Too Much Heaven
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "Too Much Heaven" | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Single by The Bee Gees | ||
| from the album Spirits Having Flown | ||
| Released | October 24, 1978 (UK) November 21, 1978 (US, Canada) |
|
| Format | vinyl record (7" 45 RPM) | |
| Recorded | Criteria Studios, Miami, Florida, June — July 1978 |
|
| Genre | Pop | |
| Length | 4 min 56 s | |
| Label | RSO | |
| Producer(s) | Robert Stigwood | |
| Chart positions | ||
| The Bee Gees singles chronology | ||
| "Night Fever" (1978) |
"Too Much Heaven" (1978) |
"Tragedy" (1979) |
"Too Much Heaven" is a song by the Bee Gees, which was the band's contribution to the "Music for UNICEF" fund. They performed it at the Music for UNICEF Concert on January 9, 1979. The song later found its way to the group's thirteenth original album, Spirits Having Flown. In the United States and Canada, it became the latest in a long line of chart-toppers, and rose to the top three in the United Kingdom, as well.
Contents |
[edit] UNICEF plan
In the summer of 1978, the Gibb brothers announced their latest project at a news conference at the United Nations in New York City. All of the publishing royalties on their next single would go into UNICEF, to celebrate the International Year of the Child, which was designated to be 1979. The song earned over $7 million dollars in publishing royalities. Then-United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralded the move as "an outstanding and generous initiative."
The Bee Gees were later invited to the White House, where President Jimmy Carter thanked the group for their donation. At the ceremony, the brothers presented Carter with one of their black satin tour jackets. Carter remarked that he was "not a disco fan" but knew enough about their music because his daughter Amy was a big fan.
[edit] Release
"Too Much Heaven" was recorded nine months after "Night Fever". At the time, this had been the longest gap in The Bee Gees' distribution of singles since 1975.
The single "Too Much Heaven" was released in the late autumn of 1978 (it had originally been intended for use in the John Travolta movie Moment By Moment, but was pulled before the film's release), and started a slow ascent up the music charts. In the first week of 1979, preceding the Music for UNICEF Concert, the single first topped the charts in both the United States and Canada. In the United Kingdom, the single peaked at number three late in 1978. A slow ballad that was unlike the previous two singles off the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Barry Gibb noted that the group wanted to "move in an R&B direction, still maintaining our lyric power, and our melody power as well."
| Preceded by "Le Freak" by CHIC |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single January 6, 1979 |
Succeeded by "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" by Rod Stewart |
[edit] Trivia
- Norwegian pop duo M2M used the chorus from "Too Much Heaven" in the chorus of their own song "Our Song" - "Nobody gets too much heaven no more / It's much harder to come by/ I'm waiting in line / Nobody gets too much love anymore / It's as high as a mountain / And harder to climb". The song can be found on their debut album Shades of Purple.
