DISC ONE
1. LET THERE BE LOVE
Vocals: Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
2. KITTY CAN
Vocals: Maurice & Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
3. IN THE SUMMER OF HIS YEARS
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (2/68)
4. INDIAN GIN AND WHISKY DRY
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded al IBC Studios, London (6/68)
5. DOWN TO EARTH
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (1/8/68 & 1/9/68)
6. SUCH A SHAME
Vocal: Vince Molouney
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
7. I'VE GOTTA GET A MESSAGE TO YOU
Vocals: Robin & Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (7/68)
8. IDEA
Vocals: Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
9. WHEN THE SWALLOWS FLY
Vocals: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
10. I HAVE DECIDED TO JOIN THE AIRFORCE
Vocals: Robin, Barry & Maurice Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (2/68)
11. I STARTED A JOKE
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
12. KILBURN TOWERS
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
13. SWAN SONG
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (12/13/67)
14. LET THERE BE LOVE
Vocals: Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
16. IN THE SUMMER OF HIS YEARS
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studlos, London (2/68)
17. INDIAN GIN AND WHISKY DRY
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded of IBC Studios, London (6/ 68)
18. DOWN TO EARTH
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (1/8/68 & 1/9/68)
19. SUCH A SHAME
Vocal: Vince Melouney
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
20. I'VE GOTTA GET A MESSAGE TO YOU
Vocals: Robin & Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (7/68)
21. IDEA
Vocals: Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
22. WHEN THE SWALLOWS FLY
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
23. I HAVE DECIDED TO JOIN THE AIRFORCE
Vocals: Robin, Barry & Maurice Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (2/68)
24. I STARTED A JOKE
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
25. KILBURN TOWERS
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
26. SWAN SONG
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (12/13/67)
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DISC TWO:
1. CHOCOLATE SYMPHONY*
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (1/68 & 2/68)
2. I'VE GOTTA GET A MESSAGE TO YOU
(Mono Single Version)
Vocals: Robin & Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (7/68)
UK Polydor single #56273/US Atco #6603
3. JUMBO
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (1/68)
UK Polydor single #56342/US Atco #6570
4. THE SINGER SANG HIS SONG
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (early 1968)
UK Polydor single #56242/US Atco #6570
5. BRIDGES CROSSING RIVERS*
Vocals: Robin, Maurice & Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (1/10/68)
6. IDEA (Alternate Mix)*
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
7. COMPLETELY UNORIGINAL*
Vocals: Robin & Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
8. KITTY CAN (Alternate Mix)*
Vocals: Maurice & Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
9. COME SOME CHRISTMAS EVE OR HALLOWEEN*
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
10. LET THERE BE LOVE (Alternate Mix)*
Vocal: Barry Gibb
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (6/68)
11. GENA’S THEME
Recorded at IBC Studios, London (1968)
An edited version was issued on the German only compilation album Eine runde Polydor
12. ANOTHER COLD AND WINDY DAY (Coke Spot #1)*
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded 1968
13. SITTING IN THE MEADOW (Coke Spot #2)*
Vocal: Robin Gibb
Recorded 1968
All songs written by Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb, except “Such A Shame,” written by Vince Melouney
Produced by Robert Stigwood and The Bee Gees
Musical Director: Bill Shepherd
Engineer: John Pantry, Mike Claydon & Damon Lyon Shaw
*Previously Unissued
1. MAURICE GIBB: vocals, bass, organ, piano, Mellotron
2. ROBIN GIBB: vocals
3. BARRY GIBB: vocals, guitar
4. VINCE MELOUNEY: guitar, vocals
5. COLIN PETERSEN: drums
Idea was first issued as Atco #33-255 (August 1968)
__________________________________________________
Reissue Supervision: ANDREW SANDOVAL
Remastering: DAN HERSCH & BILL INGLOT at DIGIPREP
Editorial Supervision: SHERYL FARBER
Art Direction & Design: STEVE STANLEY
Photo Research: STEVEN P. GORMAN & ALESSANDRA QUARANTA
Project Assistance: ANDREA CRAIG, JOHN ROBERTS, GINGER DETTMAN, JIMMY EDWARDS, SAUL DAVIS, GREGG GOLDMAN & STEVE WOOLARD
Special Thanks: MARK EASTER, DICK ASHBY & JOE BRENNAN
__________________________________________________
Although 1968 would prove another incredibly successful year for the Bee Gees. It would also see the unraveling of the team work that took them to the top. For most of 1967, the Bee Gees have been a five-man group: brothers Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb with their Australian friends Vince Melouney and Colin Petersen. By the end of '68 Vince would leave and the remaining four would all be considering their own escape from the fold. Cancelled concerts, squabbles with management, and intraband bickering had taken its toll on the unit's previous camaraderie.
