Chords for ROBIN GIBB talking about songwritting from Prebendal, Thame.
Tempo:
119.85 bpm
Chords used:
D
A
G
E
B
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
[C] [G]
We're always going to be writing, that'll never stop.
[D] That's what we do, that's what I am, and that's what Barry is, and we're always going to be writing.
[G]
You hear the music first, you can have a title, but you can always hear the [A] melody first,
and then you write lyrics to the melody.
Because the melody must always dictate which way the [Bm] lyrics go.
And sometimes you can get a piece [Db] of lyric or [E] a few lines [B] just at the same time, but
generally [A] it's the melody first.
Normally you can have the whole basis of a song within [G] three hours if you get a good idea.
And [D] then what we do is we usually get the [Gm] structure of [D] the song within that three hours
and the following day, or a couple of days later we'll go and write the lyrics.
If it's a particularly strong song, a good song, it'll come fast, and it'll kind of write itself.
But you'll find that most writers who've been writing for a long time will tell you the same thing.
It [G] sounds fascinating at first, but once you've been writing for a [D] long time, [A] it's almost second nature.
You know you've got a feel for it, and then you [Gb] know how to structure the song.
Roy Orbison once said to me [E] that if [G] you don't remember a song that you're writing, then
chances are it's not worth finishing.
Not always the case, but in a lot of cases that [B] is absolutely true, because good songs
are definitely sticking your head, and if it's still sticking your [Em] head, it's sticking other people's.
The melody will always [A] be the most important [B] part of the song [Bm]
at first.
[Bb] Lyrics are definitely important, [C] and a good title is equally important.
A strong title, that's the first thing people see of a song sometimes, is the title that
draws them to it, or hear it.
[Fm] Sometimes we've written a song based on a title, and a lot of times we've been inspired
by getting a [Bb] title and then writing a song around it.
[Fm]
Actually, Staying Alive, we had the [N] title first, and the strange story about that was
we had pressure from everybody at Paramount to change the title to Saturday Night, because
of the film.
Our argument at the time was there's about 3,000 songs called Saturday Night, and it
wouldn't be anything different.
They thought Staying Alive was too abstract, too aloof, too academic for people to connect
with, and we said, well, the reason we like it is because it is different, it's unusual,
and it was that thing about being different, you know.
We don't want to be like everybody [Bb] else.
We want something, if this works, it's going to be remembered.
But they agreed in the end, we could keep it Staying Alive.
We fought, we [Eb] held our ground, as [Eb] indeed, as history has revealed, and it became Staying
Alive, and of course, it worked.
And I don't think it would have worked as well if it had been called Saturday Night,
because if we had Saturday Night and Night Fever on the same [F] album, it would be too bland,
I would [B] suspect, having one track called Night [Fm] Fever, and another track called Saturday Night.
[Cm]
We interpreted jive talking as a kind of, you know,
[C] not as lying or bullshit, which
is what jive actually means and meant, and we understood jive talking as talking in rhythm
there, you know, but as a musical expression.
And we wrote it quite candidly in that way, and of course, Arif said, that's great, [G] that's
wonderful, you [A] know, that's great, because everyone's using that expression right now.
And we [E] didn't realise that, it was a complete accident, and he thought that's how we meant
it, because that's what [A] he'd heard, you see.
And we wrote [Bb] it with the words [G] and everything before he came up to us, you really, you do
know what this means, don't you?
Because that's how you've written it, the lyrics lend themselves completely to that,
you do know that that's what you're singing, and we said, well, when he told us what it
meant, we weren't, but the lyrics fitted [C] perfectly.
[Bb]
[D] Everybody likes to hear the very first songs that happen for you, and in fact, [E] we'd never
been to Massachusetts when we wrote Massachusetts.
We just loved the word.
It was written on a small boat in New [A] York Harbour, one [E] afternoon, near the Statue of
Liberty, it's a very choppy water.
And it had really nothing to do at that time with Massachusetts, and so, again, it was
just, it's the [Gb] same like to love somebody, for instance, was written on a boat in Monte Carlo Harbour.
[A] It was actually that afternoon that we wrote To [E] Love Somebody, where we first heard Brian
Epstein had [D] committed suicide, he was the manager of The Beatles, [B] and that was, we were
with Robert Stiglitz, and it was when Robert's assistant [E] came down to the boat and said,
[B] Brian's been found dead in England.
