Gold | 45,000‡ |
France (SNEP) [46] | Gold | 800,000 [47] |
Ireland | — | 25,000 [48] |
Italy (FIMI) [49] Sales since 2009 | Gold | 35,000‡ |
Japan | — | 70,000 [50] |
Spain (PROMUSICAE) [51] | Platinum | 60,000‡ |
United Kingdom (BPI) [52] | Platinum | 963,471 [53] |
United States (RIAA) [54] | Gold | 1,700,000 [55] |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. |
"How Deep Is Your Love" | ||||
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Single by Take That | ||||
from the album Greatest Hits | ||||
Released | 26 February 1996 [56] | |||
Genre | Pop | |||
Length | 3:40 | |||
Label | RCA | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) |
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Take That singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"How Deep Is Your Love" on YouTube |
English pop music group Take That released a cover version as a single from their Greatest Hits compilation in February 1996 by RCA Records. This was the first single as a quartet, as Robbie Williams left the group the previous year. The single was produced by the band with Chris Porter and went on to become what was to be the band's final UK number one until their 2006 comeback single "Patience" a decade later. The song stayed at number one in the UK charts for three weeks. The single sold 671,000 copies and has received a Platinum sales status certification in the UK. The song also topped the charts in Denmark, Israel, Ireland, Lithuania, and Spain. Its music video was directed by Nick Brandt. In 2018, the band recorded an updated version of the song with Barry Gibb for their greatest hits remix album, Odyssey .
A reviewer from Music Week gave the song three out of five, adding, "This difficult-to-sing Bee Gees number lacks some oomph in this version, which is released as a preview for Take That's forthcoming greatest hits album. A hit, of course, but not one of their biggest." [57] Gerald Martinez from New Sunday Times said it sounds very much like the original. "But then most of their fans have probably not heard the Bee Gees' version. In any case it's a stylish ballad that deserves another hearing." [58] Gina Morris from Smash Hits gave it a top score of five out of five and named it Best New Single, writing, "...this is a fitting reminder of the good old times. An unplugged smoochy bongo-buoy disco record, originally recorded by the Bee Gees in the gruesome '70s for the movie Saturday Night Fever . Taken from their forthcoming Greatest Hits - Volume 1, it's a great choice of song — tampered with, but not totally destroyed." [59]
The accompanying music video for "How Deep Is Your Love" was directed by English photographer Nick Brandt and shot on February 7 and 8 at a deserted warehouse and by a reservoir in Hayes, Middlesex. [60] It was filmed six days before the band's break-up was announced and saw the remaining four Take That members tied to chairs in a basement. An obsessive fan with blonde hair and heavy eye makeup who has presumingly kidnapped the band (actress and model Paula Hamilton) [60] walks into the basement and circles the four members individually pulling their hair. She then puts them all into her van and drives down the motorway. She stops by a reservoir and has the four members placed on the edge, she points at each member before grabbing Gary Barlow's rope and pushes him back, still holding on. Her fingers slip through the rope and he falls backwards into the reservoir, still tied to the chair. She initially looks shocked, but then smirks. MTV Europe cut some scenes of the video.
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The Bee Gees were a musical group formed in 1958 by brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio were especially successful in popular music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and later as prominent performers in the disco music era in the mid-to-late 1970s. The group sang recognisable three-part tight harmonies: Robin's clear vibrato lead vocals were a hallmark of their earlier hits, while Barry's R&B falsetto became their signature sound during the mid-to-late 1970s and 1980s. The group wrote all their own original material, as well as writing and producing several major hits for other artists, and are regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in pop-music history. They have been referred to in the media as The Disco Kings, Britain's First Family of Harmony, and The Kings of Dance Music.
Andrew Roy Gibb was an English singer and songwriter. He was the younger brother of Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, musicians who had formed the Bee Gees during the late-1950s. Gibb came to prominence in the late-1970s through the early-1980s with eight singles reaching the Top 20 of the US Hot 100, three of which went to No. 1: "I Just Want to Be Your Everything" (1977), "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" (1977), and "Shadow Dancing" (1978). In the early 1980s, he co-hosted the American music television series Solid Gold. He also performed in a production of The Pirates of Penzance and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Gibb would later have substance use problems and depression. He died on 10 March 1988 aged 30.