"We were in friction at that point," says Barry. "We weren't getting on, and that was it. I think it was a mixture of the group not getting along very well and egos. Ego, I think, is the key word for this group. It's not unlike any other group in that everybody wants to be the one that gets the attention. Unfortunately, I think that happens a lot. Certainly it happened to us."
Despite this tension, the Bee Gees' music exuded total confidence and soared to greater creative heights. The first of two albums predominately recorded during '68, Idea was a continuation of the strong group sound heard on Horizontal, while featuring a more progressive production than its predecessors. The earliest item taped for the album is Barry's lovely "Swan Song" (recorded December 13, 1967), though it would ultimately wind up as the show closer on Idea. "Swan Song' was about the end of everything," explains Barry. "If this was the last song you ever sang, or if it's the last thing you ever did, you're gonna do it well. That's really the basic feeling behind that. I think 'Swan Song' is something that came from 'Words.' It was another song with that feel, in that area."
After a Christmas holiday in Australia, the band resumed sessions on January 8, taping the enigmatic "Down To Earth" and the joyful "Chocolate Symphony." In February the band taped a second version of "Chocolate Symphony" (heard here as a bonus track), but the song never really got off the ground. "It was written for a movie called Pippi Longstocking," recalls Robin. "It was being made in Stockholm at the time in '68. It didn't have [our] music in it in the end. We actually wrote it in Stockholm and then went back to London to record it. Then the song didn't get used. I don't think it was recorded for an album; it was actually recorded for the film or at least an idea for a film. I heard it again for the first time in years probably since then, and I started to hear hidden depths in it which I didn't hear before. It's got its own little world about it, which I like."
Pippi Longstocking was one of three 1968 film/television projects slated to feature the group in some form. Of the other two, Lord Kitchener's Little Drummer Boys (intended as the band's big-screen acting debut) was never made, and their television spectacular, Cucumber Castle, was postponed until 1969. Another potential piece of film music, "Gena's Theme" (featured here as a bonus track), was briefly issued in edited form on a German-only Polydor sampler, Eine Runde Polydor, during '68 "It was actually written for a film," says Robin of this instrumental track. "But I've forgotten what that film was going to be. There was another along with that, that Sounds Incorporated did, 'The Square Cup.' It was in the same period that was written. I remember writing it with Barry and Maurice."
At the same January 10 session that produced "Gena's Theme," the band sketched out "Bridges Crossing Rivers" (heard here for the first time) and completed their next single release, "Jumbo." "The song is about an imaginary elephant for a child," says Barry of this rocking track. "It's really a lullaby, a spirited little thing. I just think it's one of those things that struck me as something you would sing to a child."
According to Maurice, the group's U.S. label and members Colin and Vince were so enamored of "Jumbo" that they pushed Stigwood for a single release (against his better judgment). "Robert was executive producer on everything we did then," explains Vince. "He was the overriding factor. He would say, 'That's the [single] that's coming out.' We would say, 'Oh, no, we want that one.' I think once we really pushed him for 'Jumbo' be the single, and he put 'The Singer Sang His Song' on the other side. Of course, 'Jumbo,' nobody played it, and he reversed the A-side practically immediately. Then we had a hit again, not a #1. But, after that we didn't complain anymore. 'Okay, you can select them,' you know?"
