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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The Bee Gees & the Book Of Life

The Seventies were another time

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This is a thing. A thing that once existed, on our planet.

It was found inside a vinyl copy of the Bee Gees Greatest Hits, purchased by my son Matthew, who is a vinylhead, and who has the most eclectic musical tastes of anyone I know. He listens to Kraftwerk, then he’ll put on Marty Robbins. That’s how he rolls. I am pretty sure he likes the Bee Gees unironically. I don’t know how anyone who also likes REM and the Clash can like the Bee Gees, but he’s catholic that way.

Anyway, take a look at that flyer above. Contemplate it. Here is a close-up of the cover of one of the most exciting books ever printed. About three toothsome falsetto-barking dogs:

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I was 10 years old when the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack was released. It’s a wonder my phonograph needle didn’t dig through the vinyl, so many times did I play those records. In 1979, the same year this book was published, the Bee Gees released a simpering song called “Too Much Heaven.”  <— If you click on that link, it will bring up the video, and you will never be able to un-hear that song. When I was 12 years old, I played the 45 of that song every night at bedtime, thinking it one of the most beautiful things ever recorded. “I’ll listen to it every night at bedtime for the rest of my life,” I thought.

That lasted for about three weeks. Obviously, I needed lots of deprogramming.

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