"Night Fever" is a song written and performed by the Bee Gees. It first appeared on the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever on RSO Records. Producer Robert Stigwood wanted to call the film Saturday Night, but singer Robin Gibb expressed hesitation at the title. Stigwood liked the title Night Fever but was wary of marketing a movie with that name. The song bounded up the Billboard charts while the Bee Gees’ two previous hits from Saturday Night Fever soundtrack were still in the top ten. The record debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart at #76, then leaped up 44 positions to #32. It then moved: 32–17–8–5–2–1. It remained at #1 for eight weeks, and ultimately spent 13 weeks in the top 10. For the first five weeks that "Night Fever" was at #1, "Stayin' Alive" was at #2. Also, for one week in March, Bee Gees related songs held five of the top positions on the Hot 100 chart, and four of the top five positions, with "Night Fever" at the top of the list. The B-side of "Night Fever" was a live version of "Down the Road" taken from the Bee Gees 1977 album, Here at Last... Bee Gees... Live.
"Stayin' Alive" is a song written and performed by the Bee Gees from the Saturday Night Fever motion picture soundtrack. The song was released in December 1977 by RSO Records as the second single from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. The band wrote the song and co-produced it with Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. It is one of the Bee Gees' signature songs. In 2004, "Stayin' Alive" was placed at No. 189 by Rolling Stone on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The 2021 updated Rolling Stone list of 500 Greatest Songs placed "Stayin' Alive" at No. 99. In 2004, it ranked No. 9 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. In a UK television poll on ITV in December 2011 it was voted fifth in The Nation's Favourite Bee Gees Song.
"Nights on Broadway" is a song by the Bee Gees from the Main Course album released in 1975. The second single released from the album, it immediately followed their number-one hit "Jive Talkin'". This track was credited to Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb.
"Jive Talkin'" is a song by the Bee Gees, released as a single in May 1975 by RSO Records. This was the lead single from the album Main Course. It hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and top-five on the UK Singles Chart in the middle of 1975. Largely recognised as the group's comeback song, it was their first US top-10 hit since "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" (1971).
"Too Much Heaven" is a song by the Bee Gees, which was the band's contribution to the "Music for UNICEF" fund. They performed it at the Music for UNICEF Concert on 9 January 1979. The song later found its way to the group's thirteenth original album, Spirits Having Flown. It hit No. 1 in both the US and Canada. In the United States, the song was the first single out of three from the album to interrupt a song's stay at #1. "Too Much Heaven" knocked "Le Freak" off the top spot for two weeks before "Le Freak" returned to #1 again. "Too Much Heaven" also rose to the top three in the UK. In the US, it would become the fourth of six consecutive No. 1s, equaling the record set by Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles for the most consecutive No. 1 songs. The six Bee Gee songs are "How Deep Is Your Love", "Stayin' Alive", "Night Fever", "Too Much Heaven", "Tragedy" and "Love You Inside Out". The songs spanned the years of 1977, 1978 and 1979.
"Love You Inside Out" is a 1979 single by the Bee Gees from their album, Spirits Having Flown. It was their last chart-topping single on the Billboard Hot 100, interrupting Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff", becoming the third single from the album to do so. In the UK, the single peaked at No. 13 for two weeks. It was the ninth and final number-one hit for the Bee Gees in the US, and the twelfth and final number-one hit in Canada as well. The trio would not return to the top 10 for ten years, with the song, "One".
"You Should Be Dancing" is a song by the Bee Gees, from the album Children of the World, released in 1976. It hit No. 1 for one week on the American Billboard Hot 100, No. 1 for seven weeks on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart, and in September the same year, reached No. 5 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Soul chart. It was this song that first launched the Bee Gees into disco. It was also the only track from the group to top the dance chart.
