You Win Again

The title came from the 1952 Hank Williams hit of the same name, although Robin Gibb said he had not heard of it. He added in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "We absolutely thought that You Win Again was going to be a big hit. It took us a month to cut it and get the right mix."

This was the biggest hit in Europe in 1987. About the only place it wasn't a hit was the US. (thanks, Edward Pearce - Ashford, Kent, England, for above 2)

When this hit #1 on October 17, 1987 in the UK, it made the Bee Gees the first group to score a UK #1 hit in each of three decades: the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Much of the Bee Gees material is a collaboration by the three Gibb brothers. Maurice Gibb explained in a May 2001 interview with Mojo magazine how the writing of this song is an example of their partnership. "When we get together and write it's not like three individuals, it's like one person in the room," said Maurice. "Usually we have a book of titles and we just pick one. I loved 'You Win Again' as a title, but we had no idea how it might turn out as a song. It ended up as a big demo in my garage, and I recorded stomps and things. There was just one drum on there. The rest was just sounds. Then everybody tried to talk us out of the stomps at the start. They didn't want it. 'Take it off. Too loud! Can we have them not on the intro, just when the music starts?' All this stuff. But as soon as you hear that 'jabba-doomba, jabba-doomba' on the radio, you know it's us. It's a signal. So that's one little secret, give people an automatic identification of who it is." (This interview is available at Rock's Backpages.)