“Stayin’ Alive” is staying alive
Whether you love the song, detest it, find it merely annoying, or are indifferent, you probably are familiar with the Bee Gees’ 1977 megahit “Stayin’ Alive” from the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack. Just about everybody is, even people too young to have heard it in its original setting. I certainly was familiar with it from back then, but until recent re-listenings I’d paid it almost no attention.
Think it’s just a simple song, as I previously had thought? And that the Bee Gees are just doing a simple thing with their falsetto voices here? Think again. There’s a reason so many people love this song so much. The bass line, of course, and the other instruments. But also there’s the energy the Bee Gees put into singing it, which is striking when you hear the isolated vocals and then the added instruments – as in the following video. The guy doing the analysis has a lot of energy, too, and he knows a great deal about singing (I’ve cued up an excerpt):
The Bee Gees constantly vary not just this emphasis or “push” of their voices, but also the lead versus the trio as well as falsetto versus chest voices on the “going nowhere” chorus. Their voices really do sound like horns, not just in this song but in many, and they have a tendency to use horns in their arrangements to emphasize the effect.
There’s also, when you watch their video of the song (which I’ll post in a moment), a strange (and to me interesting) contrast between the upbeat music and the depressing lyrics of near-desperation. As an ex-dancer, I also observe the unusual action of the video, which is mainly the brothers simply walking. Any dancer can tell you how incredibly hard that is to do onstage or for the camera without looking affected or tense, and I think they (especially Barry, who has a dancer’s carriage) excel at it. In the “Saturday Night Fever” movie, of course, you had John Travolta walking to the song in a sequence that’s become iconic, but his walk is more of a strut. The Bee Gees do something simpler and, I believe, actually more difficult.
Here’s that original Bee Gee video – 105 million views so far and counting:
And if you watch a lot of YouTube reaction videos to “Stayin’ Alive,” you’ll see that very often, young black people on them are stunned, absolutely stunned, to discover the song features white men singing (see this, for example). They often were previously quite familiar with the song but not the singers, and almost uniformly thought the singers were black men or even black women.
Here’s the definitive word on the “Bee Gees as white black people” perception. It’s a reaction video to the Bee Gee song “Jive Talkin’,” which preceded “Stayin’ Alive” by a few years and was their breakthrough hit when they reinvented themselves the first time. The song was based on the sound the car tires made crossing a bridge in their new home, Miami:
I could go on – and on and on – but I’ll stop now. For today, anyway.
[NOTE: You may or may not be aware that “Stayin’ Alive” is used in CPR training because just about everyone knows it, and it has an excellent rhythm for doing chest compressions.]
Ok. In response to your relentless propaganda, Neo, (:-)) I listened to it. I’m not sure I had ever heard it anywhere except on a car radio, and I definitely had never actually given it my attention. Having done so…well, the best I can say is that I don’t dislike it as much as I used to. I actually like the instrumental arrangement. I can even say I sort of like the song as a pop song. But the signature bit, the title phrase and the “ah ah ah ah”, which pretty much defined the song as annoying to me, is still annoying. I’m willing to believe the vocals require as much skill as you say. But that doesn’t make me like them.
Mac:
That’s okay. I know a lot of people dislike them and this song.
But bit by bit, I will wear you down 🙂 .
Still don’t care much for the song but will admit the Bee Gees was perfect for the movie Saturday Night Fever!
Famously (though not so publicly), in EMS training, the other great rhythm keeper for CPR is the beat of “Another one bites the dust” by Queen.
Bee Geese’s legacy is very diverse. There are choices between “I’ve Gotta Get a Message To You” and “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, “I Started A Joke” and “You Win Again”, “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” and “This Is Where I Came In”. Huge selection for all demanding tastes. As you listen to them more and more , you begin to realize that you like everything about them. Even “Stayin’ Alive”.. My personal experience since March 2020 ))
Neo: you are showing me amazing depths to this (and other) artistry. Thanks.
I’ve never been much of a Bee Gees fan, or of disco, but I’ve always liked this song.
As for the videos of young black people listening to white musicians for the 1st time, I’d never heard of them until Neo mentioned it in another thread … so I watched a few. I didn’t sense much in them that was at all real. The ones I saw looked liked people playing to the camera, IOW, fake. Just more “look-at-me-ism.” Maybe I’m just being a contrarian.
As I have written on the other Bee Gees threads, I loved them- basically their entire oeuvre. They were the absolute pinnacle of pop music.
Zara A; Yancey Ward:
I came very late to the party, but in the last few months I’ve listened to enormous numbers of Bee Gees songs and I agree with you. The high quality and enormous variety of their output is astonishing. And I’d never heard most of it before.
Telemachus:
I agree that some of the reactors are exaggerating and/or acting. But many of them are quite sincere, in my opinion, and really seem to be expressing genuine reactions and emotions.
That black guy who is so surprised by The Bee Gees and thinks they’re the best white singers he has ever heard obviously never heard The Average White Band. I recommend them to you, Neo. I think you’d like some of their songs.
I never hated the Bee Gees, or “Staying Alive”, or disco.
But now, after seeing this YouTube clip, I can never listen to “Staying Alive” again without picturing those goose-stepping North Koreans.
https://youtu.be/QbC6dLG_dQY
I did like the BG’s rendition of Blowing in the Wind. For some alternatives:
Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Another Colorado
Louis Armstrong – You Are My Lucky Star
Roy, seeing the NK goose-step, I am reminded of Theodore Dalrymple’s visit to NK in the late 1980s (Wilder Shores of Marx), where he was inwardly laughing at the ceremonies the Norks were so serious about.
For some choral harmony:Edith Piaf – Les trois cloches (Audio officiel)
I was 11 years old when “Saturday Night Fever” came out, and it was really at the height of the soundtrack’s dominance that I first started listening to the radio for contemporary popular music, so songs like “Stayin Alive” and “How Deep is Your Love” were almost my introduction to such music of the moment. The sound track was, I think, the 2nd or 3rd album I ever purchased. As I aged through my teens, I ended up buying several of the Bee Gees albums on vinyl or cassettes, and even more of them on CD when I actually had serious money as a young adult.
In south Texas along the Gulf Coast, one small town’s big draw was their annual Mosquito Festival. The unofficial theme song was “Stayin’ Alive” – with singers slapping their bodies to pantomime the execution of the eponymous pests.
https://www.mosquitofestival.com/
Looks like it’s on for 2021!
They were the absolute pinnacle of pop music.