"Words" is a song by the Bee Gees, written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The song reached No. 1 in Germany, Canada, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
"Still Waters (Run Deep)" is a song by the Bee Gees, written by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. It was the third and final single issued from their 21st studio album, Still Waters (1997), on 27 October 1997. The recording and production of the song were assisted by Hugh Padgham. The song became the album's third top-20 UK single, peaking at No. 18 on the UK Singles Chart. It also reached No. 57 on the US Billboard Hot 100, their most recent appearance on that chart.
Their Greatest Hits: The Record is the career retrospective greatest hits album by the Bee Gees, released on UTV Records and Polydor in November 2001 as HDCD. The album includes 40 tracks spanning over 35 years of music. Four of the songs were new recordings of classic Gibb compositions originally recorded by other artists, including "Emotion", "Heartbreaker", "Islands in the Stream", and "Immortality". It also features the Barry Gibb duet with Barbra Streisand, "Guilty", which originally appeared on Streisand's 1980 album of the same name. It is currently out of print and has been supplanted by another compilation, The Ultimate Bee Gees.
"You Win Again" is a song written by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb and performed by the Bee Gees. The song was produced by the brothers, Arif Mardin and Brian Tench. It was released as the first single on 7 September 1987 by Warner Records, from their seventeenth studio album E.S.P. (1987). It was also their first single released from the record label. The song marked the start of the group's comeback, becoming a No. 1 hit in many European countries, including topping the UK Singles Chart—their first to do so in over eight years—and making them the first group to score a UK No. 1 hit in each of three decades: the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
"If I Can't Have You" is a disco song written by the Bee Gees in 1977. The song initially appeared on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in a version by Yvonne Elliman, released in November 1977. The Bee Gees' own version appeared a month later as the B-side of "Stayin' Alive".
"(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" is a song performed by Andy Gibb, released in September 1977 as the second and final single by RSO Records from his debut album, Flowing Rivers (1977). The song was his second single that topped the US Billboard Hot 100. It was mainly written by Barry Gibb, with help from Andy Gibb and produced by Gibb-Galuten-Richardson. The B-side of this song was "Words and Music" in the US, but "Flowing Rivers" in the UK. It became a gold record.
"To Love Somebody" is a song written by Barry and Robin Gibb. Produced by Robert Stigwood, it was the second single released by the Bee Gees from their international debut album, Bee Gees 1st, in 1967. The single reached No. 17 in the United States and No. 41 in the United Kingdom. The song's B-side was "Close Another Door". The single was reissued in 1980 on RSO Records with "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" as its flipside. The song ranked at number 94 on NME magazine's "100 Best Tracks of the Sixties". The entry was a minor hit in France but reached the top 10 in Canada.
"First of May" is a song by the Bee Gees with lead vocals by Barry Gibb, released as a single from their 1969 double album Odessa. Its B-side was "Lamplight". It also featured as the B-side of "Melody Fair" when that song was released as a single in the Far East in 1971 as well as in 1976 and 1980 on RSO Records. It was the first Bee Gees single to be released after lead guitarist Vince Melouney had left the group.
"I Just Want to Be Your Everything" is a song recorded by Andy Gibb, initially released in April 1977 by RSO Records as the first single from his debut album Flowing Rivers (1977). The song was written by Gibb's older brother Barry, and produced by Gibb-Galuten-Richardson. It reached number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks, starting on the week ending 30 July 1977, and again for the week ending 17 September 1977. It was Gibb's first single released in the United Kingdom and United States. His previous single, "Words and Music" was only released in Australia. It is ranked number 26 on Billboard's 55th anniversary All Time Top 100.
"My World" is a 1972 single released by the Bee Gees. It was originally released as a non-album single on 14 January 1972 worldwide. but was later included on the compilation Best of Bee Gees, Volume 2 in 1973. The flip side of the single was "On Time", a country rock number composed by Maurice Gibb. "My World" reached the Top 20 in both US and UK.
"Love So Right" is an R&B ballad recorded by the Bee Gees. It was the second single released on the album Children of the World.
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