The Bee Gees "More Than A Woman"

There are so many reasons, superficial reasons, that I should absolutely hate this song with every fiber of my being. I grew up in the breadbasket of anti-disco venom (the American Midwest), I'm not a very good dancer or really any sort of dancer at all, I tend to listen to music by myself, and I'll occasionally take to heart the musical opinions of my friends, most of whom would giggle (and did giggle) when I mentioned that I am absolutely, positively in love with this song at this moment in my life. The rationale behind this seeming transgression, I would imagine, is partially due to the composition and production of the music itself. This is the obvious reason, and these are things with which I can't disagree, no matter how much I try. There are certain elements of songcraft that, when combined in certain ways or just presented at all, appeal to me far beyond any critical or cultural warnings to the contrary, and I love them for that.

The most crucial trait of "More Than A Woman" (mp3) is the overall tone of its instrumentation and production. It's as slick and proper as pop songs get, and it's something I can't deny my affinity for, whether it presents itself in the form of Steely Dan or The Supremes or Scale or Carole King or Al Green or The Chronic. And here, with those higher-than-thou electric chimes flecking the galloping rhythm during the first part of the verse, and the pristine strings and electric piano breezing through everything as the bridge arrives, it's exquisitely produced but still airy and delicate, complex and layered yet seemingly minimalist. And Barry Gibb's voice, the best post-Frankie Valli falsetto, blends shyly with its surroundings, staying up high to avoid too much attention at first. Then the bridge comes, in two parts: the "here in your arms now" part with the multi-tracked voices, which overdoes it a bit and leaves me wanting to hear the next part, the most amazing part of the song. The second part of the bridge is where the strings drop out for a moment, leaving just Gibb's voice to take center stage for a few seconds and weave in and out of the rhythm, creating all of this pregnant, elegant tension before getting swept up in the chorus, which is duly necessary at this point. Most dance songs recorded since this one can't match one-tenth of the bizarre, doe-eyed tension of the second part of the bridge of this song. And they try, that's how I know.

But what it is that I just can't resist, or begin to quantify about this song is the feeling that its particular combination of structural elements has created within me every single time I've heard it over the past four or so months. It makes me nod my head and hit my thumb on my desk or my palm on my steering wheel, like other songs. But this song, I've learned, also acts as a balm, a temporary distraction from what has been sitting right past the edge of my mind, waiting to make me breathe abnormally. From the irrefutable fact that the person I love like I've never loved is not here with me and won't be here again and might in fact be very lonely right now. And all of the air, all of that silly romantic wonder and stark white decadence in this song, this slight but fabulously giddy thing, disappears quickly and leaves me trying to remember how it went.