Ptaah.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydLcs4VrjZQ
If I had to guess, I’d say it’s around seventy percent likely that my memory of being called an old grump at about age seventeen is valid. If I don’t recall being called that, it’s most likely that people were being polite and keeping their thoughts to themselves. That would have been about sixty years ago.
The whole pop scene struck me as somewhere between annoying and boring. The only exception was, perhaps, a Mommas and Poppas song, pretty downbeat, which always put me in mind of a cold, rainy afternoon on campus. I could live with that.
Glen Campbell and over into folk was where I lived. Went to maybe two concerts on dates. One was Chad Mitchell and the other Spanish guitar.
Due to certain exigencies, certain hobbies, and a certain future, I was, perforce, to judge guys in part on what happens when it’s necessary to get physical. And seeing three skinny guys with great big leonine hair was…not impressive, particularly as I was supposed to be impressed.
I can respect skill, talent, hard work, determination, all in combination, without being impressed with the result. I’ll take Neo’s word for all but the last.
On the “Stayin’ Alive” reaction video where the black people are shocked to find out the Bee Gees were white. They said they grew up listening to the song so of course they knew roughly the period it was from. And it occurred to me that the name of the group might have played into the perception that the singers were black. Bee Gees is similar to band names of the era such as Bar-Kays, O’Jays, and even Booker T. and the M.G.’s.
FWIW, I have always liked “Stayin’ Alive” and disco generally, which greatly disgusted my contemporaries who remained committed rock fans.
The dilapidated buildings in the video looks like the “French village set” from the battle scene at the end of Saving Private Ryan. I’m guessing the video was shot on a studio “graveyard” back lot.
As for the song, I’ve never cared for it, possibly because I’ve heard it so #&%$ much – first with John Revolting in the movie, for whom I have strong dislike just on general principles, then in classes – I teach CPR and AED and “Stayin’ Alive” is, as you point out, Neo, used extensively in CPR training.
Side note – I haven’t heard “Another One Bites the Dust” used in CPR classes (yet), but a local “health and wellness improvement” outfit is using the instrumental from Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” as the theme music for their radio advertisements. I have not inquired if it was a choice made by whatever ad agency they hired or if they’re even aware of the tune’s origin.
I’m still not sure what the New York Times’ effect on man is, but I’m sure it can’t be good.
By the way, re the “ah ah ah” part, I have a senior citizen friend, female, whom I think of as kind of an adopted Jewish mother, and she loves drama. When she adjusts her position in a chair, she emits sounds like “ah ah ah.” When she does, I immediately follow it with “Stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive.” It gives her a good laugh, which she really needs in her “Twilight Years”
I have a dream that one day, I hope in the not too distant future, Neo, whose blog I love dearly, will get over her infatuation with the Bee Gees and maybe discover Bach, or Mozart or Stravinsky or Shostakovich or somebody. Yes, it’s just a dream…
Bryan:
Sometimes people wish for a dream that’s already come true.
Posts on this blog about Bach or that feature his music: this, this, this, this, and this.
On Beethoven: this.
On Chopin: this and this, as well as certain other posts about ballet.
On Tchaikovsky: this and this, as well as certain other ballet posts.
On Janacek: this.
Humperdink’s opera “Hansel and Gretel”: quite a few posts can be found here.
Unfortunately, some of the YouTube videos with the music on them are no longer showing in the posts, because the links aren’t working or the videos have been taken down.
Bilwick:
🙂
Richard Aubrey:
It sounds as though you don’t like the whole genre of pop or rock or R&B music, rather than just something specific about the Bee Gees – although you may also have something specific against them.
However, I take issue with “skinny.” First of all, only Robin could have been described that way – the other two were slender but very wiry. I’m a keen observer of bodies (yes, I am), perhaps because of my dance background or perhaps for other reasons, and the Bee Gees had athletic bodies somewhat like those of certain athletes in fields that feature strength, endurance, and flexibility rather than sheer bulk. Barry in particular is a pretty big guy (although, as I said, slender) who seems to have upper body strength. Robin, the “skinny” one, was in a terrible train accident in England when he was around 17 and he was one of the people who pulled many dead and wounded people out of the wreckage. It was very traumatic for him, but clearly he exhibited strength.
In addition, the Bee Gees first grew up on the mean streets of Manchester in a very tough neighborhood, as budding delinquents in trouble with the law. This continued for a while when they moved to Australia, but at some point they decided they would either go to prison if they continued or they would quit breaking the law and focus on their music. They decided on the latter.
Lastly, it always seemed to me that rock stars and pop stars of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, especially British ones but in general, were all very skinny. Whether it was the drugs or something else I don’t know, but it was just nearly uniformly the case back then with just a few exceptions. I noticed the skinniness at the time and wondered about it. Mick Jagger, the Beatles, Dylan, etc., all skinny guys. Long hair was also pretty standard if you look at rock bands particularly in the 70s and into part of the 80s I think.
One theory I have about the Bee Gees (although I have no idea whether this is the case for you) is that it was Barry who especially annoyed some men. He was so handsome in a male-model sort of way, and his hair so thick and perfectly coiffed, that it was off-putting to some people. The weird thing about Barry is that even as a thirteen-year-old (who hadn’t yet had his teeth straightened; they were extremely poor when growing up and didn’t have the benefit of decent dentistry) he was tall and handsome with very thick hair. It’s almost as though he came out of the womb that way.
Lastly, it always seemed to me that rock stars and pop stars of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, especially British ones but in general, were all very skinny.
Their eating habits were formed during the period running from 1939 to 1954, when war rationing was in effect. If I’m not mistaken, just about the last item taken off the ration list was sugar.
Recall as well Julia Child’s account of the cuisine of her (patrician) youth in California ca. 1925. She once said something to the effect that she grew up on pot roast and melba toast. Some of our contemporary problem may be derived from the reality that available food is a great deal more interesting than it was when my grandmother was putting together a domestic life in 1925. These youths grew up on British cooking.
It sounds as though you don’t like the whole genre of pop or rock or R&B music, rather than just something specific about the Bee Gees – although you may also have something specific against them.
Waal, one wag I know offered (when the office Blues buff came up in conversation), “why do people listen to Blues? There’s only one song.”
People writing retrospectively about the music scene as it was during the period running from 1955 to 1980 often write as if everyone born prior to 1938 simply ceased listening to popular music. The stupidest example I can think of was the obituary writer who claimed in 2002 that Rosemary Clooney’s career was saved by Elvis Presley because without the impetus of Rock n’ Roll she’d just have sung ‘Come on a My House’ the rest of her life. That’s absurd, of course; Clooney was never a one-hit wonder, never stopped producing new material, had her own television show, and was cast in feature films both as an actress and as a soundrack performer.