Now, Lights on Broadway was written at the same time as Jive Talking on the main course
album, with Arif as producer, and again, we called it Lights on Broadway.
[Db] That was the life I'd find, and he said, Lights on Broadway, it was very nice, [D] terrific.
But it would be [Bb] more seedy, [Db] because Broadway is not really, we know with Lights, but [F] we
want a [A] darker side of Broadway, it would [F] just be a nicer edge.
He said, every time you sing that, I [Ab] hear the word nights, [Gbm] rather than lights.
[E] So, [D] all right, we'll change it to Nights on Broadway, because he said, that's darker,
it's more seedier, [Ab] and it gets more, and [A] of course, he was right.
But the ironic thing was, [B] we couldn't stop singing Lights on Broadway when we recorded
it, so we kept singing Lights on Broadway, [D] and the irony is, [Bb] when the record came out,
[Abm] and it debuted on the charts on Billboard, [A] it debuted as Lights on Broadway, a mistake
of a [B] typographical error, just for one week.
Isn't that strange?
Well, I thought it was fascinating anyway.
[D] [Gbm]
[G]
[Gm] [D]
We're always going to be writing, that'll never stop.
[D] That's what we do, that's what I am, and that's what Barry is, and we're always going to be writing.
[G]
You hear the music first, you can have a title, but you can always hear the [A] melody first,
and then you write lyrics to the melody.
Because the melody must always dictate which way the [Bm] lyrics go.
And sometimes you can get a piece [Db] of lyric or [E] a few lines [B] just at the same time, but
generally [A] it's the melody first.
Normally you can have the whole basis of a song within [G] three hours if you get a good idea.
And [D] then what we do is we usually get the [Gm] structure of [D] the song within that three hours
and the following day, or a couple of days later we'll go and write the lyrics.
If it's a particularly strong song, a good song, it'll come fast, and it'll kind of write itself.
But you'll find that most writers who've been writing for a long time will tell you the same thing.
It [G] sounds fascinating at first, but once you've been writing for a [D] long time, [A] it's almost second nature.
You know you've got a feel for it, and then you [Gb] know how to structure the song.
Roy Orbison once said to me [E] that if [G] you don't remember a song that you're writing, then
chances are it's not worth finishing.
Not always the case, but in a lot of cases that [B] is absolutely true, because good songs
are definitely sticking your head, and if it's still sticking your [Em] head, it's sticking other people's.
The melody will always [A] be the most important [B] part of the song [Bm]
at first.
[Bb] Lyrics are definitely important, [C] and a good title is equally important.
A strong title, that's the first thing people see of a song sometimes, is the title that
draws them to it, or hear it.
[Fm] Sometimes we've written a song based on a title, and a lot of times we've been inspired
by getting a [Bb] title and then writing a song around it.
[Fm]
Actually, Staying Alive, we had the [N] title first, and the strange story about that was
we had pressure from everybody at Paramount to change the title to Saturday Night, because
of the film.
Our argument at the time was there's about 3,000 songs called Saturday Night, and it
wouldn't be anything different.
They thought Staying Alive was too abstract, too aloof, too academic for people to connect
with, and we said, well, the reason we like it is because it is different, it's unusual,
and it was that thing about being different, you know.
We don't want to be like everybody [Bb] else.
We want something, if this works, it's going to be remembered.
But they agreed in the end, we could keep it Staying Alive.
We fought, we [Eb] held our ground, as [Eb] indeed, as history has revealed, and it became Staying
Alive, and of course, it worked.
And I don't think it would have worked as well if it had been called Saturday Night,
because if we had Saturday Night and Night Fever on the same [F] album, it would be too bland,
I would [B] suspect, having one track called Night [Fm] Fever, and another track called Saturday Night.
[Cm]
We interpreted jive talking as a kind of, you know,
[C] not as lying or bullshit, which
is what jive actually means and meant, and we understood jive talking as talking in rhythm
there, you know, but as a musical expression.
And we wrote it quite candidly in that way, and of course, Arif said, that's great, [G] that's
wonderful, you [A] know, that's great, because everyone's using that expression right now.
And we [E] didn't realise that, it was a complete accident, and he thought that's how we meant
it, because that's what [A] he'd heard, you see.
And we wrote [Bb] it with the words [G] and everything before he came up to us, you really, you do
know what this means, don't you?
