Bee Gees: "I Started a Joke"

January 20, 1969 (2 weeks)

I couldn't take a joke,

Which made us leave Clive's chat show

Watching the Bee Gees' fateful appearance on Clive Anderson's All Talk show, it is striking just how tame it appears to be. While Barry Gibb doesn't look especially happy, it seems to be going okay and his brothers Robin and Maurice both look quite pleased. While Anderson could have kept his mouth shut and allowed them to answer some of his questions, it doesn't feel like a situation that is about to go badly. The interviewer isn't very good and neither is one of his guests but when was that a particularly unusual situation?

At one point, Anderson asks them how they managed to get along so well over the years, as opposed to the Jacksons. Barry comments that it helps that they share the "same sense of humour". I'm guessing that means all three Gibb brothers have no sense of humour. And this is born out by their status as one of the most serious and least humourous acts in pop history. That is the irony of their hit "I Started a Joke": the Bee Gees are last people who would've made anyone laugh — even if plenty have laughed at them ever since.

I will say in their defense that this may well have been the whole point. They were this Anglo-Aussie pop act with cheery smiles but an earnest Barry was always prominent. They had begun to break through in many parts of the world but critics couldn't or wouldn't take them seriously, a predicament that they found hard to shake through much of their fifty years of activity. Somehow they had become an object of ridicule and hadn't the faintest idea how or why it happened.

This ought to be catnip for those of us who scoff at how the Bee Gees have been favourably reconsidered in recent years (and I say this as someone who nevertheless rates their 1969 album Odessa as damn-near perfect) but for one thing: "I Started a Joke" is rather good all things considered. To have the warbling and vulnerable Robin rather than the carefree Barry on lead was a wise decision. I buy his lamentations when I probably wouldn't had his brother been on the mic. The melody is dreamy and distracts from how trite the lyrics quickly become. It isn't anything spectacular — Bee Gees' singles seldom are — but sturdy enough and a noticeable improvement on previous Canadian chart topper "Words". Plus, I might as well take it from some of my musical idols (Pet Shop Boys, The Beautiful South, Paul Weller) who've seen fit to record passable versions of their own.

Barry Gibb's decision to abruptly leave the Clive Anderson interview probably prevented it from completely going off the rails. The last straw for Barry may have been the host's crack about future hit "Don't Forget to Remember" which he rather hackishly retorts with "I forgot that one". It's just too bad they never got the chance to discuss "I Started a Joke" but, then again, I don't suppose there would've been much laughter anyway.

Score: 6