So, you’re on the subject of popular music of 1972 +/- 5 years, there’s Jazz-rock, there’s reggae, there’s country, there’s adult contemporary (in addition to the traditional pop / lounge singers still active, progressive Jazz performers active, bossa nova, &c). I don’t recall the Brothers Gibb had their own variety show ca. 1971. Andy Williams did.
Art Deco:
I don’t get your point at all. I was responding to Richard Aubrey’s comment where he wrote that he didn’t like pop music when asked around 60 years ago. That was the 60s. He didn’t go to concerts at all except twice on dates, “One was Chad Mitchell and the other Spanish guitar.”
So no need to go into the history of popular music in my reply, or to consider whether he was an Andy Williams, Rosemary Clooney, or reggae fan.
Don’t miss this version, from the “greatest hits” album by Jonathan and Darlene Edwards.*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8eBB8DLYDo
* Paul Weston and Jo Stafford
Almost 30 years ago, I pranked the mother of a college friend by giving her a home-recorded cassette tape of this CD and labeling it with Weston’s and Stafford’s names. She’s still talking about it.
If I’m not mistaken, the English-language performer whose 1st and last hit single spanned the longest run of years is Peggy Lee. (1st in 1941, last in 1969). See her performing at age 62. (She wrote the song in question for a Basin Street East performance and improvised the lyrics each time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHthqkXM37I
Spam, Spam, Spam? Great Britain 1941 – 1954? Monty Python.
One theory I have about the Bee Gees (although I have no idea whether this is the case for you) is that it was Barry who especially annoyed some men. He was so handsome in a male-model sort of way,
I don’t think you’ll find many men who would want his mug if they could pick one out of a catalogue.
Art Deco:
Some of them might prefer looking like Barry Gibb to looking like other male models, however. I’ve noticed there’s a thing a lot of men have against guys who are perceived as too handsome. I actually wrote a post in 2015 about that phenomenon. Here’s a relevant excerpt:
Barry Gibb, who’s apparently been happily married for 50 years, has had so many women throwing themselves at him when he was single that he had an awfully good time. And they didn’t stop throwing themselves at him when he married his wife (he had a brief first marriage in Australia; I’m talking about the second wife, the one he’s been married to for 50 years), although by most reports he’s been true to her.
If you look at comments to any YouTube video featuring Barry Gibb, you’ll notice that tons of women are still madly in love with him. I would estimate many many millions around the world.
The heterosexual men who like him like his music. So do the women, but for many women there’s that extra added dimension. Also, if you ever have watched interviews with all three Bee Gees, they certainly come across as quite masculine – and humorous, too. Just one example of many can be found here.
Your mileage may differ.
I’ve noticed there’s a thing a lot of men have against guys who are perceived as too handsome.
You’re projecting women’s resentments on men.
If you look at comments to any YouTube video featuring Barry Gibb, you’ll notice that tons of women are still madly in love with him.
Waal, there’s no accounting for taste.
Art Deco:
Your comment doesn’t even make sense to me. I have noticed something, first noticed it quite a few years ago, and have stated that I notice it. I don’t resent men and I don’t resent women, nor do I resent men (or anyone) who doesn’t like handsome men. Why would I care?
I don’t even know what resentment on the part of women that you think I’m projecting.
Art Deco:
And of course taste is an individual matter. But are you really suggesting you find it difficult to understand why a significant number of women would find Barry Gibb attractive, even if you don’t think he is?
Art Deco:
I will add that I have no resentment against beautiful women. In fact, some of my best friends are beautiful women 🙂 . I know that some women do resent beautiful woman, but in my experience there are even more men who look down on handsome men. The women also seem to resent out of envy whereas the men seem to resent out of contempt. That’s a generalization, of course.
there are even more men who look down on handsome men.
I gather your work life and social life brings you into contact with a great many men employed in advertising, the theatre, cosmetology, and interior design. All those posts on make-overs and dance performance.
Neo, you’ve inspired me to do a deep dive of my own. This is actually the second music video for Stayin’ Alive. The first version was shown in Europe and was scrapped and redone after Barry grew his beard. Yay!!
It’s somewhat generic, shot in a studio with flashy edits of NYC street scenes.
https://musicvideo.fandom.com/wiki/Stayin%27_Alive
The more memorable version that we’ve all seen was shot on a backlot at MGM…formerly used to film the TV show “Combat.” Hence the bombed-out appearance. Of course all of that has been demolished….
As to their walk, that level of cool always reminds me of a pride of lions on the prowl. Not on the hunt…they’re not menacing. But definitely checking things out…Stayin’ Alive!
Art Deco:
Your point is once again opaque, whether you are being sarcastic or serious.
I encounter, and have encountered, the usual number of men in my school, work, social life, love life, and ordinary casual everyday encounters. But in these comments of mine on this thread I’m talking about online encounters, where I read many thousands of comments from men and probably millions of comments from men here and at many other sites over the many years I’ve been online.
Ruthi:
Yes, I’ve seen that European one before. I agree the one on the studio lot is better.
YouTube is just loaded with Bee Gee stuff, including a great many of their childhood performances on Australian TV. Most of their songs are on there too, if only in audio form, including demos for some that never got released.
Interesting argument … er, exchange … you have going on there with Art.
As one who is already on record as beimg less than a fan of the Bee Gees, and a mild critic of “the boys” themselves, perhaps I can serve as a hostile, but maybe reasonable, witness.
First of all, whatever the charms for certain women are of a male falsetto, I think I can speak for most men, emphasis on “most” and not all, that whatever that charm might be, it is both invisible and inaudible to us.
Second, and with regard to that quality of plaintive male vulnerability which you esteemed in an earlier commentary, I can only speak for myself when I say that what it stimulates in me when I observe it is not sympathy and a desire to nurture, but a kind of contempt or hostility, which were I a more brutish sort would logically extend to a cuff across the whiner’s chops. And I can assure you that however mean the streets they grew up on, or lithe their physiques, these men are not tough guys, or even in the middle of the pack somewhere. Not even the normal looking one.
A whining male is about as useless as a friend, ally, or civil associate, as is a guy in hunting camp who complains about the cold or shirks his share of the chores.
Lastly, regarding the issue of masculine good looks. Most guys probably just naturally imagine that what constitutes good looks in a male approximates what Dad looked like, or an uncle who resembled Randolph Scott. Or maybe it is some action movie star or baseball hero or that older cousin in Annapolis
What is less likely a model for emulation, or an object of admiration is a guy who is too carefully coifed and striving for an effect.
