I have always loved listening to the Bee Gees, right from the time I was about 11 years old, playing their songs on my cassette player. ‘Spirits Having Flown’ was an album that was produced in India, and Bee Gees brings this genre of music - pop music at its very best I’d say. By the time 1979 rolled around, the disco wave had been created, but the Gibb brothers were still the biggest band on earth despite other disco buddies spinning tunes. You could certainly dance to a few the tracks on Spirits Having Flown, and later the heavy disco influenced soundtrack of ‘Saturday Night Fever’ which you could dance to under the mirror ball.

When you listen to the Bee Gees, there’s a certain quality that the Gibb brothers (Barry, Maurice and Robin) bring on in their music. Every song they released almost always turned into a top hit and charted on the top charts internationally with success imminent for them. Songs like Love You Inside Out, Tragedy and even Stayin Alive, the Bee Gees knew how to express their love in song, like no one else could.

Here are lyrics to Love you Inside Out.

…No man on earth

Can stand between my love

and I And no matter

how you hurt me

I will love you ’til I die….

Each song is chilling in its own way, Search, Find, Stop Think Again, to Until, most that features that falsetto, which you just cannot miss out. Reaching Out found Barry once again bringing forth the sensitive falsetto and tremblin’ vibrato to explain to the listener just how heartbroken he is.

Never hear a single word, Living in a lullaby

Praying every tear I cry

Living my life without you.

The title track Spirits Having Flown is a masterpiece that can be replayed anytime. The verses and post-chorus instrumental add a lot of flavor to the piece with its lightly tapped percussion, bright-sounding acoustic guitar, a steel drum and Barry’s falsetto.

His lyrics were wonderful to say the least:

I am your hurricane,

your fire in the sun

How long must I live in the air?

You are my paradise, my angel on the run

How long must I wait?

It’s the dawn of the feeling that starts from the moment you’re there

Any girl would be swayed if you had to say such words. It would surely melt her heart.

Lastly on Livin’ Together Barry questions love in its saddest form when he sings….. “Why ain’t we livin’, livin’ together, instead of being so, so far apart? Why ain’t we livin’ together, livin’ together, instead of being’ alone?”

The album is a must have for any Bee Gees fan. Relive the 70s with this fab collection of the Gibb brothers.

Rating: *****

Label: RSO / Polydor (in India)

Reviewed by Verus Ferreira