"That's the one thing we never really learned," admits Barry. 'We would do these things, but we were never sure what a hit was. So we always left it to him and listened if he spotted something and said, 'That's a hit.' We'd scratch our heads and say, 'Okay." The double A-sided combo of "Jumbo" and "The Singer Sang His Song" made #25 in the U.K. (#57 in the U.S.), and the boys rarely questioned Robert's commercial instincts again.
At the end of the month the Bee Gees traveled to Los Angeles to make their U.S. concert debut with two shows at Anaheim Convention Center. This was followed by February appearances in Scandinavia and, upon their return to London, more recording. "In The Summer Of His Years" was taped at IBC on February 14. "I remember we dedicated that song to Brian Epstein, The Beatles' manager, who had died in the August of '67," says Robin of the song. "We were on a boat in Monte Carlo Harbor, and Robert's assistant came down the gang plank and said, 'We've got bad news. I've just been on the phone to London. They've found Brian. He's dead.' We were absolutely shocked. It was a dreadful, dreadful night getting back to London because we had to sail up the coast and try and get the plane back. Robert had to get back to London immediately, because he was Robert's [business] partner. That sowed the seeds of 'In The Summer Of His Years."
Recorded about this same time was the quirky march "I Have Decided To Join The Airforce." "I think that's a collaboration in the studio at IBC," says Barry. "We wanted to do something on a grander scale, and I think it led to other things as well as that. Something tells me that it was something Robin brought in, and then we listened back to it and we just decided to join the Air Force! It just sort of happened that way. Maybe there was a military thing going on at that time."
"In fact we performed that at the Albert Hall with the actual Air Force [on March 27, 1968]," adds Robin. "I'm not sure whether I actually came up with the idea [for the song], but I remember being very enthusiastic about it. In my memory, it was a song we all finished up together. We wanted to do something with a military bent to it. The British Air Force stationed in Germany at the time actually adopted the sang and did play it in their band. That was a thrill."
Most of the next three months was taken up with tours of Germany, Britain, and Ireland (in mid-May, the group went their separate ways for a month-long holiday). On June 13, Robin returned to IBC to tape a solo demo of his fine "Indian Gin And Whisky Dry." A few days later, the group taped the version heard on Idea. "That was written when I was actually in India," says Robin of this souvenir from his recent holiday. "I came up with the idea in New Delhi. I actually saw the title on a menu in a restaurant in India and sort of took the title from that and then finished it up together with Barry and everyone in London when I got back. I think we got the idea to finish up the song from that demo."
The final production featured Maurice's lugubrious-sounding bass (played through a wah-wah pedal) and other unique sounds. "We detuned a guitar on that and tried to get Indian," recalls Vince. "Not exactly like a sitar, but leaning in that direction, experimenting a bit." Another of Robin's rough ideas from this period, the track "Come Some Christmas Eve Or Halloween" (heard here as a bonus track), was purely a sketch.
"That was one of the ideas I had in India when I came up with 'Indian Gin And Whisky Dry.' That was [really just a] working tape. I'm positive it's Maurice playing the guitar and me doing the singing. It's very morose, but it's not even a demo really. It's sort of like writing in progress, just singing what comes into your mind."
A June 14 IBC session produced Barry's gentle "Kilburn Towers" (featuring Colin on bongos and Maurice on Mellotron). "I know it was written in my flat," says Barry of the song's inception. "I would just sit and strum on my own. I think it was just something that I sort of came up with and that was it.' A rare non-Gibb composition, Vince Melouney's "Such A Shame" was also taped at this session. "It's all about that it was such a shame that everything was falling apart," says Vince of this song which appeared on international editions of Idea, but not on U.S. copies. "There were just too many problems. It mentions Stigwood in the lyrics to the song. In fact, I made a big mistake to be honest with you. Barry loved it, wanted to sing it, and I said, 'No, I want to sing it!' I wish I had let Barry sing it now. Not that I don't think I didn't sing it really spectacularly or anything, but Barry would have sang it much better."
"Robert and everybody actually saw the Bee Gees as three brothers," says Robin. "Although I have the greatest respect for Vince Melouney and Colin, it's just something we evolved where we knew that we would probably continue just as the three brothers. We didn't want to keep changing horses while we were doing that. We just wanted to get on with making records. There was a tremendous amount of stress there, but there was no animosity involved with Colin and Vince. It's just that we were evolving as the three brothers, as songwriters, and going forward. That's pretty much how it started out, and that's pretty much where it ended up."
During June several ballads were taped for Idea, including "Let There Be Love" and "When The Swallows Fly." "Let There Be Love' was written next to St. Paul's Cathedral in a penthouse apartment that we rented when we first arrived in England," says Barry. 'That song was written in that penthouse 'round about midnight. Me and my then-girlfriend, who is my wife now, we'd just fallen in love, and it was that type of mood I was in that night. ['When The Swallows Fly] that's something I brought in, but I don't remember how the song came about. It was probably written in Eaton Square or at the penthouse. A lot of the ballads in those days were written that way, like 'Words' (things like that)." "It was one of my favorites," adds Robin of "When The Swallows Fly." "I think Barry's vocal on that is fantastic."
Maurice and Barry's harmony vocal sound comes to the fore on the playful "Kitty Can." "Kitty Can' was written by Maurice and I," recalls Barry, "during a night with Maurice and Lulu [Maurice's soon-to-be-wife] at their place in London, the early apartment they shared before they moved to Hampstead." Around this time the album's title track, "Idea," was also born. 'That was Jagger-influenced," says Barry. "In those days, of course, everything was either the Stones or The Beatles, and everybody wanted to be in that sort of zone. So I think that it was certainly influenced by that. 'The Earnest Of Being George' [from Horizontal] was also influenced by them. Sometimes Vince Melouney, because he was a rocker at heart, would influence us. I remember Vince on 'Idea' [doing that guitar lick]. It was wanting to do something with more aggression, with more energy. That's my greatest memory of it – looking for something that was a little more angry and that just came out in the studio."
"We always loved one-word titles," adds Robin. "Just the angle of coming up with a title like 'Idea' and then coming up with the formula to match the title, like 'Holiday.' 'Idea's' one of my favorite songs that we did on the whole three albums. One of my favorite rock songs that Barry came up with. He was really powerful vocally."
Undoubtedly Robin's finest track from these June IBC sessions was "I Started A Joke." "The melody was actually heard on the engines of a Viscount Turboprop airplane going over Essen in Germany," says Robin of the song's unusual origins. "The melody was actually heard within the engine. I don't know whether you've heard a droning of an engine. It's a hypnotic thing. If you just go for a two-hour flight, you hear this tone. Sometimes you'd hear it in church bells; you can hear hidden melody. It was the same in an engine, and it was this melody. I think me and Barry (that night in the hotel in Essen) finished up the lyrics, and we had the song. What we were trying to put across with that record – it's almost spiritual, yet it's very self-analytical. I think it's a very original piece of work because first of all it's like a person saying, 'I've got regrets, but I can only blame myself for something going wrong.' But it's not about someone setting themselves up as being a great person. It could almost mean that he stepped out of the picture and let people get on with their lives. A lot of people have their own interpretation of this song. I'm very proud of the song. It does have a very sort of personal interpretation in it."
Both analytical and comic (though nowhere near being a classic) is the studio warm-up "Completely Unoriginal" (heard here as a bonus track). "That was just a joke track
we did," explains Robin. "We called it 'Therapy Break' so we'd just make up stupid songs and put them down anyway so you never know where they're gonna show up. ['Completely Unoriginal is] about that everybody else was just a fake. Again another fun track to write, but we never really seriously meant those songs to be used for anything. We just wrote them to have some fun, just to keep ourselves fresh so we wouldn't get bogged down too much in writing. We'd just sort of go off on a tangent."
"I just think it was a speedy moment," 'laughs Barry. "You know, sometimes we would write something knowing we were never gonna use it. Either to warm ourselves up or to do something silly. Over the years I sort of wished that somebody had made a point .of copying all of the conversations that went down in front of that microphone. Never mind the musk. There were some hysterical moments. What a pity it all went by the wayside too. We were jut writing something silly. Getting ready to do something serious, but not being ready." Perhaps the song prepared them for what might be their finest single of the '60s, "Gotta Get A Message To You." Taped at the final session for Idea on July 12, the song was the perfect blend of lyrical ingenuity, musical inventiveness, and the Bee Gees' transcendent harmonies. "Now that was a memorable night," recalls Barry. "The song we wrote together, all three of us. I think that night, I know for a fact, we didn't sing the choruses in harmony. Robert called us back to the studio at 11 o'clock at night and said, 'I want the choruses in harmony, I don't want them in just melody. I want three-part harmony choruses.' So we went in and attempted that 'round about midnight. Everyone drove back to the studio, and that's what we did."
"In those days," continues Barry, "the lyrics were almost pretty well done on the spot. I don't remember the fundamentals on how the lyrics were formed, except that we were writing about a guy on death row. That was it." "It was like acting, you see," adds Robin. "We said, 'Let's pretend that somebody, his life is on the line, somebody's going to the chair. What would be going through their mind? Let's not make it doom and gloom but sort of an appeal to the person he loves. Because right now that's all he cares about.
Regardless of whether he's done a bad thing, he is a human being, and he's sending out this last message. There's someone out there whom he loves It's a torch song, but within a very sort of theatrical sense. Not sort of abstract, but definitely somebody in a very bad situation whose life is going to end . . . What would they be saying, you know? This is it: 'Gotta get a message to you, hold on."
Of particular note is Maurice's melodic bass line, which is especially present on the original mono single mix of 'Message" (heard here as bonus track). "He had a lot of intensity in his bass," remembers Barry. "Mo was a real McCartney bass freak, as a lot of us were. He would pick up on all the things that McCartney would [do]. Maurice was very good on different instruments, you know. Good lead guitarist, good bass player, good keyboard player. He was versatile. He loved playing bass more than anything else, I think, at that time."
Rush-released, "Message" proved a massive hit and was to be followed by a full American tour (most of which was cancelled, except for a triumphant date in Forest Hills). With some time on their hands, the Bee Gees spent half of August taping tracks or their fourth album (Odessa) at New York City's Atlantic Studios. Idea was issued that same month, reaching #4 in Britain and #17 in the U.S.
Despite their chart dominance, the group spirit began to fade through the latter half of '68. Following a lengthy September television shoot (for the Idea special in Brussels) and various European concert dates in October and November, Vince left the band amicably. "I was just too young, too naive," says Vince of the situation of the time. "I thought, 'This is a terrible way for this to go on. I've always been friends with the Gibb brothers and Colin, I don’t want to be part of this anymore.' After a while I didn't have a life. I knew it was coming to an end. It wasn't long after that Robin cleared out, and then Colin got the sock. Then there was just Maurice and Barry."
"Vince has been a big blues fan since we started," Barry told the TIME upon Vince's departure. "He felt stifled because the rest of us are really only interested in playing commercial numbers and it's no good having somebody in the group who's not really with you. Obviously he'll be a great loss to us, but Vince will be a great gain to another group, because he's a brilliant guitarist. We're going to bring out a double LP in January. We want to do a double album because we'll be able to develop our ideas and it's more value for money. It won't have an over-all format, songs should be left separate with a beginning and an end, and they should have heart. There won't be any sound effects, just ballads with an emotional message. In fact, [the album will be called] Master Peace, P-E-A-C-E. Master as in recording the disc others are pressed from, and Peace. It's going to be a very unusual cover--red velvet with gold lettering."
At the dawn of '69, the Bee Gees delivered on Barry's promise with a masterpiece flocked in red velvet titled Odessa. As an LP, it was their most creative yet, showing off their individual talents like never before. Yet, by the end of the year, there would be no more Bee Gees. The trio's "first fame" had run a full cycle as the group awaited rebirth in the '70s. Their story is continued on Odessa.
– Andrew Sandoval