His audience is girls, and his place is on display before them as a kind of male Barbie, whether the stage is figurative or literal. He is not on the sports teams usually, and is unlikely to be any more interested in field activities. No audience of vulnerable females. Men are not his natural allies, although he may accumulate hangers on or pals, as did poor old Elvis who almost went all that way too because of his crooked carney manager.
It has been said (approximately) about certain Hollywood leading men popular with both sexes, that ” Women wanted to be with them, and men wanted to be like them”
No guy wants to be a Gibb.
But where are the statistics, or just some rando being argumenative and making assumptions about our hostess?
I’m imagining what would happen if neo had a knock at her door and opened it to find Barry Gibb standing at her threshold. My guess is she’d collapse on her fainting couch with a case of the vapors!
“Oh, I’m a lumberjack and l’m OK. I sleep all night and work all day.” Manly men of the deep woods doing manly things.
Was there a verse in there about hunting, or hunting camps? Never mind.
When I saw this thread had already grown to 45 comments I figured there was some kind of flame war going on though I didn’t expect it to involve the proprietor.
neo. You’re right. I never liked pop from the late fifties to today. The only attraction is that, since you could never get away from it, there may well be an association with one or another song and a memory.
As to size, I think in terms of utility. I did lacrosse and judo in college, along with something we called jiu jitsu–for style, I think. It was all lethal and crippling techniques, multiple opponents, knives, etc. Then there was a war coming on and I got the Army stuff.
It remains true that a good big man is better than a good small man. I was involved in some projects where things weren’t as copacetic as might have been wished and I judged the other guys as to utility. A lot of it was heart, but a lot of it was kinetic energy, reach, etc. And on one project there was only me.
I found out years later–my life is full of things I found out later–I’d been nominated for Mr. Protector Man even in cases where it shouldn’t have been necessary. Just in case.
When my son was in the first grade, I got a call from the mother of a classmate. Her kid was being harassed on the playground and was it okay if he and my son hung around so he’d be safe. I asked my son who shrugged and said he’d take care of it. Freaking six years old!!!
So, as I say, my reflexive judgment of the BG group was not to be impressed. I don’t resent handsome men. Good looking, not so good looking, can I trust them if things go sideways? And that means in part, do they have the equipment?
Probably a warped view of the world, but that’s why I wasn’t impressed.
For music…..parts of sacred harp singing, baroque, renaissance, old hymns, certain perennials covered by practically anybody. Just discovered the D-Day Darlings. One guy said….RAF women’s uniforms, in front of a Lancaster, “We’ll Meet Again”, my computer just got recolonized.
See youtube for Emerson Lake and Palmer, Fanfare for The Common Man.
Who knows what makes a woman’s heart flutter? Isn’t it fun to have all of these men explaining it to us! Keep typing, fellas.
The Bee Gees have a male energy here that refuses to be contained by words like “handsome.” Great-looking guys…we know it when we see it. More than just hair and tight britches (advancing & departing)….it’s goosebumps and a feminine exclamation of, “Oh My!”
Ruthi
You are 100% right. Please, also add their angelic voices and beautiful melodies and poems that they composed. “We women love with our ears just as you men love with your eyes, if you ever love at all.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Rufus T.. Firefly:
I think my reaction would be a bit more active than that. 🙂
However, the guy’s married – 50 years’ worth. So, alas…
Hi Ruthi. I’m congratulating myself here on taking the reasonable, understanding, and non-condemnatory approach; while acknowledging that most men probably have no idea what makes a woman’s heart – if we may speak generically as if there is only one mold – flutter.
I suppose most of us have been told by that sig other what it was that made her own heart flutter vis-a-vis … but sometimes even that does not make sense to the guy.
What probably sets the Bee Gees apart, no matter how jocular and ‘regular guy’ they were in their real lives, are a couple of things Neo has particularly pointed out.
Primary among them is the projection of male emotional neediness and wounded-ness.
Now, I have no idea if this applies to women in general or just to Neo and other female BG fans. And it seems to be less about stimulating a maternal instinct than in their vulnerability offering a prospect of something else … I don’t know what exactly … maybe intimacy, or an expression of a desire to please?
The second point which follows on the first, is their business model; which is specifically tailored for and targeted at females. Which is fine, of course.
The Bee Gee’s could, I would imagine, have had approximately the same career success if no heterosexual male had ever noticed they existed. Probably the same could be said for Hall and Oates and several others. They probably fill an analogous niche for adult women which David Cassidy, and other “Tiger Beat” stars of the late 1970’s (I had 10 year old sisters when I was in college) had for their preteen female fan base.
The tremulous and wounded falsetto, the plaintive expressions of emotional neediness, the cultivation of a female audience through presentations directed at a certain kind of female sensibility, are not crimes.
And it is likely – and demonstrably so in the case of the Bee Gees – to be a successful commercial model.
But, you know, it’s not likely to gain them many male fans.
DNW:
I’m not especially fond of their falsettos; I prefer their regular voices, actually.
Nor do I find them them to be “whining.” That’s your characterization. Their songs and the topics of their songs are quite varied, actually – well over a thousand. Most people are only familiar with a few of their songs.
And your saying “no guy want to be a Gibb” is obviously some sort of hyperbole. In their heyday, let’s see: they became rich, had tons of fans, millions of women in love with them, had mostly happy marriages and kids they loved, homes on two continents, awards, had a lot of fun joking around – and in particular had creative work that they loved and were successful at, something they’d dreamed of and worked at since they had been poverty-stricken kids back in England and Australia. But you are sure that no man would want to be them.
I do find the amount of snark about them quite interesting, though. Not just here; there’s lots of it elsewhere too.
DNW:
The vulnerability they projected – in only some of their songs – was something someone else had brought up first in an earlier thread, and when I discussed it, I was only responding to what that person had said was his negative impression of their singing. That person may or may not have been you; I don’t recall.
Some of their songs project this vulnerability and some do not, but it seems primary for you rather than for me. It’s certainly not my main attraction to their music, although I have no problem with it – or with Roy Orbison who was one of the first male pop singers who projected vulnerability.
And the falsetto that you keep emphasizing is only used in their songs of a certain era in the seventies and early 80s, just a small portion of their work, and not my favorite part of their work. I have no problem with it and like it at times – I certainly like “Stayin’ Alive,” as do lots of what one might call red-blooded males. The Bee Gees certainly do not lack fans among heterosexual men.