Because that's how you've written it, the lyrics lend themselves completely to that,
you do know that that's what you're singing, and we said, well, when he told us what it
meant, we weren't, but the lyrics fitted [C] perfectly.
[Bb]
[D] Everybody likes to hear the very first songs that happen for you, and in fact, [E] we'd never
been to Massachusetts when we wrote Massachusetts.
We just loved the word.
It was written on a small boat in New [A] York Harbour, one [E] afternoon, near the Statue of
Liberty, it's a very choppy water.
And it had really nothing to do at that time with Massachusetts, and so, again, it was
just, it's the [Gb] same like to love somebody, for instance, was written on a boat in Monte Carlo Harbour.
[A] It was actually that afternoon that we wrote To [E] Love Somebody, where we first heard Brian
Epstein had [D] committed suicide, he was the manager of The Beatles, [B] and that was, we were
with Robert Stiglitz, and it was when Robert's assistant [E] came down to the boat and said,
[B] Brian's been found dead in England.
Now, Lights on Broadway was written at the same time as Jive Talking on the main course
album, with Arif as producer, and again, we called it Lights on Broadway.
[Db] That was the life I'd find, and he said, Lights on Broadway, it was very nice, [D] terrific.
But it would be [Bb] more seedy, [Db] because Broadway is not really, we know with Lights, but [F] we
want a [A] darker side of Broadway, it would [F] just be a nicer edge.
He said, every time you sing that, I [Ab] hear the word nights, [Gbm] rather than lights.
[E] So, [D] all right, we'll change it to Nights on Broadway, because he said, that's darker,
it's more seedier, [Ab] and it gets more, and [A] of course, he was right.
But the ironic thing was, [B] we couldn't stop singing Lights on Broadway when we recorded
it, so we kept singing Lights on Broadway, [D] and the irony is, [Bb] when the record came out,
[Abm] and it debuted on the charts on Billboard, [A] it debuted as Lights on Broadway, a mistake
of a [B] typographical error, just for one week.
Isn't that strange?
Well, I thought it was fascinating anyway.
[D] [Gbm]
[G]
[Gm] [D]
Key:
D
A
G
E
B
D
A
G
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ We're always going to be writing, that'll never stop. _
_ [D] That's what we do, that's what I am, and that's what Barry is, and we're always going to be writing.
_ _ [G] _ _ _
You hear the music first, you can have a title, but you can always hear the [A] melody first,
and then you write lyrics to the melody.
Because the melody must always dictate which way the [Bm] lyrics go.
And sometimes you can get a piece [Db] of lyric or [E] a few lines [B] just at the same time, but
generally [A] it's the melody first.
Normally you can have the whole basis of a song within [G] three hours if you get a good idea.
And [D] then what we do is we usually get the [Gm] structure of [D] the song within that three hours
and the following day, or a couple of days later we'll go and write the lyrics. _ _ _
If it's a particularly strong song, a good song, it'll come fast, and it'll kind of write itself.
_ _ But you'll find that most writers who've been writing for a long time will tell you the same thing.
It _ _ [G] sounds _ fascinating at first, but once you've been writing for a [D] long time, _ [A] it's almost second nature.
You know you've got a feel for it, and then you [Gb] know how to structure the song.
_ _ Roy Orbison once said to me [E] that if [G] you don't remember a song that you're writing, then
chances are it's not worth finishing. _ _
Not always the case, but in a lot of cases that [B] is absolutely true, because _ _ good songs
are definitely sticking your head, and if it's still sticking your [Em] head, it's sticking other people's.
The melody will always [A] be the most important [B] part of the song [Bm] _
at first.
[Bb] Lyrics are definitely important, [C] and a good title is equally important.
A strong title, that's the first thing people see of a song sometimes, is the title that
draws them to it, or hear it.
[Fm] _ Sometimes we've written a song based on a title, and a lot of times we've been inspired
by getting a [Bb] title and then writing a song around it. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Fm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Actually, Staying Alive, we had the [N] title first, and the strange story about that was
we had pressure from everybody at Paramount to change the title to Saturday Night, because
of the film.
Our argument at the time was there's about 3,000 songs called Saturday Night, and it
wouldn't be anything different.
They thought Staying Alive was too abstract, too aloof, too academic for people to connect
with, and we said, well, the reason we like it is because it is different, it's unusual,
and it was that thing about being different, you know.
