Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night
In 1976, producer and Bee Gees manager Robert Stigwood bought the rights to a fictional article by writer Nik Cohn titled Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night. While the article was originally published as a factual story, Cohn’s piece was actually a story of fiction inspired by the New York disco scene of the 1970s. Stigwood’s plan? Turning the article into a movie.
During that same period, the Bee Gees resided at Chateau D’Herouville near Paris, France to write and record material for their next album. In the middle of the sessions, Robert Stigwood called and requested songs for his then-unnamed movie project. “Robert said, ‘We want four songs for this film.’ We never saw any script. He said, ‘It’s about a bunch of guys that live in New York,” Barry Gibb recalled. Stigwood promised the Gibb brothers he would visit Chateau D’Herouville in the following weeks to give more details about the movie.
Disco Songs
After arriving at Chateau D’Herouville a few weeks later, Stigwood explained the idea of the movie to the Gibb brothers. “Robert explained to us about this young guy, who every weekend, blows his wages at a disco in Brooklyn,” Maurice Gibb recalled. “He’s got a really truly Catholic family, and he’s got a good job, but he blows his wages every Saturday night. He has his mates with him. Then he comes back and starts the week again, and this goes on every Saturday night. But it’s just this one Saturday night that’s filmed.”
“So that’s all we knew except it was John Travolta playing the part. We’d done ‘If I Can’t Have You’ and ‘How Deep Is Your Love,’ and we were thinking to ourselves, ‘Wow. It’s a disco film. Let’s get into some good disco songs. It took about two and a half weeks to write them and put them down as demos.”
Stayin’ Alive
One of those demo songs was – of course – “Stayin’ Alive”. The origin behind the song was unusual. When drummer Dennis Byron had to leave the sessions early because his mother was in the hospital, the band had to finish the sessions without a drummer. Therefore, producer Albhy Galuten and the band decided to take two drum bars from the already-recorded “Night Fever” and use the bars as the drum section – and basis – for “Stayin’ Alive”. They copied the two bars over to a half-inch-four-track, slowed down the tempo slightly, and spliced the tape into a loop. It was the first time someone used a drum loop in commercial music.
Read more: The Story Behind “How Deep Is Your Love” by Bee Gees
“This was the first time we had ever taken the song and built it piece by piece from the ground up, and we started with this drum loop,” Albhy Galuten reflected. “Then we did a bass line. Then a guitar part.”
Saturday Night Fever
When Robert Stigwood heard the Bee Gees’ demos, he couldn’t be happier. “You hit the nail right on the spot. That’s perfect,” he told the Gibb brothers. Stigwood only had one piece of criticism. He had given the script the working title Saturday Night and had requested the brothers to write a song with that title. “Why are you singing ‘Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive’ when it should be ‘Saturday Night, Saturday Night?’ he asked them. “Because there are so many bloody records out called ‘Saturday Night.’ It’s corny; it’s a terrible title,” the brothers replied. Eventually, the Bee Gees gave Stigwood an ultimatum: “Either it’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’ or we’ll keep the song.” Stigwood obliged.
“Stayin’ Alive” was eventually used in the iconic opening scene of Saturday Night Fever. The movie’s lead actor John Travolta reportedly didn’t consider the song a ‘dance record’, and opted to walk to the song. In the opening scene, Travolta struts down the streets of Brooklyn, New York.
The Meaning of the Song
While “Stayin’ Alive” is often considered a feel-good track, the song’s lyrical content is quite serious. The lyrics literally delve into staying alive in the rough stressful streets of New York.
“People crying out for help. Desperate songs. Those are the ones that become giants,” Barry Gibb stated. “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 bullsh*t 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.”
Release and Legacy
“Stayin’ Alive” was released as a single on 15 December 1977. The song became a worldwide hit, topping the charts in the US, Canada, and Australia. The soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever was even more successful, topping the album charts virtually everywhere. The album would eventually become one of the best-selling albums ever, with over 40 million copies sold worldwide.
Over the years, “Stayin’ Alive” became one of the Bee Gees’ most popular and celebrated songs. The popularity of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack earned the Gibb brothers the honorific nickname ‘The Disco Kings’. The nickname wasn’t always appreciated by the brothers, who felt their music was much more than their disco hits. Nevertheless, the Bee Gees’ impact on disco music is undeniable, with “Stayin’ Alive” being one of its most iconic anthems.