One thing about falsettos that you may or may not know is that there is a big falsetto tradition among black R&B singers of the 50s and 60s. The Bee Gees were highly influenced by R&B music and really loved it. Of course, there’s also Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons as well as the Wilson brothers of the Beach Boys, all very strong falsetto singers of the time who both influenced the Bee Gees and were also contemporary with them later on (the Bee Gees were a little younger). I like all those groups, but I like plenty of groups who never use falsetto.
For some reason you want to define female attraction to the Bee Gees according to your own dislikes about them and emphasize those things: their vulnerability, their falsettos, etc. – while ignoring what I, for example, have said is what I like most: their actual tunes and hooks and rhythms, the beauty of their regular chest and head voices and most especially the harmonies they created when singing together as a unit of three. Years ago I knew what Barry Gibb looked like, for example, but had no particular interest in him or in their disco music (as I’ve written several times). What made me start really liking them was finding all the rest of the music they’ve created. That was the primary thing, and then after that I was pleasantly surprised to find (from watching some interviews) how entertainingly funny they could be, and how thoughtful and also charming, and the love they had for their families and for each other (despite some rivalries and fights).
@DNW …
Lets test you. If a woman is a little overweight do you …
1. Get her gym membership?
2. Take her dancing?
Art Deco:
At 3:17 PM you wrote: ” I don’t recall the Brothers Gibb had their own variety show ca. 1971. Andy Williams did.”
A couple of interesting points. About the Bee Gees enormous 1970 hit song “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart”:
Also, about having a variety show:
This was apparently around 1959 or 1960, when Barry was either 12 or 13 and the twins were 9 or 10.
I encounter, and have encountered, the usual number of men in my school, work, social life, love life, and ordinary casual everyday encounters. But in these comments of mine on this thread I’m talking about online encounters, where I read many thousands of comments from men and probably millions of comments from men here and at many other sites over the many years I’ve been online.
I’m going to suggest the following:
1. A number of vectors influence how men assess each other. The vectors produce a resultant. How another man looks tends to be a weak vector. One qualified exception is sloppy dress and grooming in the wrong venue, which suggests the man in question is not conscientious.
2. Competition among males is second nature and generally decorous. The male aspires to prevail in each venue he enters. The man resents humiliation. It is atypical he resents another man’s skill; more he wonders why that skill is not his and what he can do to get it.
3. A man looks at himself in the mirror and may be satisfied with what he sees, resigned to what he sees, or dismayed at what he sees. What the man wishes to be is fit. What is dismaying is excess weight, insufficient muscle, a small dong, a face that is round and soft, patchy hair on the face or the chest, a bald pate, damaged teeth, disfigurements of one sort or another. The latter part of this list is that which is concerned with appearances. The former with indicia of skill and vigour. The man is dismayed at what he does not have, not envious of what the other man has.
4. A large fraction of the male population dislikes playas. The indicactor of that would be the coprophageous smile. These are best adapted to pretty faces.
Not Impressed with the 4 point dissertation on all things “manly.”
Courage, competence count for more.
And I thought I was being temperate and reasonable, and still wind up in a dead end alleyway. LOL
That, is where gratuitous and unnecessary commentary gets one.
Just could not keep my opinions to myself …
DNW:
Well, most commentary is gratuitous and unnecessary, and yet still can be fun. It’s better than talking about nothing but politics and the fallen state of the republic, right?
Uhhh, let’s not test me. I’m in deep enough on a topic I never should have addressed already.
But, uh, how much is “a little”?
No, no, don’t answer that. I’m throwing away my shovel and won’t be back today.
Nite, all ….
jack, DNW:
That reminds me of a cartoon that’s a favorite of mine. It’s a woman in her underwear, asking her husband or boyfriend: “Does my body make me look fat?”
neo wrote: ” It’s better than talking about nothing but politics and the fallen state of the republic, right?”
AMEN!
I was of the “disco must die” age. Progressive rock was dead, new wave hadn’t been invented, and there I was stuck with… Peter Frampton? So, a question for the readers – what was your first album and, if you are old enough, your first 45? I’ll start – first 45 was “Horse With No Name”, first album was Led Zeppelin 4 (he shoots and scores!)
Surellin:
First 45: “Tequila.” And it was my older brother’s.
First group I really liked: the Everly Brothers.
First LP: Rubber Soul, the Beatles.
Well, just to lighten things up on this thread ….
“I Started A Joke.”
https://youtu.be/jrg1UAixGaM
om:
Are you trying to stir up trouble? 🙂
I’m not sure who the Bee Gee haters hate most, Barry or Robin.
Neo
Robin’s haters are more sophisticated (perverted?) in their speculation ))
neo:
It just popped into my head, a song I probably hadn’t thought of since high school. I wondered, was it the Bee Gees too? But I remembered almost all of the lyrics and the melody before playing the video. The mind (mine anyway) is strange sometimes.
Going back a long way. No idea of my first 45. In fact, I may never have had one.
My folks got an album of “Knuckles O’Toole”, which was piano. Liked that. Got an album of Mitch’s Greatest Marches. Used his cut “The Bandit” for intro music for a play I was in, “Arms and The Man” by Shaw. I had the role of a Swiss mercenary officer, the wooden Indian having a previous engagement.
Couple of Limeliters, Judy Collins, PP&M. The Astoundng Twelve String Guitar of Glen Campbell–liner notes said he had a future as a vocalist.
Got out of the Army, got married and had little time for records. Did a lot of driving and listened to Carl Haas, and public radio classical music. Shut that stuff off at five pee emm.
Since then, I can get pretty much anything I want on youtube. Pandora’s administratively kind of a chore unless I’m doing it wrong.
Just for grins, when visiting friends, I’ll ask Alexa for “Blood Upon The Risers”. No have, so what’s the point?
I’ve been told a lot of things that make a woman’s heart flutter. Or bring the tingles, depending.
It’s when a guy treats her like a normal person.
So a college junior working in a book store was homecoming queen as a senior in high school. Guy comes up asks about her weekend, did she like the game, has she seen the hand cart. No mumble fumble, no flop sweat, no leer. Supposedly, the more attractive the woman is, the more effect this has.
No idea if it’s true or, if it’s true why it’s true.
Also. flashing a platinum card at a high-end restaurant is supposed to make a difference.
om:
I’ve discovered that I probably know – or am at least familiar with – many thousands of songs without knowing who sang them. Over and over recently I’ll see a group I think I’ve never heard of and recall zero about, and I look at their songs (or listen to one) and I think, “Oh, I know this!” I have no idea when or how I learned all these songs. I know that from the very late 50s through the late 60s I used to listen to the radio a lot, although I had very few records. And after that, not much. But apparently somehow, by some mysterious osmotic process, I absorbed most of the popular songs of the 70s and 80s.
And even many songs of the 60s (an era I thought I knew very very well) – such as “I Started a Joke” – I knew without having a clue who sang them. For that song, I only learned a couple of months ago that it was a Bee Gees song. Until that time, I probably could have named only 2 or 3 Bee Gees songs, all from the disco era (Stayin’ Alive was one of them, the others were How Deep Is Your Love and perhaps Emotion). And yet I know many of the Bee Gees’ 60s songs without realizing it was they who sang them. If you’d asked me, I might have guessed the Hollies or something, but it would have been a guess and the guess definitely would not have been the Bee Gees.
I think memory for songs is a strange thing. Some people remember a lot of songs (I certainly do) without paying much attention. Others remember only the ones they pay a lot of attention to.
Richard Aubrey:
Certainly not the Bee Gees
https://youtu.be/vzrYgDnewSI Looks like a C130 in the background.
Richard Aubrey:
That wouldn’t do it for me. What does do it was and is humor. The men I’ve loved most in my life have all been very very funny, very witty indeed. Outliers in that respect. Of course, that’s not the only thing that matters. But it seems it’s the thing that has to be there.
I wouldn’t generalize to all women from that, though.
First albums:
Some Christmas presents before age 10: Obernkirchen Children’s choir from my Grandma. I later heard them in concert. My sister got an album of Cuban music I listened to a lot. Toda Una Vida….Zocalo… (Cuban orchestras, not necessarily Cuban music. 🙂 )
10th birthday: Gilbert and Sullivan, at my request (older sister had Mikado; I liked it).My father drove 20 miles to get them. Still know many of the lyrics.
13th birthday: Kingston Trio, again at my request.
Age 15: Leadbelly for my birthday, at my request. I also purchased Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home that summer. I believe that was the first album I purchased myself. I loaned the album to a classmate who ended up as a professional musician- bass in C&W bands. No money but he fulfilled his 9th grade dream to play in a band. The “garage band” he belonged to in high school was pretty good- 2 former members have made livings as professional musicians.
(My sister had Rolling Stones and Beatles albums, so I didn’t need to purchase them myself.)
When I was 16 and earning a paycheck working the counter at the hippie hangout joint, I purchased a bunch of records from Record Club of America. Casals conducts Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos. Gabor Szabo Jazz Raga. Country album miscellany w Leroy Van Dyke (Walk on By) being the only one I remember from that. Rubenstein plays Chopin. Julian Bream.
First 45. Never purchased one. My sister had them. Splish splash. Keep your mind on your driving, keep your hands on the wheel..kissing and a hugging with Fred. Two (3?) faces have I.
When I was a kiddo, had Sleeping Beauty and Hank Williams’s Kawliga on the 78.
When I was 11 a family Christmas gift from Santa was a four album set of Folk Song and Minstrelsy. Later got a second set. Tommy Makem , Odetta, Weavers, etc. Still know many songs by heart. I also liked the parents’ Tom Lehrer albums, though one babysitter, knowing more than we did, was a bit shocked at Old Dope Peddler.
I am a kind of savant in this regard- I can listen to the opening bar of pretty much any song I have listened to and knew the title and artist (which usually means I heard it more than once, but not necessarily more than twice), and can remember that title and artist decades after not hearing it. I don’t know what part of my memory it is stored in, but that memory area is better than pretty much any other memory area I have- for example- I have a hard time remembering people’s names that I have known in the past without some clues. Just the other night someone in comment on another site had posted a link to a youtube video to the song “Dig the Gold”, a very, very minor hit and late disco themed song from early 1980. I had not heard the song more than two or three times and not since 1980, but as it was playing in the other tab, I recognized it instantly, and even knew the singer’s last name was Cobb without even looking. There is just something in a musical line that gets implanted in my memory in some sort of permanent way not like any other piece of information, and any memory linked to it also gets that kind of staying power in my mind.
First 45 I think was Salt Water Taffy, an organ instrumental. (I was a little young for that mushy boy-girl stuff.)
Or it could have been Only In America, by Jay and the Americans.
First LP, I’m not sure, but it might have been “The Beetle Beat”, by the Buggs. (I thought they were the Fab Four.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Buggs
The first 45s I ever bought were “Le Freak” by Chic, “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers, and “Heaven Knows” by Donna Summer. I bought about 20 others over the next several months (this would have been around December 1978), but I eventually stopped buying them and started buying albums instead. 45s were a pain- you could stack them up on the clip, but they would often get stuck or drop more than one record at a time, so I just got annoyed at having to change the records between plays every 3-4 minutes.
“Tequila” was one of the 45s I inherited from my mother when I got my first record player at age 8 or so. My mother was a teenager between 1961 and 1968. She had about 100 of them, all of them pretty big hits in the period between 1962-1965. Tequila was one of the outliers in the time period- from the late 50s. Another outlier was “Lagrange” by ZZTOP.
om. That’s one of my favorites. I jumped the twin boom things…C119 or something, plus the C141. Only got the five for the wings. But there are other choices.
My brother was a C130 nav. Went in on Taiwan Oct 70.
But if Alexa doesn’t have it, what’s the use of Alexa?
Youtube has a lot of the ones I like. Ballad of Rodger Young. You can hum that, right, plus recite the names of The Four?
Jackie Evancho did “Danny Boy” over some footage that will break your heart if you’ve been there. Somebody said she was sixteen when she did that. Amazing voice.
I guess I’m leading up to…who cares what a bunch of guys do singing, falsetto or not, when I got a call from Casualty Branch about a notification in our area?
Eventually, you get–got–to a point where pop music goes right over your head. Means nothing.
The young woman who answers the door, holding a puppy, sees me and says to the dog, “Tinker, Daddy’s not coming home.” Neighbors rush up. One, trying to light a cigarette backwards says, shakily, “Hell of a job they gave you.”
Hey, Bee Gees…..stayin’ alive….. never mind.
Neo. Some decades too late I was thinking somebody should have hit me upside the head with a wet sandbag. “oblivious” should have been my middle name. Best I can figure is that not having a clue, so not expecting anything, you treat a woman like she’s a genuine person and she thinks you’re not “needy”. “needy” being the worst buzzkill in recorded history.
Of course, being liked as long as you’re useful isn’t the same thing.
The first album I ever bought with my own money was “The Wall” by Pink Floyd- I bought it in late 1979 after a radio station played the album on an overnight time slot.