We don't want to be like everybody [Bb] else.
We want something, if this works, it's going to be remembered.
But they agreed in the end, we could keep it Staying Alive.
We fought, we [Eb] held our ground, as [Eb] indeed, as history has revealed, and it became Staying
Alive, and of course, it worked.
And I don't think it would have worked as well if it had been called Saturday Night,
because if we had Saturday Night and Night Fever on the same [F] album, it would be too _ _ _ bland,
I would [B] suspect, having one track called Night [Fm] Fever, and another track called Saturday Night.
_ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
We interpreted jive talking as a kind of, you know, _
_ [C] _ not as lying or bullshit, which
is what jive actually means and meant, and we understood jive talking as talking in rhythm
there, you know, but as a musical expression.
_ And we wrote it quite candidly in that way, and of course, Arif said, that's great, [G] that's
wonderful, you [A] know, that's great, because everyone's using that expression right now.
And we [E] didn't realise that, it was a complete accident, and he thought that's how we meant
it, because that's what [A] he'd heard, you see. _
And we wrote [Bb] it with the words [G] and everything before he came up to us, you really, you do
know what this means, don't you?
Because that's how you've written it, the lyrics lend themselves completely to that,
you do know that that's what you're singing, and we said, well, when he told us what it
meant, we weren't, but the lyrics fitted [C] perfectly.
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ Everybody likes to hear the very first songs that happen for you, and in fact, [E] we'd never
been to Massachusetts when we wrote Massachusetts.
We just loved the word.
It was written on a small boat in New [A] York Harbour, one [E] afternoon, near the Statue of
Liberty, it's a very choppy water. _
And it had really nothing to do at that time with Massachusetts, and so, again, it was
just, it's the [Gb] same like to love somebody, for instance, was written on a boat in Monte Carlo Harbour.
[A] It was actually that afternoon that we wrote To [E] Love Somebody, where we first heard Brian
Epstein had [D] committed suicide, he was the manager of The Beatles, [B] and that was, we were
with Robert Stiglitz, and it was when Robert's assistant [E] came down to the boat and said,
[B] Brian's been found dead in England.
Now, Lights on Broadway was written at the same time as Jive Talking on the main course
album, with Arif as producer, and again, we called it Lights on Broadway.
[Db] That was the life I'd find, and he said, _ Lights on Broadway, it was very nice, [D] terrific. _
But it would be [Bb] more seedy, [Db] because Broadway is not really, we know with Lights, but [F] _ we
want a [A] darker side of Broadway, it would [F] just be a nicer edge.
He said, every time you sing that, I [Ab] hear the word nights, [Gbm] rather than lights.
_ [E] So, [D] all right, we'll change it to Nights on Broadway, because he said, that's darker,
it's more seedier, [Ab] and it gets more, and [A] of course, he was right.
But the ironic thing was, [B] we couldn't stop singing Lights on Broadway when we recorded
it, so we kept singing Lights on Broadway, [D] and the irony is, [Bb] when the record came out,
[Abm] and it debuted on the charts on Billboard, [A] it debuted as Lights on Broadway, a mistake
of a [B] typographical error, just for one week.
Isn't that strange?
Well, I thought it was fascinating anyway.
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [Gbm] _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ We're always going to be writing, that'll never stop. _
_ [D] That's what we do, that's what I am, and that's what Barry is, and we're always going to be writing.
_ _ [G] _ _ _
You hear the music first, you can have a title, but you can always hear the [A] melody first,
and then you write lyrics to the melody.
Because the melody must always dictate which way the [Bm] lyrics go.
And sometimes you can get a piece [Db] of lyric or [E] a few lines [B] just at the same time, but
generally [A] it's the melody first.
Normally you can have the whole basis of a song within [G] three hours if you get a good idea.
And [D] then what we do is we usually get the [Gm] structure of [D] the song within that three hours
and the following day, or a couple of days later we'll go and write the lyrics. _ _ _
If it's a particularly strong song, a good song, it'll come fast, and it'll kind of write itself.
_ _ But you'll find that most writers who've been writing for a long time will tell you the same thing.
It _ _ [G] sounds _ fascinating at first, but once you've been writing for a [D] long time, _ [A] it's almost second nature.
You know you've got a feel for it, and then you [Gb] know how to structure the song.
