Amazing sounding song this. The mixing, production, vocals, everything is perfect and it still sounds amazing and fresh today. Theres alot more dated sounding songs then this from back then LOL. Overproduced? Perhaps, but I think its lush and epic sounding, just with synths instead of strings or whatever.

As with alot of Bee Gee's songs, beneath the surface, "you win again" is more complex then your average pop song. Love the key change at the end of the song. Its so euphoric!

The ever so slightly extended mix off the 12" is good too. Should be longer then it was, but hey, just happy it got a slight extended remix.


Fickle, faddy America were foolish to ignore this. I dont really care about charts, but the fact it was a big hit in most of europe, including the UK, and not even a minor hit in the states beggers belief!

Bee Gees went safe production wise for their next album "one", and whilst thats a good album with some great songs, "you win again", and the album it came off, "E.S.P", was an interesting, perhaps bold attempt to try something different with their sound.
[Edited 11/18/08 21:29pm]

Love it.
I'm a BG sound fan. I buy it all.

Never heard the Extended Mix though. Maybe they'll re release it some day.

i love this song by the bee gees. i enjoy a lot of their work.

Still one of my favourite songs.

thesexofit said:

One is the better album of the two, imo. The second half of ESP doesn't do much for me though I do quite like Maurice's track.
There's only a couple of songs on One that I don't care for.

About ten years ago, the Bee Gees got some big award, and there was a show about them. Their story was told, and it was an amazing story of perseverance. At the end, their producer (forgot his name, Robert something) came out and spoke about how much he loved the Bee Gees and how proud he was of them.

The last thing he said was that everyone who wants to accomplish great things should "be like the Bee Gees!"

I thought that was ultra cool.

RodeoSchro said:

Robert Stigwood is the producer's name that comes to mind.
I haven't looked it up but it seems to be a strong mental connection for me to the Bee Gee's.
I liked this song a lot. I thought it would have been a bigger U.S. single than it was.

Cloudbuster said:

I remember us discussing their 80's/90's albums before LOL. I know you love "this is your life". Its one of your all time favs right

Yeah, "overnight" is a cool track (the Maurice one). I must be one of the few who like "backtafunk" and "crazy for your love" aswell. Its more the production then anything else.

I do like "one" alot (though the title track is too derivitive of their disco stuff to me). "Ordinary lives" "bodyguard" "flesh and bood"..., some great tracks. Infact, I need to re-visit it again. Whats cool about Bee Gee's albums is that it takes time for some of the songs to sink in. Took me ages to get "high civilisation". I still remember you not liking that one LOL. Gibbsongs website says its a concept album, and it works sorta.

What do you think of Robins solo albums? I got the 3 he made in the 80's. I also came across "secret agent/walls have eyes" twofer CD at a record fair ages ago, which is pretty rare (I paid £30 after some hagglin', and thats cheap considering the individual CD's of those albums are hurrendously expensive.) You get "trash" as a bonus track, which is kinda nice LOL, but no liner notes unfortunately (sound is good as it avoided some cheap remastering thank God)



Interesting that Barry is not on some of "secret agent". Love that album! Also interesting how there are no ballads on it at all! "Walls have eyes" isn't as strong, but "Toys" "like a fool" "You dont say us anymore" and "heartbreak in exile" are first class.



Have you checked that gibbsongs website? It really is amazing with an easy to read layout aswell.

I find their 80's/90's input facinating and very overlooked. Might dig into some of their 60's stuff actually. I love "spicks and specks".

My sig is from Barry Gibbs excellent track "childhood days", another slept on track and probably in my top 10 bee gees/bee gees related songs if I ever made a list.

Ohh, I love this song . Then again I pretty much love all of their material, The Bee Gee's are my fave group ever. They are brilliant.

PANDURITO said:

As I said, its barely extended, but the added middle is nice though. I seem to remember my 12" copy sayig Shep Pettibone did the remix? I guess he was asked by WB to stick very closely to the original mix, as infact, he added no extra percussive or added anything to the original song, and Shep was the king of remixing back then.

Still prefer it though to the album version.

thesexofit said:

This Is Your Life.

As for High Civilization... I actually like a lot of the individual songs, especially the title track, but as an album it just leaves me cold.
It's an interesting effort, though. At least they were prepared to still try new things unlike many artists of their age.

I'm not overly familiar with their solo albums but I like some of Robin's stuff.
I've heard all his albums except the first two from the 60s (one of which was never released) and overall I'd say his solo material is healthier than Barry's.
They're at their best when working together, imo.

Yeah, the Gibbsongs website is pretty neat. I learned a lot about songs I'd never heard of before.

I always forget how fit Barry is in the You Win Again vid. Looking good for a 40-odd year old.

SUPRMAN said:

Yes, Robert Stigwood was the man.

One of the coolest things I ever saw was at a Bee Gees concert in 1979ish. "Saturday Night Fever" was still going strong on the radio, and disco was at its heyday.

The Bees Gees were playing the Summitt, and for their last song they did "You Should Be Dancing". But wait - there were FOUR guys singing. Who's that guy in the beard?

Even though the music was at maximum volume, you could hear the screams of almost 16,000 people as they all realized at once that the bearded guy was none other than the biggest actor on the planet at the time.

That's right - it was John Freaking Travolta. He was in town filming "Urban Cowboy".

He didn't dance, but he did sing. It was great.

A few things that should be remembered. Robert Stigwood is just as important and shhould be mentioned as much as George Martin for his work with the Beatles. Not only that the Bee Gees should be second to the Beatles in every conversation, not the RollingStones or anyone else. The Bee Gees adapted to every time period and re-invented themselves while maintaining their amazing quality and songwriting.

As for You Win Again, well as usual SHAME ON AMERICA. But this was during the homo-phobic 80's, a decade when Queen and Freddie Mercury were bigger than any band on earth worldwide but couldnt get a play in the USA, the same could be said of the bee gees who were being punished for the disco era, as if it was a bad thing, but the stigma of disco era, stuck on them pretty much into the 90's till Barry said "it was cool to like us again".

lastdecember said:

Cloudbuster said:

To me, they stuck to doing their own thing until the "still waters" album.
Granted, their previous albums had delibertately contrived potential singles (sounds bad but Bee Gees are shamelessly commerical, and thats fine with me), but "E.S.P" "high civilisation", "size isn't everything" and to a lesser extent, "one", despite being contemporary pop albums, did not have hip producers/songwriters like "still waters" did and more importantly, was not the MOR blandness like some of that album was

As you said, at least with "high civilisation", they still had ideas and a zest to create something different, which is great in itself as they coulda just given up by that point and gone MOR ala "still waters", but shame they did go rather MOR as who knows, maybe a late 90's poppy industrial lite Bee Gee's album was on the cards?