All well and good; but to me pop music reached its apogee with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrGnvpw9s3M
With older brothers and siblings I was tuned in to 50s era rock and doo-wop – “American Graffiti” music – from the time I was 5 or 6, most people my age don’t go back much before the Beatles. Later on as a musician I played a long time in a band performing that music. It was quite enjoyable.
I remember our Colombian exchange student dancing to Stayin’ Alive when he was practicing for the prom in the spring of 1978. Our entire family room (furniture moved aside) turned into a dance floor when he busted out the line dance moves to Night Fever. Epic! Our in-house South American version of Travolta was endlessly entertaining but it was the music of the Bee Gees that brought us together and transcended any cultural barriers we had. Just feel good stuff.
Over forty years later, I’m now having a grand time working my way through several decades of the Bee Gees’ music. I’m like a kid in a candy store. There are so many songs with the most beautiful melodies that I had never heard before, especially some of the more obscure ones from the late sixties to the early seventies. Just a goldmine. Too bad you’ll never hear any of them on an oldies radio station. The Bee Gees had incredible songwriting talent, phenomenal vocal harmonies and were wildly attractive to boot. Keep up the posts!
I would assert, regarding Travolta’s strut vs. the BG’s walk is that the BEAT is a strut.
Travolta’s steps in the movie are directly in time with the beat (I thought so, and just checked — it is), while the BG’s pace, in the video, is not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1qN6gLbUMw
It’s a strutting song, much as “Doo Wah Diddy” is a marching song (something I never realized, offhand, until “Stripes”)… they each have a beat which is timed for that type of walking. Just as horses have three or four natural gaits, humans have a number which our rhythm controls — from a run to a jog to a lope to a skip to a walk to a strut to a march, each has a natural timing.
Stayin’ Alive is a strut. It fits the nature of the song, too. It’s a song that would be weakened by most, if not all, other paces. The instrumental part might work OK with a different pace (dunno, just assume it might work), but the song demands a strut.
P.S., interestingly, and this is a side comment regarding pacing — humans can do a specific pace — 200 step run, 200 jog, 200 walk — literally indefinitely. Once you are in shape for it, you can maintain that pace for hours.
It’s one of the things that made us magnificent hunters. We get together, as a pack, and even if something is faster than us, we can wear it down, chase it until it’s exhausted, and then it has no choice but to turn and face us at a disadvantage.
OBloodyhell. Persistence hunting is easier than surrounding the critter when it’s fresh. Bu you’d think somebody would have invented tenderizer earlier Adrenalin, lactic acid…..
I’m old enough that when the Bee Gees and disco burst on the scene I reflexively hated it. It was unserious pop music, unlike the rock n’ roll I loved and listened to. Then, over time I would hear a song or two from that era and hearing it fresh and somewhat isolated came to enjoy it. Now I love all that music, maybe for nostalgic reasons but certainly also because it is just terrific musically.
The thing I have learned about these folks over the years is what remarkable professionals they were. Neo highlights the vocals and harmonizing, the alignment with the music (that “push”) and the beat. None of that is accidental or happenstance. Just great.
Somebody, make those boys some sandwiches!
I remember loving disco in general and The Bee Gees (tho my favorite was KC & The Sunshine Band) and feeling a bit conflicted about it at the time cause I was such a rocker. Felt better about it when Some Girls was released tho that album got critiqued pretty heavily for being too disco. I don’t see The Bee Gees music as whiny or wounded. They projected power and confidence! The crazy clothes and the big hair and the falsettos were unapologetic.
I was a freshman in college when the movie came out, and this song and several others from the soundtrack were literally impossible to avoid. On the radio, in dorm rooms, nightclubs and bars, etc.
For me and my friends — who were more into Led Zeppelin, UFO, Steely Dan, REO, and in our more avant garde moments, Be Bop Deluxe, Al DiMeola, and Jean-Luc Ponty — the BeeGees were pretty much the anti-Christ. 🙂
Over the years my tastes changed of course, and I have learned to like it more, and actually enjoy the occasional BeeGees song now. Mostly as a reminder of my youth, I suspect, but the music itself is pretty good — I just cannot listen to “dance music” unless it stands alone as “listening music” too.
FYI, for folks on this thread who like diving into music and especially musicians who like to do that, you have to check out Rick Beato’s YouTube channel.
He’s a musician/producer and knows A LOT about music of all kinds, with a background in jazz guitar but he grew up on the 70s rock and pop that we all know and love, and he has a whole series called “What Makes This Song Great” about a lot of that music. He gets a little deep sometimes so some of it may go over your head, but he’s so likable and charismatic and entertaining, it doesn’t matter.
Second that. Rick Beato is the best!
I’m struck by the look of all three Bee Gees in the Stayin Alive video. They do walk in sync but they seem a little self conscious, especially Maurice and Robin. The song is so good but they seem a bit sheepish trying to look hip and sexy.
It’s endearing.
Rick Beato is fantastic, for all the reasons you mention.
Check out this video of Ray Manzarek explaining how they came up with Riders on the Storm:
Riders on the Storm
For the disco fans on this thread– there are those of us who still remember “Disco Demolition Night” at a White Sox/Tigers doubleheader in Comiskey Park in 1979. Summary of the event here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPoNqs6_ANo&ab_channel=SecretBase
Ordinarily I could have cared less about two AL teams– which don’t matter to NL fans until WS time– or rock music– I was trained as a classical musician and even now would rather sit through five hours of Berlioz or the entire Ring cycle than an hour of rock– but Steve Dahl’s publicity stunt was a welcome antidote to the disco overload of the late ’70s.
Jeanne:
One of the YouTube reactors who is very humorous said a funny things about the Bee Gees. At the time, he didn’t know they were brothers, and he wondered how they ever got together, saying they looked like a male model, an auto mechanic, and a professor. That of course would be Barry, then Maurice, then Robin. However, as I said, walking for the camera – just walking, no strutting or fancy stuff – and looking natural and relaxed is usually very hard for people, even dancers. I think they do a very good job, particularly Barry, who at the time had a natural dancer “look” even though he’s definitely not a dancer.
One thing that a lot of people don’t know is that Barry has had pretty bad arthritis for many years, even when quite young. He was and I think still is often in some degree of pain when he performs, but he masks it pretty well.
Although some people who don’t like the Bee Gees might contend that his more shrieky falsetto moments are cries of pain, or pain-inducers.
Steve Walsh:
“unserious pop music unlike the rock ‘n roll”
After the enjoyment I had playing music from the 50s and early 60s I started to think that rock went downhill when it started to get “serious”.
Not entirely of course, there is still a lot of later rock music that I enjoyed and I am even performing in a band now that plays mostly 70s rock. But there was a spirit and humor to early rock music that has only been rarely duplicated since.
Yes, I agree. All to be taken in good humor.
So I started a bit of research on the Bee Gees, and had not realized just how difficult, and how fraught with competition and ego, their careers, lives and fraternal relations were.
Thank you, Neo.
Hate to ask you to sweep up after me like that. But sometimes one has second thoughts …
Thanks again.
DNW:
No problem.
thenewneo.com
Come for the wonderful, eclectic articles. Stay for the fantastic comments.
I dunno. Some of the folks here just seem to be running on empty a lot of the time. For example, this saucy little item yclept “Art Deco” who seems to fancy itself an expert poetaster on all things masculine without, it would seem, an intact scrotal sack of any heft at all.
I can well understand and be interested in those who write of their own experiences with music, their own insights and scintillating moments of intense pleasure.
I cannot understand some thing that seems to believe that men do not have a suspicion of other men who are too good looking; a Deco thing that asserts with no other part of proof besides pulling it out of the first three letters of “assert” that no man would wish to be of a handsome Gibbs like look. This is just like the thing yclept Art Deco asserting that, given a choice between looking like Brad Pitt or having a face like a shovel full of dog piles, would choose the shovel.
Neo,
I’m sure being a Bee Gees superfan you know most of this stuff but it’s still kind of fun.
TheHollyHobs has a ton of these kinds of videos especially about the Beatles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiwbgKK8nT0
Gerard v. Of what are the too-handsome suspected? Egotism? Heartless playing with hearts? Unfair advantage? Not understanding the travails of the less-gifted?
Had a fraternity brother had a retail gig going which required his photo as “agent” to be in the campus paper weekly. That was before everybody had his own phone. We were busy answering for him and we usually said he was reading to the blind or something.
He was athletic, winning the intramural high jump with a freaking SCISSORS.
And just a hint of the upper class southern accent.
Some guys can’t get a date to save their lives. Of those who could, it appeared that our fine-favored frater had the same girl troubles the rest of us had but with better looking women.
Also, not necessary to be so harsh on somebody’s opinion. Makes one wonder…..
Neo saved me from myself earlier, so I will offer only the most tentative and provisional opinion for the consideration of the commenters.
But, before anyone decides to take Mephistopheles up on a life swap bargain, it would be wise to begin your due diligence by following Om’s link to the Las Vegas performance of the brothers Gibb: there, to look carefully at the one sensitively and angelically warbling away, while taking note of the date. The Anno Domini, that is: i.e., 1997. That would reveal the singer to be about 46. Reflect on that.
Robin, all 5’8″ of him, joined his fraternal twin Maurice in the shining pate department by the early 90’s in all probability, and had been hooked on amphetamines for much of his adult life according to reports. A life which extended only to age 62; though, he outlived his brother Mo by almost a decade. Brother, Maurice, had apparently been an alcoholic for decades, though sober the last ten years of his life.
On the positive side they both left estates with values arcing toward 100 million.
So when it comes to answering the question, “would you like to be like them?” it is important to inquire back, “In what regards, and to what extent?”
I would suggest that if you have no trouble pulling chicks on your own and are in the good health department, you settle for a consolation and duty free settlement of 10 to 20 million.
I dunno. Some of the folks here just seem to be running on empty a lot of the time. For example, this saucy little item yclept “Art Deco” who seems to fancy itself an expert poetaster on all things masculine without, it would seem, an intact scrotal sack of any heft at all.
In introduction to reading comprehension, you and om will acquire skills which will allow you to interpret undemanding four paragraph statements correctly. The point of the post was not to comment on ‘all things masculine’, but to present to the moderatrix an alternative model of how men react to the appearance of others and how they evaluate their own appearance and what some of the motors to that evaluation are. Both Mr. DNW and myself suggest to the moderatrix that she’s misinterpreted something, though we present different (but not contradictory) theses.
I cannot understand some thing that seems to believe that men do not have a suspicion of other men who are too good looking;
I hang out with a better class of people than you do.
Art Decor posts a four part bloviation to school Neo in her errors regarding men. Because, Art. Art, the problem isn’t reading comprehension, it is recognition of BS posing as profundity. Stick to what you know. Vectors, indeed. LOL
Art Deco:
You wrote:
You were generalizing about men, not limiting your description to the exalted class of men with which you happen to hang out.
You were generalizing about men, not limiting your description to the exalted class of men with which you happen to hang out.
You’re rather literal-minded at times.
An opinion, no matter how highly esteemed by the source, is not a thesis. Oh to have toiled near the ivy halls of arrogance.
I can only speak for myself I can only guess about others. That gives me a sample size of one.
How is anybody going to improve on that?
Some years back, thinking about writing fiction, I set about to update my half-century old knowledge of mating rituals. I looked at PUA, feminist advice columns, other advice columns, nice-guy debates, Taken In Hand, and many others. Figured I’d write about life insurance.
Everybody’s got an opinion. And there’s no accounting for taste.
Ten, maybe twelve years ago ,a number of things coalesced. “Figured it out later” should be on my tombstone. Due to coincidence, some communications which didn’t have to happen, and the resulting framework on which to hang other issues which I’d considered one-offs, it appeared that the point at which I had been in greatest demand–not that I had a clue–was when I was a socially awkward twenty-two year old with massive, shiny braces. And it wasn’t me, myself, and I. It was that….the uterus says when things are tough, don’t worry about the really good guy. Look for Aubrey. Afterwards, there’s the really good guy. Glad I’d been oblivious. Might have wanted to take somebody up on whatever it was.
I was into ev psych before it was a thing.
Richard Aubrey:
My sister in law, who is very wise, except in politics, let it slip that I too am oblivious. She’s a good egg all in all.
om. I like to think my situational awareness is pretty good. It is, actually. But I had my blind spots. I wonder, cumulatively speaking, if I gained or lost by virtue of this particular blind spot.
Returning from a reunion forty years after our group’s efforts, my wife–who had not been involved–asked if I’d noted all the women who wanted to talk with me and so forth. No. Compared to the guys? Oh, yeah, guess so.
“That’s because,’ she said, “no matter what we say [little hit at the feminism there] we depend on our male colleagues to protect us.”
Couldn’t have done what we did without heart–or in my case lack of imagination–which was civil rights work in MS. But the campus left and combat-sport jocks didn’t mesh very often so there was them and there was…me. Whatever else was going on, I was–I found out later–pretty popular while south of the Ohio River.