The Bee Gees — “You’ll Never See My Face Again”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — September 24, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

962) The Bee Gees — “You’ll Never See My Face Again”

An achingly beautiful song from the ’69 double LP Odessa. As Todd Totale says, “throughout the double record, the Gibbs incorporate elements of chamber-pop, progressive rock, psychedelia, and country-rock all woven together with their unmistakable harmonies. It’s a glorious ride . . . .” (https://gloriousnoise.com/2008/bee_gees_odessa) Indeed it is. Bob Stanley notes that “in 1969, while others were paring back and amping up, the Gibb brothers were building a wall of sound that owed more to Edward Elgar than Phil Spector, let alone Muddy Waters.” (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12655-odessa/) God bless the boys for doing that and giving us these songs.

Seth K:

[Odessa is] one of the trippiest, most complex examples of soft AM pop ever. While the band’s first three albums experimented with arrangements and were ambitious in their own right, Odessa shows The Bee Gees at their most far-reaching. With tentative titles such as Masterpeace and An American Opera, there’s no doubt they were thinking about the album as a whole, not just songs and singles. . . . [with] incredible songwriting, and a “This is our album and we’ll do whatever the f*ck we want” sort of approach . . . . Although their previous records shared a melancholic undercurrent, there are moments in Odessa that are downright devastating, forever raising the bar for sad music.

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/delorean/bee-gees-odessa

Bruce Eder adds:

The group members may disagree for personal reasons, but Odessa is easily the best and most enduring of the Bee Gees’ albums of the 1960s. It was also their most improbable success, owing to the conflicts behind its making. The project started out as a concept album . . . but musical differences between Barry and Robin Gibb that would split the trio in two also forced the abandonment of the underlying concept. Instead, it became a double LP — largely at the behest of their manager and the record labels; oddly enough, given that the group didn’t plan on doing something that ambitious, Odessa is one of perhaps three double albums of the entire decade . . . that don’t seem stretched, and it also served as the group’s most densely orchestrated album. . . . The myriad sounds and textures made Odessa the most complex and challenging album in the group’s history . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/album/odessa-mw0000192945

Barry Gibb himself, in conversation with Alexis Petridis, says:

“I think Odessa was an attempt to do a rock opera[] . . . It sort of turned itself into a bit of a mish mash, but our intentions were honourable. I think we wanted to do something that could be put on stage. There was supposed to be a thematic thing going on[] . . . but it just kind of wandered off into the distance.” [It was] completed amid such acrimony that Robin left the band weeks after its release. Then the album flopped, plunging the band into further turmoil. “For four years we couldn’t get arrested,” says Gibb, of a period during which the band split up, reformed and found themselves reduced to playing supper clubs. “It was a really, really disturbing time when we knew we were good, but no one wanted to listen.” . . .

Perhaps the public’s muted response to Odessa is unsurprising. The Bee Gees were a weird band even by the standards of the late 60s. Their output zigzagged wildly between intense ballads destined to become standards . . . and baroque pop-psychedelia with imponderable lyrics . . . . But no record encapsulated the Gibb brothers’ majestically skewed pop vision like Odessa, which amid the usual gorgeously orchestrated heartbreak, featured mock national anthems, country and western and a title track that . . . [included] harps, flamenco guitars, mock-Gregorian chanting, a burst of Baa Baa Black Sheep, lyrics about icebergs and vicars and emigrating to Finland. Quite what Odessa’s concept was supposed to be remains a mystery, but it’s the kind of album you listen to rapt, baffled as to what’s going to happen next.

Gibb thinks Odessa’s weirdness had less to do with the era’s psychedelic excesses than the peculiarities of the brothers’ upbringing. “Our music became so speckled because we had all these insane influences from growing up in Australia . . . it was a pop scene unto itself. Then we were five weeks at sea going to Australia, five weeks at sea coming back. We’d been inside the pyramids, been to India, up the Suez Canal, in the Sahara Desert. . . . By the time we arrived back in England, we’d had all these unusual cultural influences pounded into us. I really think that has a lot to do with our songwriting, these strange songs, unusual lyrics and abstractions.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/jan/30/bee-gees-odessa-forgotten-album

I have added a Facebook page for Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock! If you like what you read and hear and feel so inclined, please visit and “like” my Facebook page by clicking here.

Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise

Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).

The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.

All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.

When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.

Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.