This 1986 Song Gave Barry Gibb The Most Joy To Write

Would it surprise you to discover one the songs Barry Gibb is the proudest of wasn't one he penned for the Bee Gees? Would your faith in the trio of brothers — Barry and fraternal twins Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb — be shaken to the point where it was barely "stayin' alive?" Would you think someone "started a joke"? Well, this is no "charade." Barry himself admitted it to his fans. 

For you see, most of the world knows Barry as one of the three kings of disco. The Bee Gees' music was at the core of 1977's "Saturday Night Fever," one of the best-selling movie soundtracks in history. This instantly made the Bee Gees synonymous with music that gets you dancing. But Barry is also a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame; he and his brothers have a robust history of crafting amazing songs recorded by other artists. One of Barry's earliest works was "They'll Never Know" for Wayne Newton. 

And even at the height of their success, the Bee Gees never stopped writing songs for others, like Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's definitive duet "Islands in the Stream," Barbra Streisand's "Woman in Love," and Diana Ross's "Chain Reaction." All of these could be considered crown jewels in Barry's songwriting legacy. But as he revealed in January 2021, the song that brought Barry Gibb the most joy to write sat on the shelf for 35 years.

Barry Gibb conducted an "Ask Me Anything" Q&A session on Reddit, fielding questions from fans online while promoting his new album, "Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers' Songbook (Vol. 1)." When one fan asked, "which of your songs brought you the most joy to write?" the Bee Gees member said, "'Words of a Fool,' for me, personally." 

"Words of a Fool" was originally written for a 1986 self-titled solo album that never got released. The album would have been Gibb's second solo LP, following 1984's "Now Voyager," which included the Olivia Newton-John duet, "Face to Face," and his first solo Top 40 hit, "Shine, Shine." The song itself is a moment of reflection, with Gibb singing, "But all hope is gone/ If you don't act on / The words of a fool."

As to why this song brought Gibb the most joy, perhaps it's because it allowed him to finally leave the disco for the honky-tonk. The 2021 version of "Words of a Fool" features Jason Isbell, and the whole album has icons like Dolly Parton, Brandi Carlile, and Miranda Lambert joining Gibb to turn Bee Gees classics into country duets. "Bluegrass music and country music is really what I care about more than anything else," Gibb told NPR in 2021. "Once all my brothers were no longer with me [Maurice died in 2003, Robin died in 20120], once I was alone, I was able to focus on, 'Well, what's my passion?'"