Robin Gibb in
Observer Music Monthly January 2008: "The idea for the film that became
Saturday Night Fever started when our manager, Robert Stigwood, saw an article in
New York magazine entitled 'Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night' by Nik Cohn, talking about teenagers going to dancing competitions. When they first started dance rehearsals for the film with John Travolta, they were using our song '
You Should Be Dancing,' which had been released the previous year. We were mixing a live album in France and Robert rang and asked if we had any other songs we could contribute. In the end we had five new tracks - 'Staying Alive,' 'How Deep is Your Love?' 'Night Fever,' 'More Than a Woman' and 'If I Can't Have You' (recorded by Yvonne Elliman) - plus the previously released 'Jive Talkin" and 'You Should Be Dancing.' It was also our idea to call it Saturday Night Fever, because the competitions were on Saturday and we already had the track 'Night Fever.'
Until the film came out, 'disco' meant something very different in the UK to the US. We were writing what we considered to be blue-eyed soul. We never set out to make ourselves the kings of disco, although plenty of other people tried to jump on the bandwagon after the success of the film. When we went to the premiere at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles it was obvious the film and the songs really gelled, but none of us had any idea how huge it would become. It remains the biggest-selling soundtrack ever, and very few artists have created something with the cultural impact that
Saturday Night Fever had."
