How Deep is Your Love (1977) – Bee Gees

Yesterday afternoon, I watched the Bee Gees documentary How to Mend a Broken Heart. Apart from their music, breakout performances in Australia during their youth, their disco heyday, and the early passing of twins Robin and Maurice, I realised I knew surprisingly little about their full story as a group. What really struck me was how, after their initial run of hits, they became something of a musical pariah – pushed aside and doing the rounds on the has-been concert circuit by the early to mid 70s. Then, almost out of nowhere, things turned around. Inspired by Eric Clapton’s success recording at 461 Ocean Boulevard in Miami, they packed up and relocated to Florida. The sunny climate reminded Barry of his childhood in Australia, and it seemed to ignite something. Teaming up with record producer Arif Mardin, they began weaving elements of soul, funk, and American pop culture into their sound and lyrics.

Then came Saturday Night Fever, which blew the doors off everything – it became the highest-grossing album of its time and launched the Bee Gees into the stratosphere, with a string of US Billboard Top 10 hits that rivalled even Beatlemania. And let’s not forget – a big part of their success came down to Barry discovering that unforgettable falsetto voice. He didn’t even know he had it until he was messing around in the studio one day. But once the others heard it, they knew they were onto something. From then on, they milked it for all it was worth and pretty much built their sound around showcasing that voice. But……

Their meteoric rise had a strange backlash. As disco fever took hold, every Tom, Dick, and Harry jumped on the bandwagon, often with laughable results, and the genre quickly became a punchline. The Bee Gees, unfortunately, were lumped in with it. Radio stations and record companies wouldn’t go near them with a barge pole. So, left with few options, they reinvented themselves as behind-the-scenes hitmakers – and to remarkable effect. They wrote a slew of massive hits for other artists, including:

• “Woman in Love,” Barbra Streisand (1980)
• “Heartbreaker,” Dionne Warwick (1982)
• “Chain Reaction” Diana Ross, and
• “Islands in the Stream,” Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers (1983)

How Deep Is Your Love is one of the first songs I remember hearing in my life. We had the Saturday Night Fever album – like just about every other Australian family at the time. I have vivid memories of it playing during family and friend get-togethers, so saying I feel sentimental when I hear it now would be an understatement. I always found this song kind of a couplet with Chicago’s If You Leave Me Now (1976), which came out just before and was also on heavy rotation during the family outings and social gatherings we went to.

Funny thing is, I didn’t really warm to either song for years. Maybe it’s because they felt a bit too grown-up for my younger ears. But now, when I hear them, I find myself drifting off with a kind of revived appreciation – finally understanding what the adults were swooning over. Both songs don’t just share soft, melodic arrangements and bittersweet themes of love and longing – they really did dominate the airwaves around the same time, almost like musical siblings of the same mood.

The following was condensed from the Wikipedia article below:

How Deep is Your Love was ultimately used as part of the soundtrack to the film Saturday Night Fever. It was a number-three hit in the United Kingdom and Australia. In the United States, it topped the Billboard and stayed in the Top 10 for 17 weeks. It is listed at No. 27 on Billboard‘s All Time Top 100. Alongside Stayin’ Alive and Night Fever, it is one of the group’s three tracks on the list. How Deep Is Your Love is ranked number 375 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. 

This track was written mainly by Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. Barry worked out the structure with keyboard player Blue Weaver. Co-producer Albhy Galuten later admits the contribution of Weaver on this track, “One song where Blue [Weaver] had a tremendous amount of input. There was a lot of things from his personality. That’s one where his contribution was quite significant, not in a songwriting sense, though when you play piano, it’s almost like writing the song. Blue had a lot of influence in the piano structure of that song“.

Weaver tells his story behind this track:

“One morning, it was just myself and Barry in the studio. He said, ‘Play the most beautiful chord you know’, and I just played, what happened was, I’d throw chords at him and he’d say, ‘No, not that chord’, and I’d keep moving around and he’d say, ‘Yeah, that’s a nice one’ and we’d go from there. Then I’d play another thing – sometimes, I’d be following the melody line that he already had and sometimes I’d most probably lead him somewhere else by doing what I did. I think Robin came in at some point. Albhy also came in at one point and I was playing an inversion of a chord, and he said, ‘Oh no, I don’t think it should be that inversion, it should be this’, and so we changed it to that, but by the time Albhy had come in, the song was sort of there

[Verse 1]
I know your eyes in the mornin’ sun
I feel you touch me in the pourin’ rain
And the moment that you wander far from me
I wanna feel you in my arms again

[Pre-Chorus]
And you come to me on a summer breeze
Keep me warm in your love, then you softly leave
And it’s me you need to show
How deep is your love?

[Chorus]
How deep is your love? How deep is your love?
I really mean to learn
‘Cause we’re livin’ in a world of fools
Breakin’ us down
When they all should let us be
We belong to you and me

[Verse 2]
I believe in you
You know the door to my very soul
You’re the light in my deepest, darkest hour
You’re my saviour when I fall

References:
1. How Deep Is Your Love (Bee Gees song) – Wikipedia