Tragedy

Bradly is 100 percent correct. During that NBC special Barry indicated that while recording the song he imitated the sound of explosion he would like to hear. The others thought the sound he made was very good and so they played around with that sound and added echo to it .... no synthesizer.

Bradley IS correct. I saw the same special. Hello...I was 15 years old in 1979 and madly in "love" with Barry Gibb! Not only did they SAY it...they PROVED it! Jesse can claim all of the professional expertise he wants; they showed the clip. SEEING is believing.

I think Bradley's right about the explosion - I saw that same TV special during Thanksgiving 1979. But maybe the synth could have been added on afterwards.

I will always love the Brothers Gibb.They are awesome!
They tell my "story" in most every song they sing!
Such LASTING talent and greatness..WOW! I just hope they keep "buzzing" FOREVER! Love,Smitten completely,BBC (Babybadcakes)

The Bee Gees, a band that I consider to be #3 of all time, with The Rolling Stones #2 and The Beatles #1. They could really showcase their voices in their music.....especially liked the "haunting" rendition of their song....Lonely Days, Lonely Nights.....

Whereas people just LOVE the type of personal interest story that the "explosion" sound effect entails, I still feel - having worked for two decades with synthesizers - that it was in fact a synthesizer. And in 1979, as now even, nobody wants to hear that the sound was a synthesizer effect. Whatever even the brothers Gibb have to say about it, I'm laying my money down on the argument that it was created by a synthesizer. Record labels ALWAYS twisted the truth around to generate sales, and making up some crap about cupping his hand over the mike to make the sound seems plausible, but I disagree. I don't care if I wasn't there, I know synthesizer sounds when I hear them. That's no human voice. It's a VCF set to self-oscillate with white noise mixed in on the synth's built-in mixer. It's very easy to make thunder on an analog synthesizer. And that's what it sounds like when it's done. Now argue away.

The explosion sound effects were done by Barry gibb cupping his hands around the microphone in the studio and making the sound with his mouth. The producers then mixed a few takes of the sound together to make it sound like one huge explosion. This was revealed on an NBC special in 1979.

This is a perfect example of the Bee Gees just ruling the music world at this time. This isn't one of their more memorable songs of the era, but back in '79, everything was shooting straight to No. 1.

This song features the horn section of Chicago, who were returning the favor, after the Bee Gees performed on Chicago's 1978 album, Hot Streets.

This song has been re-done by an industrial band named CellDweller, both show the same power in the vocals about love that has died and being alone (this song hit close to home for me)