Even essentially the most specialist of trivia quizzes about the Bee Gees won’t embrace a query about which of their hits was impressed by a canine. But if it does, you might be prepared with the reply: it was the 1969 single “First Of May.”
A contentious single
The Gibb brothers’ music got here out at a strained time within the group’s historical past. Their bold double album Odessa was about to emerge, at the same time as Robin Gibb was leaving the group. “First Of May” was the one single to be launched from the set, and have become a considerable hit, even when it was the catalyst for Robin’s (fortunately short-lived) departure.
“The choice of a single from Odessa was the final straw,” wrote Johnny Black in a Bee Gees retrospective in Mojo in 2001. “The main contenders were ‘Lamplight,’ sung by Robin, and ‘First Of May,’ sung by Barry. When ‘First Of May’ was picked, Robin jumped ship.”
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In the liner notes for the trio’s field set Tales From The Brothers Gibb, Barry revealed that the music owed a few of its inspiration to the truth that May 1 was the birthday of his and his spouse’s canine. “When Linda and I first moved into an apartment near St. Paul’s Cathedral,” he wrote, “we got ourselves a Pyranian mountain dog and named him Barnaby. The idea came from then. Sad to say, Barnaby’s gone but the song lives on.”
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The brothers recorded a demo of the monitor at Atlantic Studios in New York earlier than reducing the completed model at IBC in London. There, arranger Bill Shepherd added the orchestral touches that complemented Barry’s reflective lead vocal and the group harmonies.
‘Big production ballad’
Billboard’s evaluation of the one famous: “Big production ballad performance with compelling lyric line has much of the sales appeal of their recent ‘I Started A Joke.’” Where that earlier single had reached No.6 on the Hot 100, “May” solely reached No.37. But it was a No.6 hit within the UK, topped the charts in Holland and in addition went Top 10 in a lot of the remainder of Europe, in addition to South Africa and New Zealand.
Buy or stream “First Of May” on the Bee Gees’Odessa album.