_ _ Roy Orbison once said to me [E] that if [G] you don't remember a song that you're writing, then
chances are it's not worth finishing. _ _
Not always the case, but in a lot of cases that [B] is absolutely true, because _ _ good songs
are definitely sticking your head, and if it's still sticking your [Em] head, it's sticking other people's.
The melody will always [A] be the most important [B] part of the song [Bm] _
at first.
[Bb] Lyrics are definitely important, [C] and a good title is equally important.
A strong title, that's the first thing people see of a song sometimes, is the title that
draws them to it, or hear it.
[Fm] _ Sometimes we've written a song based on a title, and a lot of times we've been inspired
by getting a [Bb] title and then writing a song around it. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Fm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Actually, Staying Alive, we had the [N] title first, and the strange story about that was
we had pressure from everybody at Paramount to change the title to Saturday Night, because
of the film.
Our argument at the time was there's about 3,000 songs called Saturday Night, and it
wouldn't be anything different.
They thought Staying Alive was too abstract, too aloof, too academic for people to connect
with, and we said, well, the reason we like it is because it is different, it's unusual,
and it was that thing about being different, you know.
We don't want to be like everybody [Bb] else.
We want something, if this works, it's going to be remembered.
But they agreed in the end, we could keep it Staying Alive.
We fought, we [Eb] held our ground, as [Eb] indeed, as history has revealed, and it became Staying
Alive, and of course, it worked.
And I don't think it would have worked as well if it had been called Saturday Night,
because if we had Saturday Night and Night Fever on the same [F] album, it would be too _ _ _ bland,
I would [B] suspect, having one track called Night [Fm] Fever, and another track called Saturday Night.
_ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
We interpreted jive talking as a kind of, you know, _
_ [C] _ not as lying or bullshit, which
is what jive actually means and meant, and we understood jive talking as talking in rhythm
there, you know, but as a musical expression.
_ And we wrote it quite candidly in that way, and of course, Arif said, that's great, [G] that's
wonderful, you [A] know, that's great, because everyone's using that expression right now.
And we [E] didn't realise that, it was a complete accident, and he thought that's how we meant
it, because that's what [A] he'd heard, you see. _
And we wrote [Bb] it with the words [G] and everything before he came up to us, you really, you do
know what this means, don't you?
Because that's how you've written it, the lyrics lend themselves completely to that,
you do know that that's what you're singing, and we said, well, when he told us what it
meant, we weren't, but the lyrics fitted [C] perfectly.
_ _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ Everybody likes to hear the very first songs that happen for you, and in fact, [E] we'd never
been to Massachusetts when we wrote Massachusetts.
We just loved the word.
It was written on a small boat in New [A] York Harbour, one [E] afternoon, near the Statue of
Liberty, it's a very choppy water. _
And it had really nothing to do at that time with Massachusetts, and so, again, it was
just, it's the [Gb] same like to love somebody, for instance, was written on a boat in Monte Carlo Harbour.
[A] It was actually that afternoon that we wrote To [E] Love Somebody, where we first heard Brian
Epstein had [D] committed suicide, he was the manager of The Beatles, [B] and that was, we were
with Robert Stiglitz, and it was when Robert's assistant [E] came down to the boat and said,
[B] Brian's been found dead in England.
Now, Lights on Broadway was written at the same time as Jive Talking on the main course
album, with Arif as producer, and again, we called it Lights on Broadway.
[Db] That was the life I'd find, and he said, _ Lights on Broadway, it was very nice, [D] terrific. _
But it would be [Bb] more seedy, [Db] because Broadway is not really, we know with Lights, but [F] _ we
want a [A] darker side of Broadway, it would [F] just be a nicer edge.
He said, every time you sing that, I [Ab] hear the word nights, [Gbm] rather than lights.
_ [E] So, [D] all right, we'll change it to Nights on Broadway, because he said, that's darker,
it's more seedier, [Ab] and it gets more, and [A] of course, he was right.
But the ironic thing was, [B] we couldn't stop singing Lights on Broadway when we recorded
it, so we kept singing Lights on Broadway, [D] and the irony is, [Bb] when the record came out,
[Abm] and it debuted on the charts on Billboard, [A] it debuted as Lights on Broadway, a mistake
of a [B] typographical error, just for one week.
Isn't that strange?
Well, I thought it was fascinating anyway.
_ [D] _ _ _ _ _ [Gbm] _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _