Stayin' Alive
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| "Stayin' Alive" | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Single by The Bee Gees | ||
| from the album Saturday Night Fever | ||
| Released | December 13, 1977 | |
| Format | vinyl record (7" 45 RPM) | |
| Recorded | Château d'Hérouville, Pontoise, France1977 |
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| Genre | Disco | |
| Length | 4 min 45 s | |
| Label | RSO | |
| Producer(s) | Robert Stigwood | |
| Chart positions | ||
"Stayin' Alive" is a song by The Bee Gees, released as a single in 1977. It was their second hit off of the album Saturday Night Fever ("How Deep Is Your Love" had been released two months earlier, and "Night Fever" followed two months later). "Stayin' Alive" is one of The Bee Gees' most popular and recognizable songs, in part because it was played in the opening scene of the mega-popular disco film, Saturday Night Fever. The song can still be heard in a variety of venues, ranging from dance halls to sporting events.
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[edit] Beginnings
The producer of the soundtrack, Robert Stigwood (who also doubled as the Bee Gees' manager) called them up and asked them to write a few songs for a soundtrack to a film he was planning. At this point, the film was in very early stages and it didn't even have a title yet. All Stigwood had to go on was a New York cover story about discomania. He asked them to go on with the soundtrack anyway, and they wrote "Stayin' Alive" over the course of a few days while sprawled on the staircase at the Château d'Hérouville studio in Paris.
On the day "Stayin' Alive" was recorded, drummer Dennis Bryon was late to the studio, so producer Robert Stigwood created a tape loop using the drum track from the already-recorded "Night Fever" instead. This accounts for the unchanging rhythm throughout the song.
[edit] Saturday Night Fever
The song was not originally supposed to be released as a single, but fans called radio stations and RSO Records immediately after seeing trailers for Saturday Night Fever, in which the aforementioned introductory scene was played. The single was eventually released in mid-December, a month after the album, and moved to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States in February, where it would stay for four weeks. Soon after, it would slide to number two, locking in a solid one-two punch with the Bee Gees' other hit from the album, "Night Fever". In the United Kingdom, "Stayin' Alive" was a solid seller but not as popular as it was in the United States, topping out at number four.
Further demonstrating the Bee Gees' U.S. chart domination in 1978, "Stayin' Alive" was replaced at number one with the group's younger brother Andy Gibb's single, "Love Is Thicker Than Water", followed by the Bee Gees' own "Night Fever". This was then replaced by Yvonne Elliman's "If I Can't Have You". Since Barry Gibb had a hand in writing all four of these songs, he became the only person in history to write four consecutive US Number One singles; this feat has not been matched to this day.
As for the message of the song, Robin Gibb was quoted as saying, "Stayin' Alive" is about survival in the big city—any big city—but basically New York."
[edit] Acclaim & Notoriety
The Bee Gees won a Grammy Award for the song in 1977 for Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices.
Over the years, "Stayin' Alive" has earned more critical acclaim. The song was ranked number 189 on the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and it was also on the list of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
The song was prominently featured in the 1980 disaster spoof Airplane! during a memorable flashback scene in which Robert Hayes' and Julie Hagerty's characters are shown meeting at a dive bar and engaging in an extremely exaggerated semblance of popular disco dancing. This parody might also have given rise to the misconception that "Stayin' Alive" is the song played during John Travolta's famous dancing scene in Saturday Night Fever. The song has also been included on the soundtracks of over 20 other films.
It is the at-bat song of New York Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca
Homer sang a parody of this song, "Table Five", in an episode of The Simpsons.
It has recently been used in a Kaiser Permanente commercial.
| Preceded by: "Baby Come Back" by Player |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single February 4, 1978 |
Succeeded by: "(Love Is) Thicker Than Water" by Andy Gibb |
